How low can you go?

Russia Profile did an interesting piece that spoke with a few different Russia experts to see how low the U.S. and Russia might actually be able to go in the likley inevitable round of arms reductions set to occur. 1,000 has been a number thrown out a number of places (including this article). The three expets said the following about the host of questions surrounding the issue:

Vladimir Belaeff: Belaeff is highly skeptical of the magical 1,000 number. He raises a host of specific definition issues that will have to be resolved in any sort of agreement and also raises the importance of figuring out whether 1,000 is a sufficient deterrent signal for the two major super powers.
Ethan Burger: Burger takes a bit of a step back and evaluates many of the recent things that have happened in the US-Russian relationships and talks about the opportunity for the U.S. both in terms of valuable deep cuts but also in turning around the U.S. image in the world as a whole.
Stephen Blank: Blank seems a bit more skeptical of the Russian interests given their recent attempts to play hardball on so many issues but does see arms reductions as potentially valuable in getting China, France, the UK, and perhaps India and Pakistan (though probably not Iran or North Korea) actively involved in global disarmament talks.

That's the biggest issue

Submitted by on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 8:29pm.

That's the biggest issue though...there hasn't been a meaningful national-level debate. The only debate going on is in the media or academia. People are saying we can reduce nuclear weapons...to 1500, 1000, 500, zero, whatever...without a review of current nuclear policy or national strategy. Before the US starts to unilaterally reduce its nuclear stockpile, which may or may not lead to other nations reducing their stockpile, we need to figure out what future roles nuclear weapons have in national security. An official national debate needs to occur that includes a cross-section of academia, government agencies and military services to review current policy and strategy, as well as the potential future security threat environment, and give recommendations on what our nuclear force structure should look like. And I don't mean getting together a bunch of cold-war relics for this debate (have you read the Schlesinger Report?)...we need individuals who have fresh ideas and aren't afraid to think outside the box.

I'd quite agree that 1,000

Submitted by on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 3:45pm.

I'd quite agree that 1,000 is clearly a nice round number. It would be improbable that 1,050 or 950 would have vastly different strategic connotations.

That said a placeholder works as a common point of reference for debate. I think the bigger problem is what Belaeff mentions that there's not much clarity on a thousand of what, suggesting that a bit more definition is needed to allow for meaningful debate.

I think the main phrase in

Submitted by on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 9:56pm.

I think the main phrase in this post is "thrown out" when it comes to discussing nuclear weapons being reduced to 1000. I have yet to see any analysis or study completed that explains where that number comes from. It appears that individuals are enamored with 1000 warheads because it's a round, simple number without giving any strategic thought to what it would take to reduce to that number...and what we're giving up militarily. I think it's best to wait until the next QDR and NPR are complete before we start talking about how many nuclear warheads the U.S. needs for deterrence and military use.