U.S. officials have long sought to negotiate limits on non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNW), a sensible next step for U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control. Such a negotiation, however, would raise difficult issues, beginning with the imbalance in U.S. and Russian numbers. A likely Russian position that all NSNW be based on national territory would force the U.S. government to face the different perspectives within NATO on the role of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe. As Washington prepares for a possible negotiation with Moscow, U.S. officials should consider ways to manage this issue from the outset.

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