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Pavel Podvig

Pavel Podvig

A physicist trained at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Podvig works on the Russian nuclear arsenal, US-Russian relations, and nonproliferation. In 1995, he headed the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces Research Project, editing the project’s eponymous book, which provides an overview of the Soviet and Russian strategic forces and the technical capabilities of Russia's strategic weapon systems. His blog, "Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces," updates this information in real time.

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Articles by Pavel Podvig

Columnists
14 September 2009
Nuclear Weapons

The false promise of missile defense

Pavel Podvig

Of the many security quagmires confronting President Barack Obama, perhaps the most challenging is how he navigates the Bush administration's decision to place missile defense installations in Eastern Europe. As a candidate, Obama didn't rule out keeping the Bush plan to put a missile defense radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland, but he did place the onus on the technology--i.e., it had to be viable. True to his campaign promise, upon taking office, he ordered a review of the program, which is about to be completed.

Columnists
22 July 2009
Nuclear Weapons

The Moscow summit: A positive first step

Pavel Podvig

The U.S.-Russian summit held earlier this month in Moscow marked a good beginning for the relationship between the Obama and Medvedev administrations. While the two presidents made promising progress on the most urgent issue on the table--replacing START--it wasn't the only important agreement they made.

Columnists
27 May 2009
Nuclear Weapons

What if North Korea were the only nuclear weapon state?

Pavel Podvig

North Korea's nuclear test will almost certainly fuel skepticism about the nuclear disarmament agenda. If no country has nuclear weapons, skeptics will ask, then how can “nuclear renegades” such as North Korea be deterred or dissuaded from getting a nuclear weapon and how can they be disarmed if they get one? For most opponents of nuclear abolition this argument ends the debate.

Columnists
3 April 2009
Nuclear Weapons

Reaction to the Obama-Medvedev joint statement on arms control

Pavel Podvig

For Russia, dialogue with the United States has always been as much about style as substance. So it isn't surprising that the change of tone brought by the Obama administration has produced encouraging results for nuclear arms control. The joint statement by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is hardly groundbreaking, but it does contain a few remarkable points.

Columnists
4 March 2009
Nuclear Weapons

Broadening the disarmament agenda through START

Pavel Podvig

On the subject of nuclear disarmament, one point is rarely disputed: the United States and Russia should lead the way, and other nuclear weapon states should join the process when U.S. and Russian arsenals are roughly comparable to their own. Given that these two countries have the largest nuclear arsenals, with more than 95 percent of all nuclear warheads, it is reasonable to expect them to start eliminating their weapons first.

Columnists
16 January 2009
Nuclear Weapons

Russia's new arms development

Pavel Podvig

We don't know at this point what the next U.S.-Russian arms control agreement will look like, but everyone in the international community expects it to be a step toward significantly reducing the world's two largest nuclear arsenals. The levels set in the Moscow Treaty, which Washington and Moscow signed in May 2002, commit them to reducing the number of operationally deployed nuclear warheads on each side to no more than 1,700-2,200 warheads by 2012. One would expect that a post-Moscow Treaty agreement will bring much lower numbers.

Columnists
18 December 2008
Nuclear Weapons

Formulating the next U.S.-Russian arms control agreement

Pavel Podvig

As the United States waits for a new administration to take office in January, expectations are high that arms control talks with Russia will be revitalized shortly thereafter. Parties in both countries--no matter political persuasion--think Washington and Moscow should move quickly to devise a new disarmament agreement that would replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires in December 2009.

Columnists
11 November 2008
Nuclear Weapons

Barack Obama's missile defense challenge

Pavel Podvig

What a difference eight years makes. Following the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a new disarmament initiative that called for reducing U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,500 warheads apiece. Although that statement was basically ignored--at the time, Washington was embroiled in the recount saga--Putin's proposal remained the official Russian position on disarmament in subsequent years.

Columnists
14 October 2008
Nuclear Weapons

A silver lining to the U.S.-India nuclear deal

Pavel Podvig

The civilian nuclear cooperation deal between the United States and India, which President George W. Bush signed into law last week, has been controversial from the moment it was first outlined in New Delhi about three years ago. It would allow Washington to trade nuclear technology with New Delhi despite the fact that India is a de facto nuclear weapons state outside of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Columnists
25 August 2008
Nuclear Weapons

U.S.-Russian relations after the conflict in Georgia

Pavel Podvig

If there's a consensus about the confrontation between Russia and Georgia, it's that the conflict has seriously strained the relationship between Moscow and its Western counterparts--namely, the United States and NATO. Now that the worst of the conflict seems over, it appears that the harshest measures suggested in the first days of the conflict, i.e., expelling Russia from the G-8, won't materialize. Despite all of the disagreements and mistrust, each party seems to understand that severing ties between Russia and the West isn't realistic.

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