Hard Balancing in the Age of American Unipolarity: The Russian Response to US Ballistic Missile Defense during the Bush Administration (2001–2008)

Abstract

One of the central debates in contemporary international relations scholarship concerns the issue of whether balancing has occurred in response to US-based unipolarity, and if it has, how this should be characterised. Existing research has seen analysts argue that major power responses to unipolarity can be placed in one of either three categories: an absence of balancing, soft balancing, and hard balancing. This article contributes to the scholarly literature by providing a case study of hard internal Russian balancing against the US’s development and deployment of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems during the Bush Administration (2001–08). Russian hard balancing against the US has involved: (1) fielding new strategic nuclear and conventional weapons equipped with BMD countermeasures, and, relatedly, (2) making changes in military doctrine. As a result, security dilemma dynamics are increasingly in evidence in US relations with Russia.

Key Words:

• Russian Hard Balancing
• Unipolarity
• Ballistic Missile Defense
• Bush Administration

Notes

¹ For the no balancing view see: William Wohlforth, ‘The Stability of a Unipolar World’, International Security 24/2 (Summer 1999), 18; Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton UP); Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, ‘Hard Times for Soft Balancing’, International Security 30/1 (Summer 2005), 72–108; Gerard Alexander and Keir Lieber, ‘Waiting for Balancing: Why the World is Not Pushing Back’, International Security 30/1 (Summer 2005), 109–39.

² For the soft balancing view, see among others: Stephen M. Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy (New York: W.W. Norton 2005); Huiyun Feng and Kai He, ‘If Not Soft Balancing, Then What? Reconsidering Soft Balancing and US Policy Toward China’, Security Studies 17/2 (2008), 363–95; Robert Pape, ‘Soft Balancing Against the US’, International Security 30/1 (Summer 2005), 7–45; T.V. Paul, ‘Soft Balancing in the Age of US Primacy’, International Security 30/1 (Summer 2005), 46–71.

³ Christopher Layne, ‘This Time it’s Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana’, International Studies Quarterly 56/1 (March 2012), 203–13; Kenneth Waltz, ‘Structural Realism after the Cold War’, International Security 25/1 (Summer 2000), 5–41; Kenneth Waltz, ‘The Emerging Structure of International Politics’, International Security 18/2 (Fall 1993), 44–79; Christopher Layne, ‘The War on Terrorism and the Balance of Power: The Paradoxes of American Hegemony’, in T.V. Paul, James Wirtz, and Michael Fortmann (eds) Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford UP 2004), 119.

⁴ For defintion see Pape, ‘Soft Balancing Against the US’, 9.

⁵ For references to these predictions see: John Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W.Norton 2001), 392; Waltz, ‘Structural Realism after the Cold War’, 26–7; Christopher Layne, ‘The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States’ Unipolar Moment’, International Security 31/2 (Fall 2006), 7–41.

⁶ It is important to distinguish between national missile defence (NMD) systems and theater missile defence (TMD) systems, both of which constitute BMD. The former refers to specific Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems, originally outlawed by the ABM Treaty, designed to protect the US mainland from an adversary’s strategic long-range missiles (ICBMs that target the American homeland). The latter refer to BMD systems designed to protect US troop deployments, bases and allies against short to medium-range missile attacks, or sub-strategic missiles, that ‘rogue states’ have already deployed. The authors of this paper use the acronym BMD to refer to TMD and NMD, except when the distinction is relevant to the discussion.

⁷ Following Waltz, internal balancing is defined as states ‘relying on their own capabilities rather than the capabilities of allies’. See Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw Hill 1979), 168.

⁸ Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Unipolar Moment’, Foreign Affairs 70/1 (1990/91), 23–33.

⁹ Charles Krauthammer, ‘Revisiting the Unipolar Moment’, National Interest No. 70 (Winter 2002–03), 5–17; Wohlforth, ‘Stability of a Unipolar World’, 25.

¹⁰ Wohlforth, ‘Stability of a Unipolar World’, 18; Brooks and Wohlforth, World Out of Balance, 35–40; Brooks and Wohlforth, ‘Hard Times for Soft Balancing’, 72–108; Alexander and Lieber, ‘Waiting for Balancing’, 109–39.

¹¹ Wohlforth, ‘Stability of a Unipolar World’, 18.

¹² Brooks and Wohlforth, World Out of Balance, 27–35.

¹³ Wohlforth, ‘Stability of a Unipolar World’, 23, 35.

¹⁴ Brooks and Wohlforth, World Out of Balance, 4, 15–16.

¹⁵ Ibid., 35.

¹⁶ Pape, ‘Soft Balancing Against the US’, 10.

¹⁷ Paul, ‘Soft Balancing’; T.V. Paul, ‘The Enduring Axioms of Balance of Power Theory and Their Contemporary Relevance’, in Paul et al., 14; Stephen Walt, ‘Alliances in a Unipolar World’, World Politics 61/1 (Jan. 2009), 101–2.

¹⁸ Feng and Kai, ‘If Not Soft Balancing, Then What?’.

¹⁹ See references in note 2.

²⁰ Pape, ‘Soft Balancing against the United States’, 9.

²¹ For references to these predictions see: Mearsheimer, Tragedy, 392; Waltz, ‘Structural Realism after the Cold War’, 26–7; Layne, ‘The Unipolar Illusion Revisited’; Layne, ‘This Time it’s Real’; Waltz, ’The Emerging Structure’.

²² Waltz, ‘Structural Realism after the Cold War’, 27.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Intimations of Multipolarity’, in Birthe Hansen and Bertel Heurlin (eds), The New World Order: Contrasting Theories (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2000), 2; Waltz, ‘Structural Realism after the Cold War’, 27–8.

²⁵ Layne, ‘The War on Terrorism’, in Paul et al., Balance of Power, 119.

²⁶ Layne, ‘This Time it’s Real’, 203–13.

²⁷ Waltz, ‘Structural Realism after the Cold War’, 27–8; Layne, ‘The Unipolar Illusion’.

²⁸ Kai He, ‘Undermining Adversaries: Unipolarity, Threat Perception, and Negative Balancing Strategies after the Cold War’, Security Studies 21/2 (2012), 156.

²⁹ See discussion and citations in He, ‘Undermining Adversaries’, 160–1; Timothy Crawford, ‘Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How Wedge Strategies Shape Power Politics’, International Security 35/4 (Spring 2011), 155–89.

³⁰ See discussion in He, ‘Undermining Adversaries’, 166.

³¹ For a case study of the former see Timothy Crawford, ‘Wedge Strategy, Balancing, and the Deviant Case of Spain’, Security Studies 17/1 (2008), 1–38. For a case study of the latter see Nicholas Khoo, Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance (New York: Columbia UP 2011).

³² See He, ‘Undermining Adversaries’, 162-3. This definition of hard balancing is therefore broader than the ‘standard’ definition of hard balancing. For an example of such a definition see Pape, ‘Soft Balancing Against the US’, 9.

³³ He, ‘Undermining Adversaries’, 166.

³⁴ John Herz, ‘Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma’, World Politics 2/2 (Jan. 1950), 157–80; Robert Jervis, ‘Realism, Game Theory and Co-operation’, World Politics 40/3 (April 1988), 317–49.

³⁵ For a critique of the concept see Randall Schweller, ‘Neo-Realism’s Status Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?’, Security Studies 5/3 (March 1996), 116–19; Keir Lieber, ‘Grasping the Technological Peace: The Offense-Defense Balance and International Security’, International Security 25/1 (2000), 71–104.

³⁶ The literature is extensive. Among others see Robert Jervis, ‘Cooperation under the Security Dilemma’, World Politics 30/2 (Jan. 1978), 167–214; Charles L. Glaser, ‘The Security Dilemma Revisited’, World Politics 50/1 (Oct. 1997), 171–201; Jeffrey Taliaferro, ‘Seeking Security Under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited’, International Security 25/3 (Winter 2000–2001), 128–61; Mearsheimer, Tragedy, 35–6, 417.

³⁷ Tang Shiping, ‘The Security Dilemma: A Conceptual Analysis’, Security Studies 18/3 (2009), 587–623; See also Brian Rathburn, ‘Uncertain about Uncertainty: Understanding the Multiple Meanings of a Crucial Concept in International Relations Theory’, International Studies Quarterly 51/3 (Sept. 2007), 533–57.

³⁸ Glenn Snyder, ‘Mearsheimer’s World: Offensive Realism and the Struggle for Security’, International Security 27/1 (Summer 2002), 156.

³⁹ Tang, ‘The Security Dilemma’, 595.

⁴⁰ Snyder, ‘Mearsheimer’s World’, 156–7; Schweller, ‘Neo-Realism’s Status Quo Bias’, 117.

⁴¹ James D. Fearon, ‘Rationalist Explanations for War’, International Organization 49/3 (Summer 1995), 379–414.

⁴² Jervis, ‘Cooperation under the Security Dilemma’.

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ For an excellent explication of this logic see: Keir Lieber, War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics over Technology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2005), 126–7, 147. See also Charles L. Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton UP 1990), 95–6; Kenneth Waltz, ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities’, American Political Science Review 84/3 (Sept. 1990), 731–45.

⁴⁵ For the point on nuclear proliferation see Robert Jervis, ‘Unipolarity: A Structural Perspective’, World Politics 61/1 (Jan. 2009), 212.

⁴⁶ Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy, 75, 106.

⁴⁷ Ibid., 74.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 106.

⁴⁹ Charles L. Glaser, Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation (Princeton UP 2010), 81.

⁵⁰ As has occurred with the United States. See Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, ‘The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of US Primacy’, International Security 30/4 (Spring 2006), 7–44; Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, ‘The Rise of US Nuclear Primacy’, Foreign Affairs 85/2 (March/April 2006), 42–54.

⁵¹ This conforms with Waltz’s claim that ‘competition produces a tendency toward sameness of the competitors’. Waltz, Theory, 127.

⁵² Taliaferro, ‘Seeking Security Under Anarchy’, 136–41; Dale Copeland, ‘The Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism: A Review Essay’, International Security 25/2 (Fall 2000), 199–200; See also Rathburn’s discussion of the realist view of uncertainty in Rathburn, ‘Uncertain about Uncertainty’, 553–57; Dale Copeland, ‘A Realist Critique of the English School’, Review of International Studies 29/3 (July 2003), 435.

⁵³ Both Morgenthau and Waltz agree that a movement from multipolarity to bipolarity decreases uncertainty. Their disagreement pertains to whether this change in structure is stabilising or not. Morgenthau contended that the high level of uncertainty associated with multipolarity led to caution and restraint, increasing stability, while Waltz took the opposite view. Both further agree that bipolarity decreased uncertainty, but disagreed on the implications of this development for stability. Logically, we can deduce that both Morgenthau and Waltz would agree that unipolarity decreases uncertainty even more, as Wohlforth clearly believes, but differ again on the implications for stability. Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill 1967), 332–5; 337–8; Waltz, Theory, 168; Wohlforth, ‘Stability of a Unipolar World’, 24-5.

⁵⁴ Nuno Monteiro, ‘Unrest Assured: Why Unipolarity is Not Peaceful’, International Security 36/3 (Winter 2011/12), 24–5.

⁵⁵ Monteiro, ‘Unrest Assured’, 24–5.

⁵⁶ Jeffrey W. Knopf, ‘Varieties of Assurance’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/3 (June 2012), 375–99.

⁵⁷ Todd S. Sechser, ‘Goliath’s Curse: Coercive Threats and Asymmetric Power’, International Organization 64/4 (Fall 2010), 645.

⁵⁸ Monteiro, ‘Unrest Assured’, 24.

⁵⁹ Randall L. Schweller and Xiaoyu Pu, ‘After Unipolarity, China’s Vision of International Order in an Era of US Decline’, International Security 36/1 (Summer 2011), 44.

⁶⁰ Brooks and Wohlforth, World Out of Balance, 4, 15–16.

⁶¹ ‘The ABM Treaty at a Glance’, <www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/abmtreaty>.

⁶² Jack S. Levy, ‘Balances and Balancing: Concepts, Propositions, and Research Design’, in John A. Vasquez and Colin Elman (eds), Realism and the Balancing of Power: A New Debate (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 2002), 134.

⁶³ Christopher Layne, Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2006), 145–6.

⁶⁴ He, ‘Undermining Adversaries’, 187; Stephen Cohen, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (New York: W.W. Norton 2001).

⁶⁵ He, ‘Undermining Adversaries’, 181–3.

⁶⁶ Bradley Graham, Hit to Kill: The New Battle Over Shielding America from Missile Attack (New York: Public Affairs 2003), 23.

⁶⁷ In Nov. 1997, Clinton negotiated a ‘demarcation agreement’ with Russia that allowed the US to deploy TMD systems. Clinton followed this up by personally reassuring newly-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 1999 that he would ‘never support putting Russia in an untenable position with regard to mutual deterrence’, and ‘personally’ opposed unilaterally abrogating the ABM Treaty. Graham, Hit to Kill, 120.

⁶⁸ See Act located at <http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-106s269pcs/pdf/BILLS-106s269pcs.pdf >.

⁶⁹ Andrei Shoumikhin, ‘Nuclear Weapons in Russian Strategy and Doctrine’, in Stephen J. Blank (ed.), Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past Present and Future (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College 2011), 112.

⁷⁰ The military doctrine signed on 21 April 2000 by Vladimir Putin was developed under Boris Yeltsin. It contained provisions relating to the limited use of nuclear weapons that were discussed four months earlier in the ‘National Security Concept’ and ‘marked a qualitatively new stage in the development of Russian nuclear doctrine’. Shoumikhin, ‘Nuclear Weapons’, in Blank, Russian Nuclear Weapons, 116.

⁷¹ Oksana Antonenko, ‘Russia, NATO, and European Security after Kosovo’, Survival 41/4 (1999–2000), 134–5.

⁷² See translated English version at <www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/doctrine/gazeta012400.htm>.

⁷³ Ibid.

⁷⁴ Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 3rd ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2003), 429–31.

⁷⁵ The Pentagon made this clear when it stated that ‘the end-state requirements are not known at program initiation’, and that ‘the United States will not have a final fixed missile defense architecture. Rather, we will deploy an initial set of capabilities that will evolve to meet the changing threat and to take advantage of technological developments’. The White House, ‘National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD-23: National Policy on Ballistic Missile Defense’, 16 Dec. 2002, <https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-23.htm>.

⁷⁶ See Paul Wolfowitz’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 12 July 2001, <www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=399>.

⁷⁷ According to Bush, doing away with the ABM Treaty would help ‘liquidate the legacy of the Cold War’. Cited in Jeffrey Lewis and John Steinbruner, ‘The Unsettled Legacy of the Cold War’, Daedalus 131/4 (Fall 2002), 7.

⁷⁸ See Steve Fetter and Charles Glaser, ‘National Missile Defense and the Future of US Nuclear Weapons Policy’, International Security 26/1 (2001), 43–4; Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, ‘US Nuclear Primacy and the Future of the Chinese Deterrent’, China Security (Winter 2007), 67.

⁷⁹ Quoted in G. John Ikenberry, ‘America’s Imperial Temptation’, Foreign Affairs 81/5 (Sept./Oct. 2002), 49.

⁸⁰ Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington DC 2001), 42.

⁸¹ Ibid.

⁸² George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown 2010), Chapter 13; Robert Jervis, ‘Understanding the Bush Doctrine’, Political Science Quarterly 118/3 (Fall 2003), 365.

⁸³ George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Washington DC, 20 Jan. 2004, <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/transcripts/bushtext_012004.html>.

⁸⁴ In particular, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol and Robert Kagan. See James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking 2004), 284, 316.

⁸⁵ Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century (Washington DC: Sept. 2000), 19.

⁸⁶ Sherman W. Garnett, John Edwin Mroz and John E. Tedstrom, Toward the Common Good: Building a New US-Russian Relationship (New York: EastWest Institute 2001), 7.

⁸⁷ Joint Statement by the Presidents of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, 18 July 2000, <www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/missile-defense/history/joint-statement-china-russia.htm>.

⁸⁸ Ibid.

⁸⁹ Quoted in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. See Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reduction (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office 2002), 10.

⁹⁰ Frontline interview with Paul Wolfowitz on 12 June 2002, <www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/missile/interviews/wolfowitz.html>

⁹¹ Stephen Sestanovich, ‘American Maximalism’, National Interest No. 79 (Spring 2005), 13–23.

⁹² Brooks and Wohlforth, 4, 15–16.

⁹³ Quoted in Eric Eckholm, ‘The World: Missile Wars: What America Calls a Defense, China Calls an Offense’, New York Times, 2 July 2000.

⁹⁴ Quoted in Martin Nesirky, ‘Interview – Russian General Slams US on Missile Plan’, Reuters, 14 Feb. 2000.

⁹⁵ See note 87.

⁹⁶ Between 1992 and 1998 Russia underwent a severe decline in military power. See Christopher Davis, ‘Country Survey XV: The Defence Sector in the Economy of a Declining Superpower: Soviet Union and Russia, 1965–2001’, Defence and Peace Economics 13/3 (June 2002), 145–77.

⁹⁷ Quoted in Stephen Cohen, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives (New York: Columbia UP 2009), 176–7.

⁹⁸ Strobe Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb, rev. ed. (Washington DC: Brookings 2006), 15.

⁹⁹ Sergei Ivanov, ‘Russia’s “ABM-for-Europe” Plan: Remarks by Foreign Minister Ivanov’, Disarmament Diplomacy No. 54 (Feb. 2001), <www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd54/54abm.htm>.

¹⁰⁰ Ivanov, ‘Russia’s “ABM-for-Europe” Plan’.

¹⁰¹ Bush held that it was ‘possible to build a Missile Defense and defuse confrontation with Russia. America should do both’. Statement by George W. Bush: New Leadership on National Security, Disarmament Diplomacy No. 46 (May 2000), <www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd46/46bush.htm>.

¹⁰² Putin initially called the abrogation of the ABM Treaty a ‘mistake’, and claimed that the move ‘does not pose a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation’. Terence Neilan, ‘Bush Pulls out of ABM Treaty – Putin Calls Move a Mistake’, New York Times, 13 Dec. 2001.

¹⁰³ Russia allowed the US to use Central Asian bases; gain access to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and joined the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) that sought to interdict the transfer of WMD between ‘rogue states’ on the high seas.

¹⁰⁴ Richard K. Betts, ‘The Three Faces of NATO’, National Interest No. 100 (March/Apr. 2009), 31–8.

¹⁰⁵ This took place in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in Central Asia; Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania in Eastern Europe; the Philippines in Asia; in Djibouti in Africa; and Oman and Qatar in the Middle East.

¹⁰⁶ Daryl Kimball and Miles Pomper, ‘A Fresh Start? An Interview with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Russian Ambassador to the United States’, Arms Control Today 38/10 (Dec. 2008), 6–12.

¹⁰⁷ Lieber and Press, ‘The End of MAD?’, Lieber and Press, ‘The Rise of US Nuclear Primacy’.

¹⁰⁸ David S. McDonough, Nuclear Superiority: The New Triad and the Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Adelphi Papers 46/383 (London: IISS 2006), 63–4, 69.

¹⁰⁹ Glenn Buchan, David M. Matonick, Calvin Shipbaugh, and Richard Mesic, Future Roles of US Nuclear Forces: Implications for US Strategy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2003), 92.

¹¹⁰ Indeed, it is possible that some American officials favoured pursuing nuclear primacy in order to compel Russia and China to divert resources away from economic development and conventional weapon programmes to expensive nuclear force modernisation. See Douglas Alan Ross, ‘Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy: Essential Pillar of Terminal Liability’, International Journal 63/4 (Autumn 2008), 856.

¹¹¹ According to Russian officials, the administration also reneged on verbal promises that it would allow the permanent stationing of Russian monitors at two sites. See Peter Finn, ‘Russia Alleges US Rollback” on Anti-Missile Plan’, Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2007.

¹¹² The third site was the first deployment to take place outside the continental US, but the third after deployments at Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

¹¹³ Stephen J. Cimbala, ‘Strategic Reassurance in a Proliferation-Permissive World: American and Russian Options’, Defense & Security Analysis 22/3 (2006), 235.

¹¹⁴ Josh Rogin, ‘Polish Foreign Minister: We’re not actually Worried about Iranian Missile Threat’, Foreign Policy, 29 April 2010, <http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/29/polish_foreign_minister_we_re_not_actually_worried_about_iranian_missile_threat> accessed 5 Nov. 2012.

¹¹⁵ Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk linked the Georgian conflict’s outcome to the idea that Poland could one day be subject to similar aggression. Nik Hynek and Vit Stritecky, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Site of Ballistic BMD’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 43/2 (June 2010), 183.

¹¹⁶ Vladimir Putin, ‘Putin’s Prepared Remarks at 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy’, 12 Feb. 2007, <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021200555_pf.html>.

¹¹⁷ Putin ‘Putin’s Prepared Remarks’.

¹¹⁸ Ibid.

¹¹⁹ Putin stated: ‘Work is already underway today on creating unique high-precision weapons systems and manoeuvrable combat units that will have an unpredictable flight trajectory for the potential opponent. Along with the means for overcoming anti-missile defences that we already have, these new types of arms will enable us to maintain what is definitely one of the most important guarantees of lasting peace, namely, the strategic balance of forces’. Vladimir Putin, ‘Annual Address to the Federal Assembly’, The Kremlin, 10 May 2006, <http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2006/05/10/1823_type70029type82912_105566.shtml>.

¹²⁰ As cited in Wade Boese, ‘News Analysis: BMD Five Years after the ABM Treaty’, Arms Control Today 37/5 (June 2007), 33.

¹²¹ Nikolai Sokov, ‘The Nuclear Debate of Summer 2000’, 1 July 2004, Global Security Newswire, <www.nti.org/analysis/articles/nuclear-debate-summer-2000/>.

¹²² Sokov, ‘The Nuclear Debate’.

¹²³ Ibid.

¹²⁴ International Institute for Strategic Studies, ‘Chapter Five: Russia’, The Military Balance 2012 (London: Routledge for IISS 2012), 189.

¹²⁵ John Feffer, ‘An Arms Race in Asia?’, Asian Perspective 33/4 (2009), 5–15.

¹²⁶ This would be accompanied by new ‘warships, primarily nuclear-powered submarines carrying cruise missiles, and multifunctional submarines as well as a system of aerospace defence’. This would ‘guarantee’ its nuclear deterrent and conventional war-fighting capability. BBC News, ‘Russia to Upgrade Nuclear Systems’, 26 Sept. 2008. Former Russian Atomic Energy Minister Viktor Mikhaylov stated in a 2002 Izvestiya interview that Russia was working on a low-yield warhead to penetrate 30–40 metres into rock and destroy a buried target. See Mark B. Schneider, Testimony before the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Committee on Armed Services, US House of Representatives, ‘The Nuclear Forces and Doctrine of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China’, 14 Oct. 2011, <www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/…/CHRG-112hhrg71449.pdf>.

¹²⁷ See text of 2000 version at <www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_01-02/docjf00>; Jakub M. Godzimirski, ‘Russian National Security Concepts 1997 and 2000: A Comparative Analysis’, European Security 9/4 (Winter 2000), 74–94.

¹²⁸ Godzimirski, ‘Russian National Security Concepts’, 86–9.

¹²⁹ See text of 2000 version at <www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_01-02/docjf00>.

¹³⁰ Victor A. Utgoff, ‘Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions’, Survival 44/2 (Summer 2002), 85–102.

¹³¹ British Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Russia Restarts Cold War Patrols’, 17 Aug. 2007, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6950986.stm>.

¹³² Wade Boese, ‘Russia Halts Missile Launch Notices’, Arms Control Today 38/2 (March 2008), 46.

¹³³ Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence in the 21st Century’, Speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 28 Oct. 2008. See text of speech at <http://carnegieendowment.org/files/1028_transcrip_gates_checked.pdf>.

¹³⁴ Amy Woolfe, US Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service 2013), 6–7.

¹³⁵ Lieber and Press, ‘The End of MAD?’, 7–8.

¹³⁶ Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, ‘The New Era of Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence and Conflict’, Strategic Studies Quarterly 7 (Spring 2013), 3–14.

¹³⁷ Gates, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence’.

¹³⁸ Ibid., 3.

¹³⁹ Ibid., 5.

¹⁴⁰ Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report (Washington DC April 2010), i.

¹⁴¹ Department of Defense, Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report (Washington DC 2010), i.

¹⁴² Stephen Blank, ‘The Chinese Reaction and Asian Impact on Russian Nuclear Policy’, Defense & Security Analysis 28/2 (March 2012), 36–54.

¹⁴³ Rajan Menon, ‘The Limits of Sino-Russian Partnership’, Survival 51/3 (June–July 2009), 99–130.

¹⁴⁴ Patrick Morgan, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications 1983), 27–47.

¹⁴⁵ Waltz, Theory, 127.

¹⁴⁶ This concern is also raised in Jeffrey S. Lantis, ‘Correspondence: The Short Shadow of Nuclear Primacy’, International Security 31/3 (2006/07), 174–7.

¹⁴⁷ For a fuller discussion see Keir Lieber and Daryl G. Press, ‘Correspondence: The Short Shadow of Nuclear Primacy’, International Security 31/3 (Winter 2006/07), 192–3.

¹⁴⁸ Lieber, War and the Engineers, 134–40.

¹⁴⁹ Stephen Cimbala, ‘Minimum Deterrence and Missile Defenses: What’s New, What’s True, What’s Arguable’, Defense & Security Analysis 28/1 (2012), 73.

¹⁵⁰ Lieber and Press ‘The New Era of Nuclear Weapons’, 6.

¹⁵¹ Mearsheimer, Tragedy, 402; Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster 1994), 221, 431.

¹⁵² Layne, ‘The War on Terrorism’, in Paul et al., Balance of Power, 118.

¹⁵³ Wohlforth, ‘Stability of a Unipolar World’, 8, 25.

¹⁵⁴ See Pape, ‘Soft Balancing Against the US’, 15–16.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Reuben Steff

Reuben Steff is an analyst at the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT). *The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT).

Nicholas Khoo

Nicholas Khoo is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Otago in New Zealand.