IN 2007, key pillars of the global arms-control architecture collapsed without any consensus on their replacement. The Russian-American dispute over the proposed deployment of U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems in eastern Europe has worsened security relations between the two countries in a number of dimensions. Despite Russian complaints, the Bush administration has refused to alter its BMD deployment plans or extend the Strategic Arms Control Reduction Treaty (START) when it expires in 2009. For their part, senior Russian officials appear eager to exploit their country's renewed economic and political strength to renounce arms-control measures that Moscow no longer considers in Russia's strategic interest.
The current U.S.-Russian strategic-arms-control architecture is flawed. It focuses on managing last century's security threats rather than addressing the main security challenges now facing both countries, especially nuclear proliferation and WMD terrorism. The problem is that the Russian and American governments have focused excessively on the negative agenda of dismantling the cold-war arms-control legacy, while not sufficiently exploring potential opportunities to move their security relationship into new directions with new partners. They have concentrated on secondary but divisive issues-such as missile defense-while neglecting potentially more promising bilateral and multinational arms-control opportunities.
The Arms-Control Crisis
