Figure 8 - uploaded by Stephen Blank
Content may be subject to copyright.
2. Size and Age of the US Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, 1945-2017* 12 *Active and inactive warheads. Several thousand additional warheads are retired and awaiting dismantlement.
Source publication
This book is about deterrence Russian, U.S. and Chinese nuclear policies
Similar publications
The paper contains a proposal to include Cosmarium striolatum (Nageli) W. Archer 1861 in the Red Books of the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions of the Russian Federation in the category of a rare species (category 3), or as a species with an uncertain status (category 4). Information about the distribution of C. striolatum in the world, as well as...
Citations
... 12 Moscow's 2020 guidelines for nuclear use likewise clearly delineate a fist-strike posture and a lowered or broadened threshold for first-strike nuclear use, e.g. against conventional strikes that endanger governmental stability. 13 Therefore we have good reason for taking Putin's threats of first nuclear use under a lowered threshold seriously. ...
Russian nuclear strategy in the war against Ukraine through June 1, 2022
This open access edited volume (available freely at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-97012-3) examines Russia-China relations across a variety of civilian and military areas of cooperation. Leading experts in the field present empirical case studies covering a wide range of strategic cooperation areas between Russia and China, such as technological, military, economic and political cooperation. The contributing authors shed new light on Chinese and Russian strategic goals, external push and pull factors, and mutual perception shifts, and discuss the options for Western countries to influence this development.
This book analyses the evolution of the relationship since the watershed moment of the Crimean crisis in 2014, and whether or not a full-blown military alliance, as hinted in late 2020 by President Putin, is indeed a realistic scenario for which NATO will have to prepare. It will appeal to students and scholars of international relations, political decision-makers, as well as anyone interested in Eurasian politics and the potential military-strategic impact of a Russian-Chinese alliance for NATO.
Arms transfers are an important indicator of the level of strategic trust between countries. During the past 70 years, relations between China and the Soviet Union/Russia have gone through phases that were characterized by dramatically different levels of military-industrial cooperation. This paper explores how the fallout from the Crimea crisis of 2014 has impacted the Russian-Chinese arms trade relationship against the backdrop of a history where Russia aimed to restrict arms transfers to China. It argues that the sanctions imposed on China after the Tiananmen massacre in 1989 and on Russia since early 2014 have had the combined unintended consequence of incentivizing closer Russian-Chinese arms-industrial cooperation than had ever existed before. Western ambiguity toward Ukraine after 2014 furthermore provided China with opportunities to profit from openings in Ukraine’s arms-industrial complex. The chapter starts with a historical overview of the Russian-Chinese arms trade relationship before analyzing the impact of Russian and Ukrainian transfers on China’s military modernization before and after 2014. The final part discusses how changed incentives since 2014 have fostered unprecedented Sino-Russian arms-industrial cooperation. This could solidify the developing Chinese-Russian military relationship and eventually lead toward a more equal relationship in joint arms development.
China and Russia are both keen to exploit cutting-edge technologies for military use. Most of these advanced technologies are embedded in the so-called fourth industrial revolution (4IR), such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, automation and robotics, quantum computing, big data, 5G networking, and the “Internet of Things” (IoT). At the same time, most research and development (R & D) taking place in the 4IR is occurring in the commercial realm. The usefulness of 4IR technologies to future military capabilities will depend on how well countries can leverage breakthroughs in commercial R & D, via military-civil fusion (MCF). China and Russia are pursuing concurrent and often intertwined R & D programs to develop and advance 4IR technologies in their respective countries—particularly AI—and to subsequently utilize these technologies (via MCF) in military applications. Their mutual interests in exploiting cutting-edge technologies to underwrite military modernization could motivate Beijing and Moscow to collaborate on future 4IR R & D. Nevertheless, such cooperation could be limited. In particular, Russia lacks the resources or overall technological capacities (money and manpower, plus an already low level of innovation in the national economy) to function as an equal to China, and it may not wish to play the junior partner in such a relationship.
Both China and Russia are heavyweights in multilateral Geneva. While their priorities and strategies are not identical, their interests are often aligned in many forums. Thus, close cooperation can be observed in several Geneva-based organizations. In some, such as the UN Human Rights Council, China and Russia form the backbone of an increasingly assertive “autocratic alliance.” Particularly China has attempted to establish a counter-narrative on questions of democracy, human rights, and international law. This article outlines some factors that increased the effect of Chinese-Russian cooperation, but also depicts its limits. Cooperation between Russia and China is often defensive rather than proactive and not (yet) based on a joint long-term strategy. However, it is a tactical alliance that is, and will likely remain, a major challenge for the proponents of a rules- and values-based multilateralism even though Russia’s war in Ukraine will further shift the balance in this alliance towards China. This article argues in favor of stronger engagement in UN forums by the West and outlines possibilities for how the growing influence of this tandem can be countered.
Nuclear issues have historically played an important role in the development of relations between Moscow and Beijing, acting as a source of both potential discord and emergent cooperation. From 1964, when China conducted its first nuclear test, until Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s tenure in the 1980s, nuclear relations between the Soviet Union and China were explicitly adversarial. The normalization of Sino-Soviet relations introduced an era of implicitly adversarial relations that lasted until the Ukraine crisis. During this phase, Russia’s concerns about China’s growing military power and its resulting determination to maintain nuclear deterrence of China remained apparent. Since the onset of the Ukraine crisis, Russia and China have built an increasingly close relationship, leading to a new phase of implicitly cooperative nuclear relations featuring coordinated efforts to maintain nuclear deterrence of the United States. The two countries jointly oppose US efforts to build missile defense systems and high-precision conventional weapons. They coordinate their positions on such issues as multilateral arms control and the post-INF strategic landscape. Russia is helping China to build a missile attack early warning system. Growing levels of defense cooperation raise the possibility of coordinated efforts to maintain nuclear deterrence of the United States in a crisis.
Allies in 1950, at odds in 1960, at war in 1969, on opposite sides of the Cold War during the 1980s, the Russians and Chinese have worked out their border issues in recent years to partner against a common challenge: the United States. While it can be argued that both countries distrust one another, Moscow and Beijing share a common concern and can’t afford bad relations. Both abhor the US-Western interventions of the last two decades that in their view have destabilized the Middle East, generating terrorism and instability within or near their borders. Both resent US support for their domestic opposition or to neighboring intimate “foes,” most notably Taiwan, Ukraine, and Georgia. Both have displayed their support for Syria and Iran. Both have been engaged in a “strategic partnership” within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization since 2001. Both are now conducting joint naval exercises, sometimes in sensitive areas. But beyond those gesticulations, how far can this naval partnership go? Is it a harbinger of a future military alliance? Does it suggest an intent to deter future Western interventions from the sea? Is there evidence and are there documents that formally support this signaling of strategic and naval partnerships?
After two decades of Global War on Terror, the US is confronted by two near-peer military competitors, Russia and China, which have aligned in their opposition to the US-led international order. Russia is determined to revise the post-Cold War settlement, while China aims to replace it altogether with one built around its economic power, its military, and increasingly its values and ideological tenets. The West’s post-Cold War assumptions that economic globalization would lead to democratization have been proven false, with a new round of great power competition in full view. With the United States military refocusing on great power competition in the Indo-Pacific, Washington needs Europe to rearm and provide real capabilities to deter Russia in the event of a kinetic conflict in Asia. For the NATO alliance, “burden transferring” should be the way forward, with Europe providing core military capabilities while the US maintains its nuclear umbrella and high-end enablers. This approach will ensure deterrence in Europe holds, while the United States confronts China in the Indo-Pacific. It is even more urgent today in light of Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that Europe rebuild its militaries.
This chapter argues that domestic politics plays a significant role in shaping Sino-Russian relations. Domestic political factors strengthen certain trends in the relationship and, more occasionally, generate obstacles. In structural terms, the growing similarity of political systems, characterized by a high degree of centralization of power in leaders’ hands and the rising crackdown on dissent, shapes the threat assessment. The Russian ruling regime is not challenged by Beijing, hence an increase in China’s power and influence. While disadvantageous geopolitically, it does not pose a threat to regime security and regime survival in the Kremlin. Domestic actors have contributed to Russia’s policy towards China in two ways: by influencing the leadership’s threat assessment and by implementing particular policies. In some areas, such as energy cooperation, a privileged position on behalf of certain actors enables them to promote closer cooperation with China. There is no openly anti-Chinese lobby within the ruling elite and its supporters. More often than not, domestic politics act as a facilitating factor, which mitigates systemic pressures related to China’s rise and growing asymmetry between Russia and China and creates a conducive environment for bilateral cooperation with China in certain sectors.
This paper focuses on Sino-Russian scientific cooperation in the Arctic over the time period from 2012 to the current day. Academic cooperation with China entails more than meets the eye, as Chinese counterparts see the interactions with their partners from the prism of people-to-people diplomacy designed to create positive sentiment towards Chinese interests via non-governmental exchanges. The first part of this paper focuses on this engagement and Chinese attempts to steer the discourse in support of its interests in the Arctic.
Foreign academics and leaders at the local level, untrained in the Chinese language and political system and unfamiliar with the hidden meanings of academic exchanges, become vulnerable and valuable targets for Chinese influence activities due to their high standing and access to valuable knowledge. The second part of the paper investigates the Sino-Russian scientific cooperation and capacity building that enables China to become a great maritime power—not always for the benefit of Russia, and to the disadvantage of NATO.
