Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
12/19/2014

Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller said Dec. 17 she thinks Russia’s nuclear modernization hitherto has been “judicious,” but underscored that the U.S. would urge Russia to consider the level of stability that would be provided by any rail-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles—technology that Russian media reports have suggested the country is contemplating—should the country embark upon the project. The number of Russian deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers currently remain “well below” the limit of 700 set for the 2018 conclusion of the New START Treaty, Gottemoeller said. “The Russians are well below these levels,” she said, speaking Dec. 17 during a presentation on U.S. arms control policy at the Brookings Institution. “Now we don’t see them surging up, and I’m delighted we have that kind of… limit to provide a ceiling for how far they can modernize.” She said questions persist about the economic and strategic feasibility of a rail-mobile system, but acknowledged that development of the potential weapons is not her decision. 

Nuclear Confrontation with Russia

During the presentation, an audience member asked Gottemoeller to respond to statements made by M.I.T. International Security Professor Theodore Postol suggesting that “close analysis” reveals that U.S. nuclear modernization plans translate to swelling for a nuclear confrontation with Russia, which the U.S. believes it can win. Gottemoeller said she disagreed “profoundly” with the statement. “And one point that I have made repeatedly to my interlocutors in Moscow is that we’ve been down this road before of an action/reaction cycle,” Gottemoeller said. “The last thing we need now is to repeat the mistakes of the Cold War, pouring resources and our national intellect and will into programs of this kind that, of course, if necessary, they would be in our national security interests, but we don’t see them as necessary at this time.”

Russia’s nuclear arms became more obsolete after the 1990s, as munitions aged out of their service lives, Gottemoeller said. While Russia has invested in its strategic forces since 2000, the U.S. is about a decade behind. “So there’s a bit of a lag time here, but I would say both Moscow and Washington have been making some decisions about, again, what I consider to be judicious modernization following some Cold War-era systems going out of their service life,” she said.