No More MAD Meatballs

Just wondering what credence this lends to worries about the North Koreans and Iran. But maybe that's a completely different ballgame.

For four decades, relations among the major nuclear powers have been shaped by their common vulnerability, a condition known as mutual assured destruction. But with the U.S. arsenal growing rapidly while Russia's decays and China's stays small, the era of MAD is ending -- and the era of U.S. nuclear primacy has begun.
Read The Essay At Foreign Affairs

Russian experts reacted extremely guardedly to the article in the American journal. It is obvious that Russian strategic nuclear forces are experiencing difficult times. Modernization is being carried out, but at a very slow rate. In the 1990s the Russian submarine fleet was almost totally destroyed. And it hardly seems possible to revive it in the coming years, as this would require colossal funds.