The Current Nuclear Dialogue

At the end of the Cold War the Soviet military threat to Western Europe disappeared, and with it the principal rationale for U.S. nuclear policy. Since then the United States has been searching for a coherent policy as a basis for planning future nuclear forces. This search involving a small circle of experts received little public attention until the recent nuclear tests by India and Pakistan dramatized the emergence of a new nuclear order with implications far beyond South Asia. However, the U.S. policy community remains deeply divided over the future role of nuclear weapons.