The primary stumbling block to START negotiations has been a disagreement on how to even measure a reduction in nuclear weapons, arms-control experts say. Long-range nuclear missiles and bombers have the capacity to carry multiple, independently targeted weapons. So the question is, should a treaty limit the number of delivery vehicles available to each country, the number of actual warheads or both? "This is a very important issue and one, I suspect, that has been the biggest cause of delays," says Hans Kristensen [2] of the Federation of American Scientists [3], a Ploughshares Fund grantee. "We don't want Russian war planners deciding to put as many warheads as possible on their delivery vehicles — that is not a crisis-stable situation. It provides an incentive to launch first."
Links
[1] https://ploughshares.org/file/1417
[2] http://www.ploughshares.org/expert/136
[3] http://www.fas.org
[4] http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1951850,00.html?xid=rss-topstories