Addressing the Challenges to U.S.-Russia Strategic Stability

The U.S.-Russia strategic stability paradigm rests on the shared confidence that one side’s preemptive counterforce strike would fail to disarm the other side. Both sides are mutually vulnerable to retaliation, and thus have no incentive to strike first. Yet the United States has developed significant prompt counterforce capabilities that Moscow fears could be used for a first strike. These threat perceptions have become a significant source of instability in recent years. The authors examine the historical origins of this dynamic and its impact on bilateral stability.

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