Cooperative Threat Reduction, Missile Defense, and the Nuclear Future

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union accepted Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, to facilitate strategic arms control. Now the Cold War has been replaced by asymmetric warfare, and the demise of the Soviet Union has prompted a new set of proliferation nightmares. Treaties based on nuclear overkill and national vulnerability are now outdated, and must be adapted to a far different world. A new strategic concept of Cooperative Threat Reduction is needed to replace MAD.