Nuclear arms reductions after New START: obstacles and options
Year: 2016

Introduction As US President Barack Obama approached the midpoint of his second term in office, the political atmosphere for Russo-American nuclear arms reductions was fraught and seemingly unfavorable for meaningful progress. Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea and subsequent destabilization of eastern Ukraine capped the Obama “reset” in US-Russian relations and created a palpable feeling of distrust between NATO and Russia.1 In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin explicitly introdu