TOGETHER TOWARD NUCLEAR ZERO

Abstract

To understand the prospects for engaging China and Russia on disarmament, the authors examine views of U.S. strategic policy in Beijing and Moscow, the two countries’ mutual perspectives, and prospects for particular disarmament measures. Through an appraisal of nuclear force postures and doctrines and linkages to missile defense, conventional military capabilities, and possible space weaponization, the authors explain why nuclear disarmament involves strategic considerations writ large, and not simply nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. They analyze Chinese and Russian views of a variety of possible disarmament and arms control measures and relevant strategic considerations. While formal arms reduction negotiations are only likely with Russia in the short term, they note that confidence-building measures could already be instituted that involve China. Finally, they note there exists a small window of opportunity to move cooperatively toward nuclear zero; however, as decisions on military procurement are realized, this window will shrink.

Keywords:

• Disarmament
• nonproliferation
• United States
• Russia
• China
• nuclear zero

In April, President Barack Obama spoke of “America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” and the concrete steps toward this aim that America plans to take.1 Any possible future for arms control and nuclear disarmament, though, depends not just upon decisions in Washington, but also steps taken elsewhere, in Moscow and Beijing in particular. Prime movers when it comes to nuclear policy, the actions of these three countries, now and in the immediate future, will determine the doctrines that set the postures for the vast majority of the world's nuclear weapon systems. They also play an outsized role in arms control negotiations and the development of new security strategies. While the global polity does have some say as to whether nuclear weapons (not just their use, but also their possession) are seen as moral, Washington and Moscow have traditionally had the most influence over global views in this arena. Increasingly, Beijing is playing an important role, too, though its doctrine has yet to affect thinking in the United States and Russia. The policies of the major nuclear weapon states shape others’ beliefs as to whether possession of nuclear weapons remains prestigious and/or militarily useful. Further, the United States, Russia, and China are in the best position to impact global nuclear weapons norms, including further consolidating the norm against nuclear testing, buttressing the norm against nuclear use, and establishing a norm against strategic postures that threaten the use of nuclear weapons. In the final analysis, the choices made in these three countries will determine if the world is able to start down the path toward complete nuclear disarmament.

This article explores possible pathways to nuclear zero that lead through Beijing and Moscow and argues that decisions on strategic deterrent forces will, for the foreseeable future, be linked not only to the nuclear postures of other states, but also to a variety of other military decisions, including missile defense, space militarization, and long-range conventional capabilities. Any U.S. attempt to engage China and Russia in discussions of nuclear disarmament or arms control that does not include negotiations on these three military issues will fail.

Russian Strategic Policy

Russia's nuclear posture and doctrine have undergone a series of changes since the Cold War and have yet to be finalized for a new era. Recognizing its weakness relative to U.S. forces after the Cold War, in 1993 Moscow formally rescinded the no-first-use (NFU) policy inherited from the Soviet Union (initially adopted in 1983) but did not issue a new nuclear doctrine until 1999.2 In the meantime, its nuclear capabilities dramatically declined, thanks both to arms control agreements and to the country's economic decline. Russia's conventional forces faced even greater difficulties due to the combination of financial strain and two wars fought in Chechnya, all on top of the Afghan war in the late Soviet period. By 1999, when Moscow finally issued its first post-Soviet nuclear doctrine, Russia's conventional forces were significantly weaker than those of the United States, while Washington had shown itself willing to intercede in foreign conflicts (in the Balkans and the Middle East), potentially threatening Russian interests. The new Russian doctrine thus gave nuclear forces a new mission: deterring a limited conventional conflict (at least until Russia's conventional capabilities improved).

The 1999 doctrine, however, was not directed against the United States, although Russia was concerned about NATO military power (and Russian military training exercises continued to be directed against a notional NATO enemy). Early in the twenty-first century, Russia began to reverse the decline in its nuclear forces and increase readiness; greater numbers of bomber and submarine patrols were the most visible evidence of this change.3 While still not seeking full parity with the United States, the May 2009 National Security Strategy noted that Russia would “undertake every effort needed at the least possible cost to maintain parity with the United States of America in the area of strategic offensive armaments,” noting the U.S. creation of a “global antimissile system” as well as plans for Global Strike—the use of strategic delivery systems to deliver both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.4 A new Russian military doctrine, defining deterrent strategy, is expected to be submitted to the Russian Security Council by the end of 2009; how the United States and China will be viewed in this doctrine is not yet clear. The 2009 National Security Strategy defines the threats facing Russia as “the policy of a number of leading foreign countries directed at attaining overwhelming military superiority, primarily in the area of strategic nuclear forces, through the development of high-precision, informational, and other high-tech means” of warfare, as well as “non-nuclear strategic weapons … a unilateral global antimissile system, and militarization of near-earth outer space.” While the United States is not mentioned by name, it is clearly implied. As for China, its place in the international system is not indicated.

The new Russian military doctrine will be the foundation for procurement decisions for many years to come. Many of Russia's nuclear forces are nearing the end of their service lives, and decisions will have to be made about their replacement. Once new nuclear capabilities are procured, it will be harder to rethink their use. A new doctrine that is buttressed with new capabilities is also likely to be more persuasive than a doctrinal change that only promises weapons alterations years in the future. Moscow therefore finds itself facing a critical decision point. Its current assessment of the global strategic situation will have repercussions for years to come.

Chinese Strategic Policy

China's official policy is that it maintains nuclear weapons only because other nations threaten it with nuclear weapons; Beijing has long called for complete global disarmament.5 However, China also appears to view its nuclear forces as important to its standing as a great power. The Chinese maintain a small nuclear arsenal, with fewer than 100 operational warheads, which accords with a doctrine of “minimal deterrence” or “minimum means of reprisal.”6 Based on the belief that deterrence does not require the level of force traditionally assumed necessary under U.S. and Russian doctrines, Chinese doctrine is mated with a no-first-use policy that rejects initiating a nuclear exchange under any circumstances. Chinese forces have been kept off the “hair-trigger alert” of U.S. and Russian forces—even in crisis.7 As explained further by Chinese Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs Sha Zukang in 2000, “as long as [a medium or small nuclear country] still possess[es] the capability of launching the second nuclear strike to inflict unbearable losses” on an attacker, a strategic balance can be achieved even with a country possessing more and better nuclear weapons.8

There has been much speculation by foreign experts that China might alter its nuclear doctrine as its nuclear capabilities increase—that its doctrine has been borne of necessity. Recent advances in ballistic missile submarines, it is suggested, would give China the capability to back up a doctrine more similar to that of the United States or Russia.9 To deter an attack, Chinese planners recognize that a potential opponent must believe that China has nuclear weapons that would survive a first strike and that Beijing is willing to launch a counterstrike. A few years ago, this led some Chinese experts to argue for “limited deterrence” (youxian weishe), which would require new operational capabilities and putting Chinese forces on a launch-on-warning or launch-under-attack status.10 However, Beijing's military leaders appear to have decided that deploying mobile missiles and a sea-based deterrent is sufficient to ensure credibility. Most China analysts do not expect Beijing to abandon minimum deterrence at this point in time.

This doctrine does not, however, imply a particular number of weapons; it entails the minimum number that can survive and retaliate against a nuclear strike.11 As it sees global strike capabilities improve and missile defense deployment accelerate, Beijing has reacted by strengthening the capabilities of its strategic missile units—their survivability in particular.12

Another aspect of Chinese nuclear strategy that could have implications for strategic stability as well as arms control is China's reliance on secrecy to maintain the credibility of its second-strike capability. Beijing must be certain that potential opponents cannot locate all of its nuclear forces and take them out with a first strike, or it would be vulnerable to such an attack. Additionally, this means that arms control—in particular, traditional strategic weapons treaties that include details on numbers of weapons platforms—may not be possible without either an alteration of China's strategic posture or new arms control thinking.

The View of U.S. Defense Policy in Moscow and Beijing

The December 2001 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) suggested a fundamental change to U.S. strategic doctrine, transforming the nuclear triad of the Cold War era into a new triad that includes, along with a nuclear leg, more “usable” conventional precision-strike systems as well as missile defenses (to reduce vulnerability to a nuclear strike). This is meant to shore up strategic stability while making it possible to reduce numbers of nuclear weapons; non-nuclear weapons are to take on some of the strategic deterrent role of current nuclear forces while increasing the credibility of the U.S. deterrent, since a president is more likely to be willing to launch conventional than nuclear weapons. However, despite the NPR's goal of downsizing the number of operational nuclear warheads by two-thirds by 2012 (a level recently achieved), Russia and China see several aspects of U.S. nuclear posture as destabilizing. Unless the 2009 NPR significantly alters the new triad and U.S. doctrine, the ability of Moscow and Beijing to transform their own nuclear postures—and engage President Obama in measures to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons—is likely to be very limited.

Of greatest concern to China and Russia are nuclear weapons’ continued place at the core of U.S. strategic deterrence, the concept of preemption along with long-range conventional capabilities that could strike strategic targets, and missile defenses that could threaten an opponent's second-strike capabilities. Additionally, consideration early in the George W. Bush administration of the development of “bunker busters,” other new nuclear weapon types, and new nuclear roles led to further concern that the uses for nuclear weapons were expanding. The U.S. congressional decision not to fund development of new nuclear weapons, including the Reliable Replacement Warhead (which was seen as a new nuclear weapon type by many abroad), was not widely noticed in China and Russia, where the United States is still believed to be improving its strategic capabilities and thus becoming more threatening. Further, Chinese and Russian observers recognize that under the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (the Moscow Treaty), many weapons components are to be stored, not dismantled, which—together with the new triad's “responsive infrastructure”—makes the reconstitution of a large U.S. nuclear force seem quite possible.

New conventional precision-strike capabilities—the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review includes plans to modify about 10 percent of Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) to carry non-nuclear warheads, for example—and missile defenses, intended to deter new threats such as terrorism or “undeterrable” states (those with leaders willing to risk the very survival of their states), are seen as even more destabilizing in Beijing and Moscow. Even some U.S. scholars have appreciated how the changes may look from abroad: Keir Lieber and Daryl Press famously explored the possibility of the development of a U.S. first-strike capability.13 Additionally, George Lewis and Theodore Postol have stated (contrary to Missile Defense Agency assertions) that U.S. missile defense interceptors launched from Poland would be fast enough to intercept Russian SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) based in Vypolzovo, roughly 340 kilometers (km) northwest of Moscow (though with Russia's countermeasures, current interceptors are unlikely to threaten Russian ICBMs, and Russia's weapons far exceed the number of planned U.S. interceptors).14 The most extreme scenario explored in Lieber and Press is that robust missile defenses could be used to take out the few missiles that remain after a first strike on strategic targets in another state. It should be noted that the 2001 NPR rejects a first-strike policy, while missile defense, as defined in National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD-23 of 2002, is aimed at defending against limited missile threats from “rogue” states and non-state actors, not large-scale attacks, as would arguably be the case if Washington sought a true first-strike option.15

Russia and U.S. Missile Defense

After withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, the Bush administration embarked on developing full-scale missile defense capabilities in response to a perceived missile threat from Iran. Russia does not agree with the U.S. assessment of this threat and does not appear to agree that the way to prevent Iran from developing new missile capabilities is to develop a defensive system that would nullify any such capabilities. Instead, Russian analysts wonder what the real intention is behind the development of these systems. Commenting on the results of one interceptor test, Colonel General Viktor Yesin, former head of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, noted that “only Russian and Chinese ICBMs are equipped with the false decoys which were included in this test. Our ICBMs have been equipped with decoys for many years; Chinese introduced them recently in response to the US expansion of global ABM defense system. Neither Iran nor North Korea equip their missiles with such decoys and will be able to do it in a foreseeable future.”16

Additionally, Moscow probably fears that acceding to a small missile defense system (at least one that does not involve strong cooperation with Russia) could let the United States establish a basis for further expansion of the system—an extension that could become difficult to impede. Russian scholars also fear that the U.S. defense interceptors could themselves be used as attack weapons, something to which Lewis and Postol give credence, writing:

The ground-based interceptors in some ways resemble ICBMs themselves. They are extremely large, two-stage ballistic missiles, weighing roughly 21,500 kilograms each, with the two stages derived from the Minuteman series of ICBMs. … Indeed, if an interceptor were armed with a typical 1,100-kilogram Minuteman III payload of a missile bus and three nuclear warheads, it could carry that payload more than 6,000 kilometers.17

Russia has several options for countering U.S. missile defense. Moscow has said it would undertake asymmetric countermeasures but may also explore Russian ABM capabilities, along with increasing (or at least maintaining) nuclear armament levels. In the 1960s, Moscow conducted advanced research on missile defenses. Nevertheless, it signed the ABM Treaty, under which the United States and the Soviet Union agreed not to develop national missile defenses and limited them to one location apiece. This froze the situation of mutual assured destruction by ensuring both the United States and the Soviet Union remained mutually vulnerable.

The ABM defense deployed around Moscow in the 1980s relied on nuclear-tipped interceptors. Today, the system reportedly deploys thirty-two Gorgon (51T6) interceptors capable of carrying a 1-megaton warhead up to 350 km and sixty-eight Gazelle (53T6) interceptors capable of carrying a 10-kiloton warhead up to 90 km.18 While it is unclear if the Gorgon interceptors are still operational, Russia regularly conducts tests of the Gazelle interceptors, although the effectiveness of the system is questionable. In addition, Stanford University's Russian weapons expert Pavel Podvig has argued that the nuclear warheads might have been dismounted from the interceptors.

An area where Russia is on the cutting edge of modern technology is theater missile defense. The Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system complex (SA-20 Triumf), a modernization of its S-series complexes, is reported to be capable of hitting aircraft, cruise missiles, and short- and medium-range ballistic missiles at ranges of up to 400 km (twice the range of the U.S. Patriot system).19 Deployment began in 2007, with twenty-three divisions scheduled to be deployed by 2015.20

While Russia has the technical capability to compete with the United States on missile defense, it has indicated that it is not willing to make the expenditures to do so. Instead, Russia continues to work to persuade Washington to change course. Should this fail, Moscow's first choice for ensuring the continued credibility of its deterrent is to place short range Iskander missile systems in the Kaliningrad region “to neutralize, if necessary, the anti-ballistic missile system in Europe.”21 Next, it will likely increase nuclear patrols and build up its nuclear missile forces. Russia may also expand its own current missile defense plans, and even revisit the idea of cooperating with China on missile defense. To date, though, Moscow still hopes that Washington will abandon its missile defense plans in their current form. During their July summit, presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev pledged to conduct a joint analysis of ballistic missile challenges and to intensify “dialogue on establishing the Joint Data Exchange Center which is to become the basis for a multilateral missile-launch notification regime.”22

China and U.S. Missile Defense

Given China's relatively small nuclear force, missile defenses are an even greater threat to Beijing than to Moscow. Ambassador Sha has noted China's grave concern, saying that U.S. missile defense “will seriously undermine the effectiveness of China's limited nuclear capability from the first day of its deployment.”23 Initial missile defense plans focused largely on the Pacific, with a proposed missile defense radar and 100 interceptors in Alaska that, while nominally meant for North Korean missiles, would have threatened China's entire deterrent force. These plans evolved into placing a sea-based radar in the Pacific and a radar in the Czech Republic, plus fewer Alaskan interceptors (initially), and new interceptors in Poland—yet the defense systems remain more of a threat to China's deterrent than to Russia's. Ensuring that Beijing can penetrate U.S. defenses, and thereby deter the United States from threatening China, implies either employing technologies to ensure that defense interceptors cannot reliably destroy the weapons or increasing the number of missiles to ensure that not all can be destroyed by the combination of offensive and defensive systems.24

Improvements to U.S. strategic capabilities—including improved network-centric warfare; the use of space for command, control, and communications, or even for the basing of weapons or missile defense interceptors; missile defenses more broadly; and long-range non-nuclear weapon systems—all pose threats to Chinese and Russian nuclear forces. While the long-term aim of these U.S. changes is to diminish the need for nuclear weapons, in the short term they are destabilizing and must be considered in mutual negotiations on nuclear topics.

China and Russia joined together to voice their concerns about missile defenses in their May 2008 joint statement on international issues, which states that:

The two sides believe that the establishment of a global anti-missile system, including the deployment of the system in some parts of the world and related cooperation, is not in the interest of maintaining strategic balance and stability. It is neither conducive to global arms control and non-proliferation efforts nor favorable to building mutual trust among states and regional stability. The two sides express their concern over it.25

Nevertheless, Russia has suggested the possibility of a joint missile defense system in Europe. While a European system may not directly impact China's nuclear deterrent, the precedent—along with the likelihood that the United States and Russia might extend such cooperation to the Pacific, ostensibly to target a North Korean threat—would likely be looked at nervously from Beijing. Washington should engage Beijing in a discussion of any multilateral missile defense, wherever it is located, to understand how to reduce any threat to China and to see how China might be involved in the effort. A serious engagement, however, could prove difficult because Washington has been particularly concerned about the transfer of missile technologies to China over the past couple of decades. Yet China may be able to bring something to the table on missile defense, whereas failing to engage Beijing is likely to push it toward increasing its nuclear deterrent force.

Russian and Chinese Views of Their Mutual Strategic Interactions

While the United States is the chief strategic security concern in both Beijing and Moscow, the relationship between these two capitals has been slowly changing. Before discussing the possibility of engaging them in disarmament discussions, it is important to understand the background of their relationship and its changing nature.

Sino-Russian strategic relations have witnessed both high and low points since the 1950s, when China was largely politically subordinate to the Soviet Union. In the nuclear sphere, the Soviet Union provided some technical know-how to China. However, despite multiple Chinese requests to share nuclear weapons, Moscow refrained from direct sharing. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union laid the foundations for China's military program. Many Chinese scientists were educated in the Soviet Union; at one point there were even preparations to send blueprints of actual nuclear weapons and a model of an atomic bomb to China. The shipment, however, was stopped at the last moment by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. As relations between the two countries deteriorated in the late 1950s, technical assistance from the Soviet Union faded away, and Soviet specialists were ordered to return home in 1960.

At the time, China viewed attempts to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons as part of a U.S.–Soviet conspiracy. In this respect, it is interesting to note that the United States reportedly suggested a joint U.S.–Soviet strike on Chinese nuclear facilities to prevent China from testing its bomb.26 However, Moscow rejected the idea of such an undertaking despite its aggravated relations with Beijing. Bilateral ties did not reach their lowest point until the bloody border conflict of March 1969, which remains the only direct military confrontation between two official nuclear weapon states.

Sino-Soviet relations started to improve in the 1980s, with Russia eventually becoming China's main arms supplier. Political relations between the two countries improved apace. In September 1992, the countries made a declaration of friendship, and in January 1994 they agreed to establish a constructive partnership for the twenty-first century.27 By September 1994, when Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Russia, they had approved of language on non-confrontation, non-alignment, and Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence as the basis for this partnership and announced that they would never aim their nuclear weapons at each other.28 During Russian President Boris Yeltsin's second trip to China in April 1996, the two countries announced the formation of a “strategic cooperative partnership,” agreed to establish regular meetings between the two nations’ leaders, and established a hotline between Beijing and Moscow. The exact nature of the strategic partnership, however, is not clearly defined. As noted by Yang Jiemian of the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, “the Sino-Russian strategic partnership is not an allied relationship, nor directed at any third country.”29 Nevertheless, both parties appear to view their agreement as bringing them closer together than do the talks or agreements either has with Washington.

Moscow and Beijing share extremely close opinions on the need for a multipolar international system, outlined in the Joint Statement of the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of A New International Order of April 1997, and on opposition to U.S. missile defense. The 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia further served to bury Russia's brief honeymoon with the West; the same conflict led to a dramatic anti-U.S. backlash in China after NATO mistakenly bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.30 In early 2000, as the United States continued to seek amendment to the ABM Treaty to allow missile defense development and suggested it might withdraw from the treaty, China and Russia also discussed the possibility of constructing a joint missile defense shield.31 However, such talk does not appear to have gone forward and may have been largely political. Indeed, Moscow has been wary of just how far it goes in military cooperation with China. Though Moscow has allowed Beijing access to its GLONASS global satellite navigation system (a Russian equivalent of the U.S. global positioning satellite system) for civilian and military use, Russia did not respond to all of China's overtures for military cooperation.32

Politically, however, the two countries have continued to consolidate their relationship. Their most important bilateral strategic agreement was the July 2001 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation, in which the two nations committed not to use or threaten to use force against each other, and recommitted not to be “the first to use nuclear weapons against each other nor target strategic nuclear missiles against each other.”33 Thus, while Russia does not have a general NFU policy, it has made this commitment to its large eastern neighbor.

The View from Moscow

Despite these improvements, the future prospects for Sino-Russian relations remain unclear. Russian military analysts are paying close attention to Chinese military improvements; there is a wide variety of opinion as to what these improvements mean for Russia. As noted above, early post–Cold War military interactions were particularly strong in the area of procurement: China has bought a great deal of Russian weaponry (though Russia has not sold its very best technologies). However, with improvements in China's own defense industry, in part based on technology transfer from Russia and reverse-engineering Russian defense products, these sales are now waning (and have not involved the nuclear weapons sphere). Additionally, the two countries’ militaries have held both bilateral and multilateral joint exercises under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; Chinese military specialists are being educated in Russian defense institutes; and the two militaries hold strategic consultations (China also engages in strategic dialogues with other countries it considers important in the international arena). These increasing interactions improve transparency and understanding and could be a first step toward the sort of interactions required to initiate arms control discussions. However, Beijing and Moscow are still far from engaging with Washington in this sort of negotiation at the present time, and there appear to be no plans for any such talks.

It should be noted that some Russian observers do indeed view the rise of China's military—including improved nuclear capabilities—as benign, or even helpful for Russian security (though this may well not guide current Russian strategic thought). Sergei Brezkun of the Academy of Military Sciences and Victor Mikhailov, former minister of atomic energy and current director of Rosatom's Institute of Strategic Stability, have argued that Russia has nothing to fear from a growing Chinese arsenal (they also note that common sense says that the arsenal will grow, noting that if the United States deploys missile defense, China's best answer is amassing warheads).34 Brezkun and Mikhailov view Russia's nuclear arsenal as critical to maintaining global strategic stability (and China's as not essential), but they do think that China's nuclear weapons can add to the effect of Russia's in balancing U.S. forces.35 They note that China's investments in the sea leg of the nuclear triad and deployment of missiles with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) are largely targeted at the United States.

Overall, it seems that most Russian analysts accept the official explanation provided by the Chinese military for upgrading its nuclear arsenal: to increase China's capabilities for global strategic deterrence and guarantee a second-strike capability in case of a global nuclear war.36 Generally speaking, it is nearly taboo in Russian political circles to speak about Sino-Russian differences, in particular any potential Chinese threat to Russia. Top political circles have been concerned with improving relations, even naming 2006 the official “year of Russia” in China, and 2007 the “year of China” in Russia. Further lessening the possibility of any future disputes, in 2008 the demarcation of the last piece of disputed Sino-Russian border was finalized, with two islands transferred to China.

While Russian commentators on strategic developments largely ignore the East and focus on the United States as a threat, a few look eastward. These observers tend not to worry about Chinese threats today, but rather about possible future aggression toward Russia—carried out by either military or non-military means. In particular, the Chinese concept of “living space” has elicited a great deal of interest. Last year, Aleksandr Khramchikhin (head of the Analytical Division of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis) argued that China's only options for acquiring more “living space” are Russia and Kazakhstan. Khramchikhin noted that although both Beijing and Moscow have officially stated that they have no pretensions to each other's land, Chinese “propaganda is not changing”: the view of Russia as historically having taken Chinese territory and the idea that the historical agreements ceding Chinese land were unfair continue to be promoted.37 While Khramchikhin did not suggest that military action was likely (instead, he painted a scenario whereby migration was followed by economic dependence and the eventual redrawing of borders to recognize the facts on the ground), he did note that some Chinese military training exercises have been clearly anti-Russian.38

Another analyst, Vitaly Tsygichko, a department head in the System Analysis Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, took a similar line when he noted that China's clear hegemonic intentions in Asia threaten Russian interests. Tsygichko argued that military exercises carried out in the Beijing and Shenyang military districts in 2006 simulated a military conflict with Russia and Kazakhstan and were meant to signal the Russian government that if Beijing is unsatisfied with Russia's foreign policy, it would be willing to start a war.39

However, the views expressed by Khramchikhin and Tsygichko remain outliers. Any disagreements between China and Russia today are less important than their common effort to avoid succumbing to what both view as excessive U.S. pressure, though this calculation may well change in the future. Yevgeny Bazhanov, in a 2007 monograph, provides an overview of a variety of areas in which China and Russia could potentially clash in the future.40 In the strategic area, nuclear preparations in India and Pakistan are of particular interest. As Bazhanov notes, Russia is not particularly worried by nuclear weapons in India because it does not see them as a threat to itself, while China views them as a direct challenge to its own security (particularly since India has declared that its weapons program was caused by China's nuclear test and is aimed at deterring China).41 The changing balance of power between Russia and China is likely to continue, Bazhanov argues, and could well lead to the projection of Chinese power in the region—including into the Russian Far East and Siberia.42 Indeed, fear of external enemies already abounds in Russia, with China playing an important role. As an extreme example, Major General A.I. Vladimirov has written not only about Chinese expansion to the north, but even the possible extinction of Russia as an independent civilization.43

More mainstream Russian military analysts are paying close attention to China and its military doctrine and strategy as well. For instance, Voyennaya mysl’ (Military Thought), the official publication of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, continues to monitor China; in 2007 it published an article analyzing China's military strategy that explained that while Chinese strategists believe a global war could only be started through the use of conventional weapons, there is a continuing threat of nuclear escalation.44 China's unfavorable balance of nuclear weapons vis-à-vis Russia and the United States explains the cautious attitude of the Chinese leadership toward the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. However, given increasing Chinese conventional capabilities, this view does not necessarily ensure stable Sino-Russian relations. The 2000 Russian Military Doctrine envisions the possible use of nuclear weapons in a conflict with a conventionally superior state. While generally perceived as aimed at NATO, this could also cover a possible military conflict with China if the conventional balance is undermined. Though few mainstream observers see a Chinese threat in the short term, they do criticize Moscow for failing to develop a clear China strategy.45 Anatoly Tsyganok has noted the lack of any reference to China in Russia's new National Security Strategy.46 Thus, the relationship would appear to remain in flux; the next few years will likely prove critical in better defining the parameters for future Sino-Russian relations.

The View from Beijing

The Chinese view of Russia, in the main, appears more benign. While recognizing that Russia continues to maintain a huge nuclear arsenal, Beijing does not generally appear to believe that Russia poses a threat to China.47 Instead, the possibility of working together with Russia to balance the United States is seen as central. Indeed, Chinese analysts have explained Moscow's strategy as “joining with China to constrain the U.S.”48 Although noting that Russian military spending is rising and that Moscow has “stopped disarmament, strengthened its nuclear and anti-crisis capabilities, and has announced that it will not abandon the nuclear first-strike option,” this is seen by most Chinese experts as driven by U.S. “expansionist policies,” as is the involvement of Russia (and other states) in a “new arms race”; Russian military improvements are not seen as directed against China.49 However, not all Chinese analysts believe that a “new Cold War” between the United States and Russia is at hand, though such observers do believe it might emerge.50

Thus, China views security cooperation with its neighbor as both possible and necessary, though the two states’ security interests are not always perfectly aligned. Russia plans to further upgrade its missile and space capabilities worry Chinese analysts, while Beijing cannot support Moscow in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, given China's own restive western regions.51 In the Northeast Asian region, Chinese experts see Russian territorial concerns as derived from “historical territorial disputes with its neighbors in the region, the scarcity of and decrease in population in its vast Asian territory, and other domestic and international factors,” and believe that Moscow's current answer to these problems is increasing regional integration and participation.52 The economic and other interests of the two countries are thus aligned for the foreseeable future in this part of the world. They are in general agreement on most policies in the strategic sphere and often back each other up in the UN Security Council. However, they are not and are unlikely to become true allies any time soon.

The United States, Russia, and China: Is Trilateral Strategic Cooperation Possible, or Is Strategic Competition Inevitable?

While the numbers of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons have decreased significantly since the Cold War, their use—their doctrine and targeting—has either remained unchanged or slightly expanded. The 2001 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review has not yet led to any changes in the nuclear forces—the changes have all been to other parts of the new triad. Similarly, the improvements in Chinese weaponry have not yet led to a new strategic balance or to doctrinal-level changes in Russia or the United States. One might wonder, therefore, if the situation a decade or two from today may have the same general outlines as the present. However, even a cursory examination of current trends indicates that this is extremely unlikely.

Current trajectories—in terms of weapons dismantlement as well as procurement, missile defense, and high-tech weaponry—are not sustainable without having a major effect on doctrine. Indeed, if the current rate of removing nuclear weapons from U.S. and Russian arsenals is maintained, both nations would have no operational weapons in little over a decade. But if the rate of reductions slows down too much, it will have a variety of effects, including on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and on how the two nations view each other. Similarly, U.S. missile defense and long-range conventional guided weapons have caused worries in Moscow and Beijing, but much of this capability is not yet operational—only in the future will these systems have a real impact. The more these systems are improved, the more Moscow and Beijing are likely to see them as an urgent threat to their nuclear deterrents—and react militarily.

Since these trajectories cannot be maintained, Washington, Beijing, and Moscow will soon find themselves at a critical decision-making juncture. They must either cooperate to reduce mutual threats or unilaterally halt problematic programs (such as missile defense or long-range conventional weapons), or they will have to find ways to counter each other's programs. Over the long run, Russia may develop the missile defenses needed to protect its ICBMs from U.S. conventional weapons or find other means of protecting its deterrent force, but in the short term the most likely solution is to MIRV existing weapons. China, in the long term, may move to a sea-based deterrent but faces even tougher choices than Russia in the short term—possibly involving the development of new, maneuverable warheads, fielding more ICBMs, or other measures.

In recent years there has been a push in the United States to reinvigorate disarmament, most notably thanks to two editorials in the Wall Street Journal written by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn. The thoughtful editorials, however, are chiefly aimed at a U.S. audience and do not address the question of how to deal with missile defenses and precision-strike munitions during the period of transition to a world without nuclear weapons. The sections below, therefore, will examine some of the arms control and disarmament measures suggested by the editorials and other sources (including Chinese and Russian officials and nongovernmental experts), paying particular attention to how U.S. policies on missile defense and conventional weapons would affect the proposals in Chinese and Russian eyes, as well as Chinese and Russian views on the proposals more generally.

“Engaging More Nations in Arms Control”

In April 2009, U.S. President Obama reiterated the U.S. and Russian commitment to negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) by the end of the year, noting that it would “set the stage for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in this endeavor.”53 Russia has already called for engaging more nations in arms control. While this is most often interpreted to mean counting U.K. and French forces together with U.S. forces as a common, NATO force, Russia has periodically made it clear that it thinks China, too, should be engaged. China is not, it must be noted, against engagement in arms control; indeed, it has a long-stated policy of support for disarmament. However, Beijing does not believe that Chinese forces should be reduced until U.S. and Russian stockpiles descend to levels comparable to the Chinese. Indeed, some increases in Chinese force levels would not contradict China's stance that it takes its NPT Article VI commitment seriously and seeks global disarmament, but in the meantime requires nuclear weapons to counter the weapons of other countries.

At the same time, engaging China in arms control talks is possible. Beijing increasingly views itself as a major world power and is interested in enhancing its status. While China is unlikely to reduce the numbers of its nuclear weapons in the near term, it should be interested in a seat at the table—and the prestige of being engaged in nuclear talks with Washington and Moscow.

Colonel Wang Zhongchun of China's National Defense University has noted that “China will sooner or later join bilateral or multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations,” though he goes on to say that “as China's participation … will unavoidably lead to a reduction and weakening of its strategic deterrent force, we should improve the base number of our nuclear force before participating in any nuclear disarmament negotiations.”54 Wang's argument is not, however, to give China an advantage, but to enable it to engage in arms control without losing its deterrent force prematurely (while the United States and Russia continue to have their own nuclear forces). Further, he notes that China should give “firm support and full cooperation” to U.S. policies and actions against nuclear proliferation to “separatists, extremists and terrorists.”55

Engaging China in arms reductions is difficult, but engaging it with confidence-building measures (CBMs) can and should begin now. This will require the development of some new methods, while others can be borrowed from the U.S.–Russian experience. The U.S. and Russian (Soviet) methods of accounting and verification could be very problematic for the Chinese deterrent, given its reliance on a lack of transparency, although Beijing has traditionally been a supporter of verification in international arms control treaties. Additionally, if the United States (or Russia) continues to improve its non-nuclear strategic force, particularly together with missile defense, China would have to either increase the quantity or quality of its weapon systems (the latter could be considered vertical proliferation) or rethink its no-first-use pledge.56 To avoid this eventuality, missile defense and long-range non-nuclear weapons would have to be the subject of arms control talks and subject either to controls or, possibly in the case of missile defense, internationalization.

Confidence-Building Measures

Either in tandem with arms control talks, or possibly as a preliminary step to such talks, CBMs should be considered. Several of the START CBMs could be undertaken trilaterally. Although China's official position is that it will consider joining the multilateral nuclear arms reduction process only after dramatic cuts in the arsenals of the two nuclear superpowers, nothing prevents it from engaging in CBMs now. START contains sixteen types of inspections and ten groups of CBMs with 152 types of notifications.57 Given the level of secrecy surrounding the Chinese nuclear arsenal, it seems very unlikely that Beijing would consider allowing inspections. Many of the 152 types of CBMs, however, may be appropriate for China. The following notification provisions, for example, could be accepted by China without compromising its security:

• notification of the location of a production facility at which production of ICBMs, SLBMs, or their first stages is planned;

• notification of production of new types of strategic bombers, ICBMs, SLBMs, and air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs);

• notification of the deployment of new types of strategic bombers, ICBMs, SLBMs, and ALCMs;

• notification of exercises involving strategic bombers, ICBMs, SLBMs, and ALCMs; and

• notification of conversion and/or elimination of existing facilities and means of delivery (ICBMs, SLBMs, strategic bombers, and ALCMs).

This data could include technical characteristics of the facilities, missiles, and strategic bombers that would be agreed by contracting parties. Engaging China in discussions on possible CBMs in and of itself is a promising pathway toward building the understanding and trust needed to engage in arms control talks at some point in the future.

No-First-Use Treaty

Nonproliferation experts seeking ways to increase stability and decrease the risk of nuclear accidents highlight the Chinese NFU initiative. Both U.S. and Russian nuclear doctrines run contrary to the agreement of a No-First-Use Treaty: the United States because it employs its nuclear weapons as a deterrent to chemical attacks and because it believes an NFU policy could undermine deterrence; Russia because its nuclear forces are called upon to deter conventional conflicts.58 However, John Holdren, the new head of the White House Science and Technology Office, has urged a U.S. NFU policy.59

The general concept of NFU still leaves a good deal of room for negotiation, however, as the definition of “first use” is far from obvious. For example, would a conventional strike on a nuclear target or a strike using chemical or biological weapons count as first use?60 Broadening the concept still further, some might argue for including strikes with a “WMD-like effect”—such as a strike on the Three Gorges Dam—as a “first-use” strike requiring nuclear retaliation. However, an NFU Treaty that adopted a broad definition of first use would serve to codify an increased range of uses for nuclear weapons, consolidating a norm of their usefulness—and would take the world further from the possibility of disarmament. Thus, until all three countries can find ways to protect themselves that do not include nuclear weapons, it is not self-evident that negotiations on an NFU Treaty will be helpful. Instead, efforts to this end should begin by dealing with the threats that the United States and Russia have said their nuclear weapons are meant to deter; reducing worries about these threats is necessary to create the possibility of a useful NFU Treaty (whereby nuclear weapons would be used only to retaliate for a nuclear strike).

Negative Security Assurances

Still another area of possible future cooperation in arms control involves the provision of assurances to non-nuclear states that the nuclear weapon states will not strike them with nuclear weapons. Such assurances have been provided under the auspices of nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties but have yet to be codified in a more general document. Moreover, not all nuclear weapon states have signed the protocols to each of these treaties; Beijing is ahead in this regard. Obama has committed to diminishing the role of nuclear weapons in nuclear security policy, a step on the road toward disarmament.61 Along with doctrinal changes, codifying negative security assurances is another way to achieve this goal. Even more so than an NFU Treaty, however, negative security assurances require changes to current U.S. and Russian strategic policy: nuclear forces could no longer be used to deter a chemical or conventional attack from non-nuclear states (though, conceivably, they could still be used to deter a non-nuclear attack from nuclear weapon states). This January, Moscow noted its willingness to engage in substantive discussions on security assurances at the Conference on Disarmament (CD).62 Beijing, for its part, has suggested negotiating a protocol on security assurances under the NPT framework, though trilateral negotiations would likely be welcomed as well.63

Changing the Cold War Posture of Deployed Nuclear Weapons to Increase Decision-Making Time

Currently, the top levels of leadership in nuclear weapon states have an estimated six to seven minutes to decide whether or not to launch nuclear weapons in response to the detection of incoming missiles (though Chinese policy appears to require evidence of an actual nuclear explosion, not simply incoming missiles).64 This increases the possibility of accidents—from misinterpreting a rocket launch, to radar error, to computing or other mistakes. Such errors have happened on multiple occasions and are likely to increase if more nations develop long-range missile arsenals. Thus, various experts have suggested that measures must be taken to increase the time policy makers have to make a nuclear launch decision. However, Moscow in particular has worried about verifying the non-nuclear status of long-range conventional precision-strike systems and would certainly be wary of reducing its nuclear arsenal's readiness unless concerns about the new conventional strike forces can be assuaged. New Chinese long-range conventional weapons, too, are externally indistinguishable from their nuclear counterparts. Beijing does not keep its nuclear forces on “hair-trigger” alert, but it could be wary of an agreement to codify new deployment modes that increase warning time if the survivability of its nuclear forces is threatened by new conventional weapons. While China does not currently possess the early warning systems needed to complement a launch-on-warning posture, it could develop such systems if pushed, which, in turn, might fuel an arms race in space.65 If more decision-making time cannot be provided in some other manner, then it is in the interest of all states possessing nuclear weapons to cooperate in establishing better early warning systems so that these systems do not result in false positives that could trigger a nuclear exchange.

Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty

Another arms control measure that has been under consideration for years is the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), ending production of fissile material for weapons. While Washington, Beijing, and Moscow all officially support an FMCT that would ban new production and would allow them to maintain current fissile material stockpiles (some other states seek a treaty that also covers past production); there are some major differences among them regarding the details. China could be quite disadvantaged by such an agreement because it has a far smaller fissile material stockpile than the United States and Russia.66 As noted by Li Bin, director of the Arms Control Program at Tsinghua University, if U.S. missile defenses were to be realized to the degree that China requires additional weapons to ensure a reliable deterrent, “China may need to produce additional fissile materials for the new warheads, especially if China chooses to add silo-based ICBMs. This factor would make China reluctant to join a FMCT if it wants to keep open the option of such a buildup.”67 Another particular difficulty for China is FMCT verification: intrusive inspections at defense industry plants might be difficult. While the Bush administration viewed an FMCT as unverifiable, the Obama administration has indicated a different view. Moscow has long held that an FMCT must include international verification, albeit only at fuel cycle facilities and not all civilian nuclear enterprises; given that there are quite a few facilities in Russia with both military and civilian applications, the “comprehensive” verification approach would be particularly difficult.68

Though Washington has indicated that the conclusion of an FMCT is a top priority, the position of Beijing, in particular, is unclear. For many years, China linked the negotiation of an FMCT with progress in the negotiation of a treaty on outer space (examined below). While it no longer links the two issues directly, it continues to link them indirectly. For example, in November 2008 an official Chinese statement noted: “China supports the CD to reach a comprehensive and balanced program of work and to start negotiations on a multilateral, non-discriminatory and internationally verifiable FMCT on the basis of that.”69 This balanced work program apparently entails at least some agreement on the need to negotiate a space treaty. Indeed, though the CD finally agreed on a work agenda for the 2009 session last May (after a hiatus of over a decade), negotiations have yet to begin. Chinese diplomats have played a role in this delay, though their reasons remain opaque.70

There are several reasons why an FMCT should be in the interest of Russia, China, and the United States. For Moscow and Washington, a treaty would reinforce the commitment to nuclear reductions (though without seriously threatening weapons numbers, unless the treaty considers past, and not just future, production). An FMCT is also a way to involve China in arms control without reducing China's already very small number of weapons. For Beijing, it would be a way to signal that the goals of its nuclear modernization are limited, and it would help to support Beijing's promotion of disarmament with concrete action. Despite the possibility that it will eventually support an FMCT, Beijing remains more concerned about weaponization in space than numbers of nuclear weapons on the ground and will therefore be unlikely to conclude an agreement in one area without significant progress in the other.

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

Yet another arms control measure that will be critical to moving toward disarmament (and away from an arms race) is the conclusion and ratification of a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) by all key states. Obama has stated that “my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification” of the CTBT.71 While Russia has both signed and ratified a CTBT and has little need to rethink this commitment, Beijing has yet to ratify. However, as recently as last November, Kang Yong, China's representative to the UN General Assembly First Committee, stated, “China actively promotes the early entry into force of the CTBT. China commits itself to the early ratification of the CTBT.”72 He also reaffirmed China's moratorium on nuclear tests.

For China, though, U.S. missile defense plans could make joining the CTBT problematic: if Chinese military experts decide that China needs the capability of a maneuvering warhead to evade missile defense interceptors, they may need to test the redesigned warheads.73 It is not clear that the Obama administration, however, will be willing to back down on missile defense in order to obtain Chinese agreement on a CTBT. Without a CTBT, though, further progress toward disarmament is unlikely; the nuclear weapon states’ commitment to NPT Article VI will not be taken seriously by non-nuclear weapon states, and the possibility of a future arms race (instigated in large part by the fear of U.S. missile defenses and precision weapons) is increased.

Treaty on the Prevention of the Deployment of Weapons in Outer Space

Preventing the use of outer space for the deployment of weapons (or missile defenses) is another controversial issue between the United States on one side and Russia and China on the other.74 The United States relies heavily on its space assets for both civilian and military applications. Calls for the prevention of a “Space Pearl Harbor” from high-ranking U.S. officials have transformed into the concept of “space control”—denying access to space as a part of U.S. defensive strategy.75 Short of this goal are plans for the deployment of missile defense elements in space, including interceptors. This idea in particular has been met with distrust in Beijing and Moscow. Unless an agreement codifying the agreed parameters for the use of space—whether for missile defense or other defensive purposes—can be concluded, space issues may not only derail current disarmament progress, but also effectively prevent Washington, Moscow, and Beijing from engaging in multilateral arms control discussions.

In recent years China and Russia have launched coordinated diplomatic efforts to promote the prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS). In 2002, together with Belarus, Indonesia, Syria, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe, they introduced to the CD in Geneva a draft outline for a “Treaty on the Prevention of the Deployment of Weapons in Outer Space, [and of] the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects.”76 Two years later, Russia and China submitted two “non-papers,” on the “Verification Aspects of PAROS” and “Existing International Legal Instruments and Prevention of the Weaponization of Outer Space,” to stimulate the work of the CD's Ad Hoc Committee on PAROS.77 Submission of a draft “Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects” (PPWT) in February 2008 was the culmination of Chinese-Russian bilateral cooperation on PAROS. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that the “Treaty is to eliminate existing lacunas in international space law, create conditions for further exploration and use of space, preserve costly space property, and strengthen general security and arms control.”78

Although U.S. reluctance to address this issue, which both China and Russia see as crucial, is affecting strategic relations between the three countries, the Chinese and Russian situations are not identical.79 Russia is one of the few countries that possess and continue to develop a full range of space capabilities, including early warning satellites, optical reconnaissance, naval reconnaissance, signal intelligence, navigation and communication satellites, as well as relevant supporting infrastructure.80 Although Russia has experienced some difficulties in maintaining all the systems that it inherited, it has managed to sustain the key infrastructure and satellite constellations crucial to national security. In the 2000s Russia even started to expand its GLONASS navigation satellite program. Moscow believes that it can and should use space assets to maintain parity with the United States. To counter the expansion of U.S. space-based weapons, Russia might also contemplate measures like further extending the service life of its multiple-warhead ballistic missiles, as it did in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, or undertaking an “asymmetric” response such as targeting new U.S. space systems.

For China, the issue of space weaponization is far more sensitive than for Russia; it sees the main U.S. aim as denying China access to space and thus hindering its “peaceful rise.” Further, China sees missile defense as part of a U.S. plan for space denial. The implications of U.S. space policy for China include the potential loss of its strategic nuclear deterrent capability vis-à-vis the United States, complication of reunification efforts with Taiwan, and limitations on China's civilian and commercial space activities. It could also cause a space arms race and damage arms control, disarmament, and nuclear nonproliferation regimes. As Chinese Ambassador Hu Xiaodi put it:

It should be stressed that efforts to prevent an arms race in outer space and those on nuclear disarmament go hand in hand. In this perspective, it is of crucial importance for nuclear disarmament that a missile defense system undermining strategic stability should not be developed, and that no weapons should be deployed in outer space. It is hard to imagine that once a full-fledged missile defense system is put in place or weapons have been introduced into outer space there can be business as usual in nuclear disarmament.81

Indeed, to counter the deployment of space systems as part of a missile defense shield, China could consider expanding its ballistic missile capabilities. China possesses some twenty ICBMs (DF-5As) capable of striking the continental United States.82 Hui Zhang, a research associate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, suggests that in the absence of U.S. missile defense plans, “China might be expected to build no more than 50 ICBMs by 2015.”83 Were a limited missile defense deployed, China could boost its arsenal to 100–300 ICBMs. According to Zhang's calculations, with the 250 interceptors originally envisioned by the Clinton administration, “China would need at least 270 ICBMs” to maintain the current level of deterrence capability.84 In addition to building more warheads and ICBMs, other elements of a Chinese response could include instituting measures to counter boost-phase, midcourse, and terminal-phase missile defenses; MIRVing ICBMs; introducing antisatellite (ASAT) weapons; and reconsidering China's commitment to arms control agreements.85

For the moment, though, China is pursuing diplomacy, trying to preempt space weaponization by promoting the conclusion of a multilateral, legally binding agreement before the problem worsens. In this respect, the ASAT test performed by China on January 11, 2007 is worth special mention. Only after the U.S. government revealed the incident on January 18 did China publicly acknowledge the test (on January 23), noting that “the test was not targeted against any country and does not pose a threat to any country.”86 Yet some commentators considered the destruction of China's aging weather satellite as evidence that China is pursuing an ASAT capability that could threaten U.S. space assets. Others, while recognizing a likely Chinese intent to demonstrate that U.S. space assets could be vulnerable to attack, argued that the primary goal of this exercise was probably to encourage the United States to abandon its long-standing opposition to negotiations on PAROS.87

This effort has not met with much success. On February 13, 2007, U.S. Ambassador Christina Rocca told the CD, “Despite the ASAT test, we continue to believe that there is no arms race in space, and therefore no problem for arms control to solve.”88 Further, the U.S. shoot-down of a crippled spy satellite on February 20, 2008, which confirmed that the U.S. sea-based missile defense system possessed inherent ASAT capabilities, did little to suggest U.S. support for the Sino-Russian treaty endeavor.89 The Obama administration has not backed the PPWT either and continues to promote missile defense, though a slightly scaled-back version.

If Beijing believes that the United States is pursuing missile defenses without considering Chinese interests, it may change its positions on the FMCT, CTBT, or other arms control agreements. As noted in an official Chinese statement in November 2008, “to prevent the deployment of weapons in outer space is conducive to maintaining global strategic balance and stability, and will prevent arms race including [a] nuclear one.”90 Moscow, for its part, is likely to work toward negating U.S. achievements in space and will be less likely to make concessions in other areas of common security interest.

Cooperative Missile Defense

Given the interlinkage between missile defenses and strategic stability, bilateral or multilateral cooperation—or some form of political agreement limiting or otherwise managing defense architectures—involving Washington, Moscow, and Beijing is clearly needed. In July, Washington and Moscow issued a Joint Understanding to guide START follow-on negotiations that included “a provision on the interrelationship of strategic offensive and strategic defense arms.”91 Just what this provision may entail is likely to be the subject of difficult negotiations. To date, there have been no proposals for a global missile defense architecture or replacement for the ABM Treaty. Instead, Russia has proposed cooperative missile defense in Europe, and there were reports of preliminary discussions of Sino-Russian cooperation in this area in 2000, as mentioned above. Given the sensitivity of the technologies involved in missile defense systems, as well as the difficulties of organizing decision making over a joint system, a global architecture is difficult to imagine. Perhaps two systems—one in Europe, one in Northeast Asia—could be established. In any event, it is clear that engaging Beijing and Moscow on this issue is essential to any movement forward on nuclear disarmament.

Conclusion

By the end of 2009, the United States is scheduled to have concluded a new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and Russia a new military doctrine. Without concerted efforts on the part of top leaders to push for major changes, neither is likely to alter strategic postures. It is, however, the perfect opportunity to make such a doctrinal shift, since much of the new technology and equipment envisioned under the 2001 NPR have yet to be created, while Russia and China similarly have not yet had the sort of strategic forces buildup that would make maintaining a small nuclear force into the future less plausible.

The U.S. NPR, along with actions in the area of missile defense, space, and conventional weapons, is intimately linked to Russian doctrinal decisions, as well as policy movement on nuclear disarmament. These linkages must be recognized and dealt with, not ignored. For example, it is clear that PAROS remains an issue of top priority for China: U.S. unwillingness to compromise on this issue is likely to have repercussions on issues of interest to the United States. In the view of Chinese experts, the future of arms control lies in a comprehensive framework covering all aspects of nuclear forces, since they see future nuclear capabilities not in terms of warhead quantity, but overall strategic capability. Qualitative improvements in nuclear weapons, including new uses of information technology, along with advanced conventional weapons, missile defenses, the use of space, and other new war-fighting capabilities, mean that arms control can no longer be based on restricting certain types of delivery systems as was done in START, though in the near term Beijing supports the continuation of U.S.–Russian reductions in this format in addition to the launch of broader endeavors.92 Moscow, too, appears to be willing to work on both traditional and new arms control agreements, though like Beijing it is unlikely to want to discuss a road to nuclear zero unless it includes control of missile defenses and long-range conventional weapons, among other issues.

The current opportunity to improve U.S.–Russian, U.S.–Chinese, and trilateral cooperation may disappear if the U.S. trajectory of the past few years is not dramatically altered. While Chinese actions to date remain inconclusive, the Russian military appears to be coming closer to a decision that could mean a substantial buildup of nuclear forces in the near future, though the current economic crisis may provide some additional breathing space. Russia's view of the United States could be softened if Washington were to find ways to make its actions less threatening. Russia's future stance vis-à-vis China is also unclear. Tsyganok has noted that although China is in fact Russia's main potential opponent, Russia's increasing opposition to NATO is “pushing [Russia] into China's embrace.”93 Possible Chinese responses to a perceived U.S. buildup (in particular, a decision to “catch up” to the United States) could cause Moscow to hesitate, but this is hardly likely to create a more stable strategic situation.

All eyes are on the new administration in Washington, which has a brief window of opportunity to influence the future course of events. While the vision of a world that depends upon conventional weapons and defenses appears preferable to one based on nuclear deterrence, U.S. moves toward this vision have instead increased the likelihood of a nuclear arms race. Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to try to match U.S. moves in the areas of missile defense and conventional weapons, even though they have made some steps toward improvements in both areas, because of the great expenses involved. Instead, they are deterring U.S. nuclear attack through their own nuclear forces and speak of developing additional asymmetric measures. The United States faces two alternative choices to the status quo. The first alternative is to engage Beijing and Moscow in talks about missile defense and the control of weapons in other areas (including not just long-range conventional forces, but also cruise missiles and weaponization of space). The second alternative is for Washington to slow down efforts in all of these areas until nuclear disarmament measures have moved forward. If neither of these choices is taken, then progress on arms control, to say nothing of nuclear disarmament, is likely to prove impossible. And without continuing arms control, the nuclear nonproliferation regime itself may be endangered.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for supporting their research. The viewpoints expressed in the article are those of the authors alone. An early version of this article was presented at the conference “Trilateral Relations Among China, Russia, and the U.S.A.: Structure, Perceptions and Politics,” Shanghai, China, September 26–28, 2008. The authors would like to thank conference participants for their comments, which helped to inform their later work. Similarly, the authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewer of their article “Strategic Relations between the United States, Russia, and China and the Possibility of Cooperation on Disarmament” (published in Engaging China and Russia on Nuclear Disarmament, Cristina Hansell and William C. Potter, eds., James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Occasional Paper No. 15, April 2009), of which this article is an updated version.

Notes

1. “Remarks by President Barack Obama,” Prague, Czech Republic, April 5, 2009.

2. For more discussion of Russian nuclear doctrine, see Nikolai Sokov, “The Evolving Role of Nuclear Weapons in Russia's Security Policy,” in Cristina Hansell and William C. Potter, eds., Engaging China and Russia on Nuclear Disarmament, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Occasional Paper No. 15, April 2009.

3. Russia resumed strategic bomber patrol flights over the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans in August 2007. Strategic submarine patrols have also become increasingly regular (ten nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine [SSBN] patrols in 2008, compared with three in 2007, five in 2006, and none in 2002). Though quite modest compared to during the Cold War, they could lead to a return to continuous patrols. “Russian Strategic Bombers Conduct Patrols over Arctic,” RIA Novosti, January 21, 2009; Hans Kristensen, “Russian Strategic Submarine Patrols Rebound,” Federation of American Scientists Strategic Security Blog, February 17, 2009, <www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/02/russia.php#more-816>.

4. “Strategiya natisonalnoy bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii do 2020 goda” [National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation through 2020], confirmed by Russian Presidential Decree No. 537 of May 12, 2009, Russian Security Council, <www.scrf.gov.ru/documents/99.html>.

5. China has traditionally viewed the concept of “deterrence” as negative and until recently used this term to refer to the practice employed by the United States, for example, not China itself. China's nuclear force was instead used to prevent the use of deterrent forces to attack or coerce China—“defensive” deterrence, as opposed to the “offensive nuclear deterrence of hegemonism.” See Michael S. Chase and Evan Medeiros, “China's Evolving Nuclear Calculus: Modernization and Doctrinal Debate,” in James Mulvenon and David Finkelstein, eds., China's Revolution in Doctrinal Affairs: Emerging Trends in the Operational Art of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (Alexandria, VA: CNA Corporation, December 2005), pp. 119–54.

6. The Chinese term zuidi xiandu weishe is commonly translated as “minimum deterrence”; Jeffrey Lewis more accurately translates it as “minimum means of reprisal.” Jeffrey Lewis, “The Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age,” PhD diss., University of Maryland at College Park, 2004, p. 13.

7. While a U.S. (or Russian) president would have only six or seven minutes to decide whether to launch a nuclear counterattack should he be given news of a first strike launched toward U.S. (or Russian) territory, there is no evidence that the Chinese nuclear forces have ever been put on alert. See Lewis, “The Minimum Means of Reprisal,” p. 16.

8. Interview with Sha Zukang, director-general of Department of Arms Control And Disarmament ofMinistry of Foreign Affairs, in Tseng Shu-wan, “US Nuclear Proliferation Threatens Global Security—Sha Zukang on Ways China Should Handle It, Stressing Needs To Ensure The Effectiveness ofRetaliatory Capacity,” Wen Wei Po, June 11, 2000, FBIS Document CPP-2000-0711-000024, as cited in Lewis, “The Minimum Means of Reprisal,” p. 13.

9. China does not have a capable, blue-water SSBN force. However, three or four Jin-class (Type 094) SSBNs are currently under construction. This number is not sufficient to maintain one vessel on continuous patrol for deterrence purposes; should Beijing decide to create this sort of naval deterrent, several more Jin-class boats would be needed. For details on the new SSBN, see Hans Kristensen, “New Chinese SSBN Deploys to Hainan Island,” FAS Strategic Security Blog, April 24, 2008, <www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/04/new-chinese-ssbn-deploys-to-hainan-island-naval-base.php>.

10. For an examination of Chinese writings on limited deterrence, see Chase and Medeiros, “China's Evolving Nuclear Calculus.”

11. Sun Xiangli, “Analysis of China's Nuclear Strategy,” China Security, No. 1 (August 2005), pp. 23–27, as cited in Jeffrey Lewis, “Chinese Nuclear Posture and Force Modernization,” in Cristina Hansell and William C. Potter, eds., Engaging China and Russia on Nuclear Disarmament, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Occasional Paper No. 15, April 2009.

12. Jun Xue, “Views on Improving the Capabilities of the Military in Implementing Its Historic Mission,” Zhongguo Junshi Kexue, October 20, 2007, pp. 104–108, 124, in “PRC: PLA Must Improve Capabilities, Safeguard Party's ‘Ruling Status’ in New Era,” FBIS Document CPP-20080618436001.

13. Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy,” Foreign Affairs 85 (March/April 2006). The article was much commented on in the Russian and Chinese press, including several articles in the Autumn 2006 China Security, <www.worldsecurityinstitute.org/showpublications.cfm?id=149>.

14. George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol, “European Missile Defense: The Technological Basis of Russian Concerns,” Arms Control Today, October 2007.

15. National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD-23, December 16, 2002, <www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-23.htm>.

16. “SShA issleduyet vozmozhnosti i sistemy PRO po unichtozheniyu rossiyskikh i kitayskikh raket—ekspert RVSN” [U.S. Studies Missile Defense Capabilities and Systems for the Destruction of Russian and Chinese Missiles—Strategic Rocket Forces Expert], ARMS-TASS, December 8, 2008.

17. Lewis and Postol, “European Missile Defense.”

18. Eric Hundman, “Russian Nuclear Arsenal,” Center for Defense Information, July 30, 2008, <www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=2967>.

19. “S-400 (SA-20 Triumf),” Missilethreat.com, Claremont Institute, <www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.52/system_detail.asp>.

20. “Vozmozhnosti i perspektivy novykh zenitnykh raket S-400” [Capabilities and Prospects for the New S-400 Anti-Aircraft Missile], RIA Novosti, July 13, 2007.

21. “Russian Missiles near Poland to ‘Offset’ U.S. Shield—NATO Envoy,” RIA Novosti, November 5, 2008.

22. “Joint Statement by Dmitry A. Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation, and Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, on Missile Defense Issues,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, July 6, 2009.

23. Sha Zukang, “The Impact of the U.S. Missile Defense Programme on the Global Security Structure,” CPAPD/ORG Joint Seminar on Missile Defense and the Future of the ABM Treaty, March 13–15, 2000, Beijing, as cited in Li Bin, “The Impact of U.S. NMD on Chinese Nuclear Modernization,” Pugwash Workshop on East Asian Security, April 3–6, 2001, Seoul, <www.pugwash.org/reports/rc/rc8e.htm>.

24. Li Bin categorizes the various options that have been discussed as follows: 1) methods to overwhelm the defense by building more ICBMs, MIRVing the Chinese ICBMs to multiply the number of warheads, releasing decoys from the missiles, or dispersing chaff to fool the sensors of the defense; 2) methods to lower the observability of the warheads by applying stealth technology; 3) methods to create a rivalry between the warheads and the interceptors during the flight, such as through maneuverable warheads; and 4) means to raise the survivability of the Chinese ICBMs by deploying mobile ICBMs and/or SLBMs, building a missile defense, or putting the Chinese nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert. Li Bin, “The Impact of U.S. NMD on Chinese Nuclear Modernization.”

25. “Joint Statement of The People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation On Major International Issues,” Chinese Foreign Ministry, May 23, 2008.

26. Roland Timerbaev, Rossiya i yadernoye nerasprostraneniye, 1945–1968 [Russia and Nuclear Nonproliferation, 1945–1968] (Moscow: Nauka, 1999).

27. The information in this paragraph is largely derived from Shizilukou Shang de Shijie [The World at a Crossroads] (Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Press, 2000), “Excerpt of PRC Book on International Strategy,” FBIS Document CPP20070110320011.

28. The information in this paragraph is largely derived from Shizilukou Shang de Shijie [The World at a Crossroads] (Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Press, 2000), “Excerpt of PRC Book on International Strategy,” FBIS Document CPP20070110320011. The agreement, “On Not Aiming Guided Missiles at Each Other and Not Using Nuclear Weapons Against Each Other First,” was promulgated in August 1994.

29. Yang Jiemian, Dahezuo [Grand Cooperation] (Tianjin: Renmin Chubanshe, 2005), as translated in “Excerpt of PRC Book on China's Global Strategy,” FBIS Document CPP20070618320001.

30. Some Russian politicians began to note that Russian and Chinese approaches to many international issues were very similar, in particular on disarmament, arms control, and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. See statement by Amur region Senator Igor Rogachev, “Russian-Chinese Relations—Together on the Road of Partnership and Cooperation,” Xinhua, January 12, 2002.

31. See, for example, briefing by Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, January 20, 1999, <www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/news99/t01201999_t0120md.htm>, at which Cohen stated that “[missile defense] deployment might require modifications to the [ABM] treaty and the Administration is working to determine the nature and the scope of these modifications. … The ABM Treaty also provides, of course, for right of withdrawal with six months notice if a party concludes it's in its supreme national interests.” A joint regional missile shield was reportedly discussed during both Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian's January 2000 visit to Moscow and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov's February 2000 visit to Beijing. Vladimir Kucherin, “Ne tolko v oblasti baleta” [Not Only in the Sphere of Ballet], Rossiyskaya gazeta, May 25, 2000.

32. For example, Russia was wary of selling the most modern fighter aircraft (such as the Su-37) and advanced air defense systems. Some Russian experts have argued that the weapon systems sold to China have already been excessive.

33. Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation, July 16, 2001, Chinese Foreign Ministry, <www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjdt/2649/t15771.htm>.

34. Sergei Brezkun and Victor Mikhailov, “Kak uderzhat globalnyy treugolnik” [How to Maintain the Global Triangle], Voyenno-promyshlennyy kuryer [Military-Industrial Courier], October 12–18, 2005.

35. Brezkun and Mikhailov, “Kak uderzhat.”

36. Vyacheslav Baskakov and Aleksandr Gorshkov, “Raketno-yadernyy arsenal Pekina” [Beijing's Nuclear Arsenal], Nezavisimoye voyennoye obozreniye [Independent Military Observer], April 5, 2002.

37. Aleksandr Khramchikhin, “Ugroza, kotoraya sama po sebe ‘ne rassosetsya’” [The Threat that Will ‘Not Be Resolved’ by Itself], Nezavisimaya voyennoye obozreniye [Independent Military Observer], February 22, 2008.

38. Aleksandr Khramchikhin, “Ugroza, kotoraya sama po sebe ‘ne rassosetsya’” [The Threat that Will ‘Not Be Resolved’ by Itself], Nezavisimaya voyennoye obozreniye [Independent Military Observer], February 22, 2008. It should be noted that while Khramchikhin is far from the first Russian to be interested in Chinese emigration northward, most do not speak of actual border changes. A detailed review of Russian views of China and vice versa can be found in Yevgeny Bazhanov, China: From the Middle Kingdom to a Superpower of the XXI Century (Moscow: Izvestia Press, 2007).

39. Dmitry Trenin and Vitaly Tsygichko, “China to Russia: Comrade or Master?” Security Index 2 (2007).

40. Bazhanov, China: From the Middle Kingdom to a Superpower of the XXI Century.

41. Bazhanov, China: From the Middle Kingdom to a Superpower of the XXI Century. p. 329.

42. Bazhanov, China: From the Middle Kingdom to a Superpower of the XXI Century., p. 331–32.

43. Cited in Bazhanov, China: From the Middle Kingdom to a Superpower of the XXI Century, p. 333.

44. V.L. Sedelnikov, “Military and Economic Strategy and the Restructuring of China's Armed Forces,” Military Thought, Issue 9 (2007), p. 68.

45. For example, Vladimir Malyavin argues that Russia does not have a clear understanding of how to interact with China. Vladimir Malyavin, “Podlinnyy Kitay sokryt ot vneshnogo mira” [The Real China is Hidden from the Outside World,” Russkiy zhurnal, June 10, 2009.

46. Tsyganok further argues that Chinese expansion will pose a threat to Russia. Anatoliy Tsyganok, “Plyusy i minusy ‘Strategii natsionalnoy bezopasnosti” [Pluses and Minuses of the ‘National Security Strategy’], Polit.ru, June 19, 2009, <www.polit.ru/author/2009/06/19/nats.html>.

47. For additional Chinese views of Russian nuclear capabilities, see Lora Saalman, “Chinese Analysts’ Views on Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nuclear Deterrence after the Cold War,” in Cristina Hansell and William C. Potter, eds., Engaging China and Russia on Nuclear Disarmament, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Occasional Paper No. 15, April 2009. Saalman notes, for example, that Qian Shaojun argues that Russia's work to miniaturize low-yield nuclear weapons and pursue new weapons designs, along with U.S. actions, has lowered the threshold for nuclear conflict. Qian Shaojun, ed., Hewuqi Zhuangbei [Nuclear Weapons Equipment] (Beijing: Zongzhuangbeibu Dianzi Xinxi Jichubu, Yuanzineng Chubanshe, Hangkong Gongye Chubanshe, and Bingqi Gongye Chubanshe, July 2003), p. 153, as cited in Saalman.

48. Guojia Anquan Gongmin Shouce [Public Handbook on National Security] (Beijing: Shishi Chubanshe, 2003), as translated in “Excerpt of PRC Handbook on National Security,” FBIS Document CPP20070911320005.

49. Guojia Anquan Gongmin Shouce. See also Ren Xiangqun, “World Military Security Becoming More Complex by the Day,” Liaowang [Outlook], October 2, 2006 (as translated in “PRC Expert Analyzes Increasingly Complex Global Military Security,” FBIS Document CPP20061011718014), for yet another military expert's assessment of the current U.S.–Russian “strategic arms race.”

50. An entire session of a Chinese-Russian-U.S. conference on trilateral relations held in September 2008 was devoted to the topic of a new Cold War. Shen Dingli of Fudan University averred that a new Cold War had indeed already begun, with actual hot conflicts involving states linked to Moscow and Washington already fought (in Serbia and Georgia). However, he noted that this Cold War did not have to continue and that from the Chinese perspective, a new Cold War was not positive (“if the U.S. loses, China loses”). Pan Xingming of the East China Normal University School of Advanced International and Area Studies defined “Cold War” as “international containment” with a struggle over interests, influence, and power and noted that this was what U.S. policy looks like today. U.S. and Russian conference participants did not share the view that a Cold War had already or would soon emerge. “Trilateral Relations Among China, Russia, and the U.S.A.: Structure, Perceptions and Politics,” Shanghai, China, September 26–28, 2008.

51. Indeed, China was party to a new Asian Development Bank loan made to Georgia on extremely preferential terms and expressed its “concern” about Russia's actions in Georgia in August 2008. Keith Bradsher, “Loan to Georgia Illustrates Asian Dismay With Russia,” New York Times, September 13, 2008, p. A9.

52. Cui Liru, ed. Dongbeiya Diqu Anquan Zhengce Ji Anquan Hezuo Guoxiang [Regional Security Policy and Security Cooperation Blueprints for Northeast Asia] (Beijing: Shishi Chubanshe, 2006), as translated in “Summary of PRC Book on Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia,” FBIS Document CPP20071016320001.

53. “Remarks by President Barack Obama,” April 5, 2009.

54. Wang Zhongchun, “Nuclear Challenges and China's Choices,” China Security, Winter 2007, pp. 52–65.

55. Further discussion of Wang Zhongchun's views and his book Hewuqi, Heguojia, Hezhanlue [Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Powers and Nuclear Strategies] can be found in Saalman, “Chinese Analysts’ Views on Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nuclear Deterrence after the Cold War.”

56. Evidence that Second Artillery planners are concerned about the vulnerability of China's silo-based missiles to an attack by conventional precision-guided munitions is discussed in Wang Houqing and Zhang Xingye, eds., Zhanyixue [The Science of Campaigns] (Beijing: Guofang Daxue Chubanshe, May 2000); and Chase and Medeiros, “China's Evolving Nuclear Calculus,” pp. 144–45.

57. See Vladimir Dvorkin, “Reducing Russia's Reliance on Nuclear Weapons in Security Policies,” in Cristina Hansell and William C. Potter, eds., Engaging China and Russia on Nuclear Disarmament, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Occasional Paper No. 15, April 2009.

58. Walter Pincus, “Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan: Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons,” Washington Post, September 11, 2005, p. A1.

59. Stephen Dinan, “Obama Science-Tech Team Takes Aim at Global Warming,” Washington Times, December 21, 2008; “Obama Taps Nonproliferation Expert as Science Adviser,” Global Security Newswire, December 22, 2008, <gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20081222_5906.php>.

60. Stephen Dinan, “Obama Science-Tech Team Takes Aim at Global Warming,” Washington Times, December 21, 2008; “Obama Taps Nonproliferation Expert as Science Adviser,” Global Security Newswire, December 22, 2008, <gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20081222_5906.php>.

61. “Remarks by President Barack Obama,” April 5, 2009.

62. Valery Loschinin, Statement to the CD, January 20, 2009, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches09/1session/20january_Russia.html>.

63. For a recent official Chinese statement, see the May 9, 2007 Chinese statement, Reaching Critical Will, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom07/statements/9mayChina_morning.doc>. For more information, see Shen Dingli, “China's Negative Security Assurances,” Eliminating Weapons of Mass Destruction: Electronic Essays, Stimson Center, October 1998, as cited in Chase and Medeiros, “China's Evolving Nuclear Calculus,” p. 140.

64. Although it may be argued that China has no other option, since it currently lacks the early warning system necessary to ensure an earlier response, the authors believe that even with a better satellite system, China would continue to maintain its current policy due to its overarching concept of its nuclear posture, which calls for the use of nuclear weapons in retaliatory strikes only.

65. Current Chinese systems, except for the DF-31 and DF-21, are structurally de-alerted, given that warheads and missiles are separated and that it takes hours to get them ready with liquid-fueled propellants. As China upgrades to solid-fueled missiles, analysts have questioned whether they too will be kept separately from their warheads; at present, this appears to be the case. See Hans Kristensen, “China Defense White Paper Describes Nuclear Escalation,” FAS Strategic Security Blog, January 23, 2008, <www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/01/chinapaper.php#more-701>.

66. As of 1997, the United States was estimated to have 100 metric tons (MT) of plutonium and 635 MT of highly enriched uranium (HEU); Russia had 130 MT of plutonium and 1,010 MT of HEU; and China had 4 MT of plutonium and 20 MT of HEU. “World Inventories of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium,” in David Albright and Kevin O'Neill, eds., The Challenges of Fissile Material Control (Washington, DC: Institute for Science and International Security Press, 1999), Institute for Science and International Security, <www.isis-online.org/publications/fmct/primer/Section_VI.html>.

67. Li Bin, “The Impact of U.S. NMD on Chinese Nuclear Modernization.”

68. The above discussion draws largely upon Anatoli Diakov, “Russia,” chapter in Banning the Production of Fissile Materials for Nuclear Weapons: Country Perspectives on the Challenges to a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty (Princeton: International Panel on Fissile Materials, 2008).

69. Statement by Kang Yong, representative of the Chinese Delegation at the Thematic Debate on Nuclear Weapons, 63rd Session of the UN General Assembly First Committee, November 10, 2008, Chinese Foreign Ministry, <www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zzjg/jks/kjfywj/t521626.htm>.

70. They have noted the need to “consider security concerns” and to build a “strong foundation for the work programme.” It is not clear whether the latter includes means to ensure that negotiations on areas of particular interest to China—such as space—are not superseded by talks in other areas—such as an FMCT.

71. “Remarks by President Barack Obama,” April 5, 2009.

72. Statement by Kang Yong, November 10, 2008.

73. Li Bin, “The Impact of U.S. NMD on Chinese Nuclear Modernization.”

74. Existing treaties regulating outer space include the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the 1979 Moon Agreement, and some bilateral agreements; they prohibited nuclear testing, deployment of weapons of mass destruction, and certain military activities in outer space. The now-abrogated ABM Treaty of 1972 required parties not to develop, test, or deploy space-based antimissile systems. Russia and China view these instruments as playing a positive role in promoting the peaceful use of outer space but inadequate to prevent its weaponization, since they fail to address the issue of deployment in outer space of conventional weapons that could be used to attack both ground and space targets; additionally, they do not prevent potential attacks on objects in outer space from the ground.

75. Jean-Michel Stoullig, “Rumsfeld Commission Warns Against ‘Space Pearl Harbor,’” Agence-France Presse, January 11, 2001.

76. “Russia-China CD Working Paper on New Space Treaty,” Acronym Institute, June 27, 2002, <www.acronym.org.uk/docs/0206/doc10.htm>.

77. Both documents can be found on the website of the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland, <www.china-un.ch/eng/>.

78. “China, Russia Present Joint Initiative on Space Arms Race Control,” People's Daily, February 13, 2008, <english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6353226.html>.

79. The UN General Assembly has consistently voted in favor of negotiating a treaty on PAROS; the United States and Israel have abstained on these votes. The United States is the only country that is blocking further discussion on this issue at the CD. In 2002, John Bolton, then U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and nonproliferation, stated to the CD, “The current international regime regulating the use of space meets all our purposes. We see no need for new agreements.” John Bolton, statement to the CD, Geneva, January 24, 2002, <www.acronym.org.uk/docs/0201/doc09.htm>.

80. For detailed analysis, see Pavel Podvig, “Russia and the Military Use of Space,” in Pavel Podvig and Hui Zhang, eds., Russian and Chinese Responses to U.S. Military Plans in Space, A Report of the Reconsidering the Rules of Space Project (Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2008).

81. Ambassador Hu Xiaodi, statement at the Plenary of the Second Part of the 2005 Session of the CD, Geneva, June 23, 2005, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches05/June23China.pdf>.

82. “Chinese Nuclear Forces, January 2008,” SIPRI Yearbook 2008: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 386.

83. Hui Zhang, “Action/Reaction: U.S. Space Weaponization and China,” Arms Control Today, December 2005, p. 9.

84. Hui Zhang, “Chinese Perspectives on Space Weaponization,” in Pavel Podvig and Hui Zhang, eds., Russian and Chinese Responses to U.S. Military Plans in Space, A Report of the Reconsidering the Rules of Space Project (Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts & Sciences, March 2008), p. 51.

85. For detailed analysis see Hui Zhang, “Chinese Perspectives on Space Weaponization.”

86. Edward Cody, “China Confirms Firing Missile to Destroy Satellite,” Washington Post, January 24, 2007, p. A8.

87. Wade Boese, “Chinese Satellite Destruction Stirs Debate,” Arms Control Today, March 2007, p. 27.

88. Ambassador Christina Rocca, statement to the Conference on Disarmament on Prevention of the Arms Race in the Outer Space, February 13, 2007, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches07/1session/Feb13USA.pdf>.

89. According to U.S. officials, the satellite carried hazardous toxic fuel. Thom Shanker, “U.S. to Attempt to Shoot Down Faulty Satellite,” New York Times, February 15, 2008.

90. Statement by Kang Yong, November 10, 2008.

91. White House, “Joint Understanding for the START Follow-on Treaty,” Office of the Press Secretary, July 8, 2009.

92. For a detailed review of Chinese views of U.S. and Russian improvements of their nuclear arsenals and the implications for China joining in arms control measures, see Saalman, “Chinese Analysts’ Views on Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nuclear Deterrence after the Cold War.”

93. Tsyganok, as quoted in Ivan Konovalov, “The Defense Ministry Acknowledges U.S.,” Kommersant, August 4, 2008, <www.kommersant.com/p1007705/r_1/military_defense/>.