Russia

Great headway has been made since the end of the Cold War in shrinking the Russian and US nuclear arsenals. But between them, the United States and Russia still have more than 14,000 nuclear weapons — over 93% of the world's stockpile. More than three thousand of them remain on high alert, meaning they can be launched in a matter of minutes.

Reducing these nuclear stockpiles help increase global stability, build the international non-proliferation regime and reduce the chances that nuclear materials will fall into the hands of terrorists. Instead, Russia and the United States are now on the brink of a new arms race to rebuild their nuclear arsenals.

Latest News and Analysis on Russia and Nuclear Weapons

  • On the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Foreign Policy published two compelling, yet opposing, viewpoints by Leslie Gelb and Stephen Sestanovich concerning the lessons learned from those thirteen fateful days.

    December 3, 2012 - By admin
  • With the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis at hand, a re-examination of the thirteen days of confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union has led to new interpretations of “the most dangerous moment in human history.”

    November 27, 2012 - By admin
  • President Obama’s administration portrayed the 2010 nuclear arms reduction treaty—which provides modest cuts to US and Russian strategic arsenals—as a  means to “prime the pump” to achieve deeper and more comprehensive cuts down the road. But after enduring a grueling fight with Senate Republicans to ratify the treaty, the administration decided to table new talks with Russia until after the 2012 presidential elections, when the new political environment would make an agreement easier to achieve.

    November 20, 2012 - By admin
  • On October 17, Russia successfully launched a newly designed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), with President Putin on hand to personally oversee the event.

    October 29, 2012 - By Jeffrey Zhu
  • Things have changed since 1962. Hippies have given way to hipsters, cellphones give you the news faster than the local news team can, only two Beatles are left, and the Soviet Union doesn’t even exist anymore. The Cold War atmosphere has evaporated and the risk of all-out nuclear war has dramatically decreased. However, a similar type of nuclear crisis that happened in Cuba in 1962 unfortunately could still happen today.

    October 25, 2012 - By Jessica Sleight
  • The State Department released the latest data on New START today, making public the count of warheads now deployed by both the U.S. and Russia and revealing the progress toward full compliance with the treaty.

    June 1, 2012 - By admin
  • The ratification of New START by the U.S. and Russia set a new ceiling for deployed strategic nuclear weapons at 1,550 in each country. Given the cost of maintaining these weapons and their lack of utility on the modern battlefield, the U.S. could (and should) go even lower.

    May 18, 2012 - By Peter Fedewa
  • The following is a guest post from Ashish Sinha, Program Manager at Physicians for Social Responsibility.

    In recent weeks, nuclear-capable missile tests by North Korea, India, and Pakistan have reminded all of us why national security experts continue to feel South Asia and the Korean Peninsula represent among the highest risks to international peace and stability.

    May 8, 2012 - By admin
  • Last week, a British-German delegation of the European Leadership Network (ELN) made the rounds in Washington. ELN, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in the United Kingdom, works to promote the idea of multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. The group has built and continues to expand an impressive, high-level network of senior political, military and diplomatic leaders.

    April 23, 2012 - By Rebecca Remy
  • Every year some 900 experts from the social, finance, private and public sectors convene in Oxford for the Skoll World Forum. Their goal: coming up with innovative, effective solutions to the problems of the dynamic, globalized, 21st century world.

    March 30, 2012 - By admin