Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future - Strategic ...

Finally, we must understand that Russian rhetoric
is not just rhetoric but actual policy. Recent deployments
of the SS-26 Iskander missile (that comes in
both nuclear and conventional formats) in the Leningrad
Military District where it could threaten Finland
and the Baltic States suggest not just a desire to deter
NATO, but also the continuing desire to intimidate
Russian neighbors. 121 Should Russia divine a threat in
Europe, it reserves the right to place these missiles in
Kaliningrad from where it could threaten Poland and
even Germany as well. 122
BEYOND THE DOCTRINE
From an optimistic standpoint, we can say that
Medvedev successfully overrode the hawks and
signed the treaty. 123 Moreover, he rebuffed both Putin
and the military on the idea of an expanded nuclear
program. Thus, at the March 5, 2010, expanded session
of the Defense Ministry Collegium, Medvedev
made it clear that Russia does not need to increase
its offensive nuclear capability any further than was
originally planned. 124 Clearly this directly contradicted
Putin’s public remarks in December 2009, underscoring
the continuing divisions between Putin and Medvedev
and within the Russian military-political elite.
Beyond those debates, the fact of Putin’s intervention
on behalf of the military and his attempt to use them
to check Medvedev is no less striking. First, it represents
another in a series of ongoing efforts to assert
the supremacy of military orientations in Russian national
security policy over all other imperatives, while
simultaneously representing another attempt to politicize
the military in the context of the visible rivalry
between Putin and Medvedev as well as their respec-
331