Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

nition of the threat presented by international terrorism.
While Washington may not have realized it at the
time, its decision to withdraw from the 1972 ABM
Treaty meant that the Kremlin did not have to get
rid of its multiple warhead missiles as demanded by
the treaty. From a policy standpoint, the urgency of
modernizing existing missiles disappeared. The current
ones would suffice. The Kremlin had found a way
to maintain its nuclear weapons “on the cheap.” Such
a policy may work over the short run, but to remain
effective the missiles had to be modernized and new
ones had to be developed to counter the other side’s
countermeasures.
Meanwhile, the very expensive naval arm of the
Russian triad suffered one problem after another. First
was the sinking of the submarine Kursk—one of the
modern submarines in the Russian fleet—in August
2000, which presumably was the result of an onboard
missile explosion Then there was the case of the Yuri
Dogorukiy, a strategic submarine that was under construction
throughout the 1990s. The intention was for
it to enter service in 2001. However, when the missile
that was designed for it (the SS NB-28) failed, it was
redesigned for the Bulava missile. It was not until February
13, 2008, that it was finally launched. As a consequence,
there was no way the Navy could argue for
a dominant position in the Russian strategic arsenal.
This brings us back to the ongoing battle between
Kvashnin and Sergeyev, which had major overtones
for the relationship between nuclear and conventional
weapons. The battle between the two men reached
the point where, to quote Alexei Arbatov: “In reality,
under the umbrellas of the official Russian doctrine,
there are now two military doctrines, with all the con-
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