In this book, Michael Krepon analyzes nuclear issues such as missile defenses, space warfare, and treaties, and argues that the United States is on a dangerous course. During the Cold War, Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, facilitated strategic arms control. Now that the Cold War has been replaced by asymmetric warfare, treaties based on nuclear overkill and national vulnerability are outdated and must be adapted to a far different world. A new strategic concept of Cooperative Threat Reduction is needed to replace MAD. A balance is needed that combines military might with strengthened treaty regimes.

In this book, Michael Krepon analyzes nuclear issues such as missile defenses, space warfare, and treaties, and argues that the United States is on a dangerous course. During the Cold War, Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, facilitated strategic arms control. Now that the Cold War has been replaced by asymmetric warfare, treaties based on nuclear overkill and national vulnerability are outdated and must be adapted to a far different world. A new strategic concept of Cooperative Threat Reduction is needed to replace MAD. A balance is needed that combines military might with strengthened treaty regimes.

The essys in this collection explore and analyze how to reduce the risk of nuclear war in South Asia. Contributors work to introduce the theory and methodology of nuclear risk reduction, to provide specific measures that might work best in the region, and to consider the consequences of missile defense options for stability in Asia. Much work is needed to recduce nuclear dangers between India and Pakistan. While the fact that both countries possess nuclear weapons may prevent a full-blown conventional or nuclear war, the presence of these weapons in the region may also encourage the use of violence at lower levels expecting escalation to be contained by a mutual desire to avoid the nuclear threshold. One only needs to look at the Kashmir conflict for confirmation of this paradox, with serious crises coming more frequently with more severity since the nuclear tests of 1998. Sustained efforts along the line suggested by the contributors of this volume are a crucial step toward reducing nuclear risk on the Subcontinent.

Although the end of the Cold War dramatically reduced the danger to the United States posed by the threat of a massive nuclear exchange, instabilities and uncertainties in the new independent states (NIS) of the former Soviet Union have created new challenges and threats. The changing political, social, and economic conditions strain the ability of the NIS to provide for the safe and secure storage, transportation, and dismantlement of nuclear weapons and to eliminate these threatening systems once and for all. By assisting the NIS in these tasks, the CTR program reduces the threats from weapons of mass destruction missile by missile, warhead by warhead, factory by factory, and person by person. CTR is not foreign aid. Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry calls it "defense by other means." Through CTR we have achieved some tremendous gains, which are noted in this booklet, toward ensuring our security by helping to eliminate weapons that could be aimed at us and by helping to prevent weapons proliferation to hostile countries.

In 2008, the iconic doomsday clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistswas set at five minutes to midnight—two minutes closer to Armageddon than in 1962, when John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev went eyeball to eyeball over missiles in Cuba! We still live in an echo chamber of fear, after eight years in which the Bush administration and its harshest critics reinforced each other's worst fears about the Bomb. And yet, there have been no mushroom clouds or acts of nuclear terrorism since the Soviet Union dissolved, let alone since 9/11. Our worst fears still could be realized at any time, but Michael Krepon argues that the United States has never possessed more tools and capacity to reduce nuclear dangers than it does today - from containment and deterrence to diplomacy, military strength, and arms control. The bloated nuclear arsenals of the Cold War years have been greatly reduced, nuclear weapon testing has almost ended, and all but eight countries have pledged not to acquire the Bomb. Major powers have less use for the Bomb than at any time in the past. Thus, despite wars, crises, and Murphy's Law, the dark shadows cast by nuclear weapons can continue to recede. Krepon believes that positive trends can continue, even in the face of the twin threats of nuclear terrorism and proliferation that have been exacerbated by the Bush administration's pursuit of a war of choice in Iraq based on false assumptions. Krepon advocates a "back to basics" approach to reducing nuclear dangers, reversing the Bush administration's denigration of diplomacy, deterrence, containment, and arms control. As he sees it, "The United States has stumbled before, but America has also made it through hard times and rebounded. With wisdom, persistence, and luck, another dark passage can be successfully navigated."

The United States uses a number of policy tools to address the threat of attack using chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. These include a set of financial and technical programs known, variously, as cooperative threat reduction (CTR) programs, nonproliferation assistance, or, global security engagement. Congress has supported these programs over the years, but has raised a number of questions about their implementation and their future direction. Over the years, the CTR effort shifted from an emergency response to impending chaos in the Soviet Union to a broader program seeking to keep CBRN weapons away from rogue nations or terrorist groups. It has also grown from a DOD-centered effort to include projects funded by the Department of Defense (DOD), the State Department, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This book summarizes cooperative activities conducted during the full 20 years of U.S. threat reduction and nonproliferation assistance. It also provides basic information on the Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF) legislation.

One of the greatest challenges to both national and international security stems from the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons. In 1991, Senators Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) authored and advocated the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act after the breakup of the Soviet Union (creating what is now commonly referred to as Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction [CTR] program). The program currently receives funding of over $1 billion a year for cooperative activities to secure and eliminate weapons of mass destruction and related materials and technologies in the former Soviet Union. The Nunn–Lugar CTR program can rightly be called the Marshall Plan of nuclear nonproliferation. It was one of the primary instruments available to the United States for dealing with the dangerous situation resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Problems still exist, however, with regard to the safe and secure storage and handling of nuclear materials in Russia. Substantial resources from the United States and other nations will continue to be needed to eliminate these potential threats in the future. However, the mutual dedication to problem solving that has, at the best of times, characterized the Nunn–Lugar program is now missing. As a result, secondary issues and other priorities have prevented further progress from being made. The early stages of the Nunn–Lugar program, understandably, were marked by suspicion and a lack of trust on both sides—attitudes that hindered progress and slowed implementation of agreed-on measures. Further complicating the situation was that the breakup of the Soviet Union also meant the breakup of the unified control system that facilitated expeditious execution of directives from above. The Yeltsin government was notorious for unfulfilled commitments, and as a result, those working the various programs found that agreed-on procedures often had to be renegotiated at each intervening level of the bureaucracy before they could be put into effect. Even such seemingly simple issues as whether taxes had to be paid on materials provided free of charge under CTR continue to cause problems to this day. To the credit of both sides, in previous years, when a problem was encountered, efforts were made to come up with workable solutions, rather than allowing the process to fall into a series of mutual recriminations. In spite of this record, the program has become bogged down in recent years over issues such as liability for damages and other essentially secondary matters. In terms of nuclear weapons, some 6,382 nuclear warheads have been deactivated under CTR. These include all armaments from the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, where the weapons' status and security came into serious question after the breakup of the Soviet Union. More than 1,400 delivery systems, including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, submarines, and strategic bombers have been decommissioned or destroyed. In terms of materials that could be used to create weapons, over 200 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) has been eliminated. Security in transport and storage, and accountability of both weapons and weapon materials, has been enhanced. Finally, more than 22,000 scientists formerly employed in weapons programs (chemical and biological included) have been shifted to cooperative, peaceful endeavors. In sum, the world is a safer place today because of the efforts of the Nunn–Lugar program.