Bonn 2010 – scientific programme

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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 3: Nuclear Disarmament and Global Zero

AGA 3.2: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 18, 2010, 11:30–12:30, JUR D

Challenges and Opportunities for Russia-U.S. Nuclear Arms Control — •Anatoly S. Diyakov — Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT)

The past U.S. administration of George W. Bush was not interested in nuclear arms control. It argued that, with the end of the cold war, nuclear arms control no longer was necessary. As a result, from 2001 through 2008 bilateral consultations on the maintenance of strategic stability and negotiations of further reductions practically stopped.

A new step in nuclear arms reduction was initiated by four former prominent policy professionals Henry Kissiger, William Perry, Sam Nann, and George Shultz. They emphasized a special responsibility of the U.S. and Russia, which possess about of 95 percent of the world*s nuclear warheads, in taking further steps that will reduce the number of nuclear warheads. Deep and irreversible cuts in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals are necessary to restore the credibility of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), under which the nuclear-armed states promised to reduce and eliminate their nuclear weapons in exchange for the non-weapon states agreeing not to acquire nuclear weapons. This presentation devoted to opportunities and challenges to deep and irreversible cuts in the U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals: 1. implementing deep, irreversible, and verified cuts in the Russian and U.S.-strategic nuclear arsenals; 2. reducing or eliminating their nonstrategic nuclear weapons; 3. limiting ballistic defense efforts so that they are not seen as a threat to the other country's deterrent; and 4. dealing with the U.S. conventional superiority .