India’s all weather ally, Russia, has recently announced its intent to withdraw from the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program with the United States. During the course of this 21 year program, more than 7,600 warheads, 902 ICBMs and 684 submarine-launched ballistic missiles had been eliminated from Russia’s stores. With the reduction of spending from CTR in Russia, other states like India and Pakistan may now become the focus of securitization and arms reduction. (Since 2004, Congress passed legislation supporting the expansion of the CTR Program to extend to states beyond the former Soviet Union).
Although this is one possibility, the Russians have yet to completely rule out the negotiation of a new amended treaty to reflect the changes in US-Russian relations.
