Outdated nuclear treaties increase the risk of nuclear war

US nuclear deterrence policy and US nuclear arms control policy have become dangerously disconnected.

The longstanding policy of deterrence demands that the United States have sufficient capability to target what potential enemy leaders value most. Arms control is meant to increase deterrence by limiting, and where possible reducing, threats while allowing the United States to deploy a force that deters an attack on America or our allies. The policies were intertwined throughout the last decades of the Cold War, providing the United States and its allies with a credible deterrent and producing the strategic arms reduction treaties, known as Start 1 and Start 2, which were signed in 1991 and 1993 respectively and reduced. US and Soviet strategic nuclear weapon levels.