Beyond Arms Control: Cooperative Nuclear Weapons Reductions–A New Paradigm to Roll Back Nuclear Weapons and Increase Security and Stability

Abstract

Arms control treaties have served admirably to control and limit nuclear weapons for several decades. The provisions and limits, however, have proven to be inflexible, often limited in scope to specific systems and countries, and difficult and time-consuming to negotiate. It is time for the nuclear weapons states to consider a new paradigm to incentivize reductions while building security and stability in a more enduring and expandable format. Previous nuclear weapons security cooperative efforts between the US and Russia under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program demonstrated that countries can share data and access on nuclear warheads. Under a new cooperative forum to be established by the US and Russia and then expanded to include all five declared nuclear weapons states, a new paradigm can be envisioned that would allow for modernization as a trade-off for reductions and increases in security and stability measures. The nuclear weapons states should create an enduring forum to negotiate trade-off formulas and implement them through specific contracts to be managed as issues and technologies arise. As security and stability measures strengthen, the nuclear weapons states can increase incentives to roll back inventories on a continuous basis.