This article aims to explain why U.S. and Russian leaders have not implemented totally and effectively the thirteen practical-step plan of action on nuclear disarmament agreed at the 2000 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. The decisions with regard to the thirteen steps, taken by members of U.S. and Russian Executives, are seen as the result of the conciliation of internal and external imperatives by those individuals, who face distinctive strategic opportunities and dilemmas simultaneously at national and international levels. We will consider the policy choices of home and foreign Executives' members, legislators and members of the main interest groups within each country, as well as the distribution of decision-making powers by domestic political institutions. The hypotheses indicate that members of U.S. and Russian Executives - supported by a huge number of legislators and interest groups, such as Armed Forces - aim to preserve the ability to determine for themselves the structure and the composition of their strategic and tactical forces, modernize their nuclear arsenals and deploy a force to meet contingencies involving not only traditional nuclear powers, but specially rogue states and terrorist organizations.
United States; Russia; Nuclear Disarmament; Nuclear Weapons