With Pakistan responding in kind, the fighting between India and Pakistan in the disputed territory of Kashmir poses the risk of the use of nuclear weapons in a region that is home to one-sixth of the world's inhabitants. Problems With Current U.S. Policy Key Problems Deployment of national ballistic defenses could undermine the prospects for U.S.-Russian nuclear force reductions and would likely prompt China to accelerate its planned nuclear force modernization. The nuclear weapon states have failed to fulfill the obligations toward nuclear disarmament agreed to at the 1995 conference, which extended the NPT indefinitely. Rather than fading away, cold war-era nuclear dangers persist, and new ones have emerged. Even though a deliberate nuclear attack seems implausible, the nuclear weapons postures of the U.S. and Russia still reflect an outdated, nuclear war fighting mind-set.
Nuclear forces remain on hair-trigger alert.
This means that over 4,000 nuclear weapons could be launched within minutes. To assuage public fears about accidental attacks, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to detarget their countries' nuclear weapons. However, each side has failed to exert the leadership needed to achieve these goals, and both the Clinton administration and Congress have pursued policies that have made the task even more challenging. Russia's shrinking conventional military forces combined with NATO expansion and the revival of U.S. missile defense plans have unfortunately left Russian military leaders more reliant on nuclear weapons. Similarly, China may respond by increasing its strategic nuclear force to overcome U.S. missile defenses.