Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

to create a conventional-nuclear first strike capability
against Russia. Although this possibility might seem
paranoid in a time when the United States and Russia
have an official non-hostile political relationship,
the scenario of an American nuclear first strike capability
has received close attention from U.S. analysts
and from Russian military experts. 18 However, politics
drives strategy—including domestic politics in the
United States and Russia. In the case of Russia, domestic
politics includes a General Staff and officer corps
determined to preserve their status and power in the
face of threatened military modernization to improve
Russia’s conventional forces. This domestic political
debate within Russia about conventional force modernization
is a third force, in addition to U.S. missile
defenses and conventional PGS systems, that makes
some Russians less relaxed about the appearance of
nuclear-strategic parity.
Russian Perspectives.
The Russian ruling tandem of President Medvedev
and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, along with
Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, have
recognized the need for military reform in order to
improve the quality of Russia’s Armed Forces. Improvements
are needed in both conventional and nuclear
forces, to be sure. 19 But, compared to the former
Soviet Union, the decline in the quality of Russia’s
conventional forces relative to those of the United
States and NATO has been more obvious and noticeable.
Problems include both the quantity and quality
of enlisted personnel, a top-heavy officer corps, and
insufficient numbers of modern weapons and hours
of training for personnel in the Ground Forces, Navy,
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