The United States and Russia possess 95 percent of the world’s
nuclear weapons. How these two nuclear superpowers configure and
view their nuclear forces has a profound impact on how the other
nuclear-armed states perceive the value of their weapons and how
seriously other nations consider acquiring or not acquiring
their own nuclear arsenals.1 This paper briefly summarizes the
development of US and Russian views on nuclear weapons over the
past 30 years and offers practical policy recommendations for
how both nations can achieve their stated goal of reducing the
role of nuclear weapons in national security strategies. The New
START treaty limits the United States and Russia to no more than
1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads each, carried by no
more than 700 operational delivery vehicles each. This means
that each nation can maintain 1,550 thermonuclear bombs on
missiles and airplanes that can reach the territory of the
other.2 In addition, both countries have hundreds of non-
strategic (or “tactical”)