Nothing New Under the Sun

The cooperation between the Soviet Union/Russian Federation and the United States of America was instrumental for the emergence and consolidation of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Even when tensions in the bilateral relations reached new heights, as the longtime Soviet foreign minister Andrey Gromyko put it, nuclear nonproliferation would remain the only silk thread connecting the two capitals. Nonproliferation and arms control has mostly remained an insulated area of cooperation since the hottest days of the Cold War. This is not to say that the two countries` views converged on everything, but at least they were doing their best to resolve their differences in a business-like fashion. The objective basis for such cooperation is still there. Moscow and Washington are still interested in preventing further proliferation of nuclear weapons , and there are objective reasons for the two nations to insulate this area away from the skyrocketing tension in the bilateral relations.