Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

they were part of Russian desire to develop longrange
conventional assets. Indeed, for the first time,
regret about the ban on intermediate-range missiles
was voiced during the second war in Chechnya, when
then-Secretary of the Security Council Sergey Ivanov
complained that without such assets Russia could not
take out Chechen training camps in Afghanistan.
The desire to add intermediate-range missiles to
the planned conventional capability was officially
spelled out during Ivanov’s meeting of U.S. Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in August 2006 in Alaska.
Responding to Rumsfeld’s attempt to explain the
benefits of the United States equipping some strategic
missiles with conventional warheads to make them
usable for strikes against terrorists, Ivanov said that
conventionally-armed strategic missiles were not the
only option for strikes against terrorists and far from
the safest:
Theoretically, one could use long-range cruise missiles
with conventional warheads, . . . One could even
consider a theoretical possibility of using intermediate
range missiles, although the United States and Russia
cannot have them, unlike many other countries, which
already have such missiles. 79
Uniformed military were clearly delighted to see
their old favorite proposal pitched to the U.S. Secretary
of Defense and quickly sought to elaborate it and
calm possible American anxieties. An unnamed representative
of the Ministry of Defense said that while
the abrogation of the ABM Treaty opened a door to a
similar step with regard to the INF Treaty, the United
States should not be concerned because Russian
intermediate-range systems cannot reach U.S. territory
except from Chukotka, across the Bering Strait
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