The U.S.-Russian Relationship: Transcending Mutual Deterrence

Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin meet later this month for the first of two meetings this summer on the margins of the G-8 and G-20 summits. Nuclear weapons issues will figure prominently on the agenda. Although the U.S.-Russia relationship is no longer characterized by the hostility of the Cold War years, mutual nuclear deterrence continues to underpin the relationship between the two countries. Is mutual deterrence a permanent fixture of the relationship between Washington and Moscow, or can they move beyond it?

On June 13, the Arms Control Initiative at Brookings and Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs will host a discussion to explore the possibilities for the United States and Russia to move past mutual deterrence. Brookings Senior Fellow Steven Pifer, director of the Arms Control Initiative, will moderate a panel consisting of Gary Samore, executive director for research at the Belfer Center, William Tobey, senior fellow at the Belfer Center, and Pavel Zolotarev, deputy director of the USA and Canada Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The three panelists are co-authors of a new Belfer-USA and Canada Institute report, “Transcending Mutual Deterrence in the U.S.-Russian Relationship.”

Following the discussion, the panelists will take questions from the audience.