Nonstrategic nuclear weapons: The neglected stepchild of nuclear arms control

The Cuban missile crisis, which brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war -- as well as a dawning realization, now firmly enshrined, that neither side could gain a strategic advantage from the costly and destabilizing nuclear arms race -- spawned a succession of strategic arms control treaties, starting with the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) and progressing through the current New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). These agreements have reduced strategic nuclear arsenals dramatically, and -- precisely because of that success -- the US must think very carefully about the next steps in this progression. Nonstrategic weapons have largely been ignored in the drive to control the strategic arms competition, resulting in a significant numerical disparity in current US-Russian arsenals. They are aware that other individuals have expressed concerns about this asymmetry and that this subject is on the US agenda for consideration in a potential successor to the New START Treaty.