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

CHAPTER 8
RUSSIAN TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS:
CURRENT POLICIES AND FUTURE TRENDS
Richard Weitz
From Moscow’s perspective, nuclear weapons,
including tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs), serve a
variety of valuable and often unique security functions
that Russian policymakers will not soon surrender.
First, they deter other countries from launching
a nuclear strike against Russia. Second, having such
an enormous nuclear arsenal bolsters Moscow’s international
status. Third, Russia’s nuclear weapons help
compensate for weaknesses in Russian conventional
forces in two ways—for deterrent purposes (by denying
adversaries the presumption that they can guarantee
that any conflict with Russia will remain conventional)
and, under certain conditions, for actual
battlefield operations, by destroying important targets
more effectively than conventional weapons.
Fourth, Russian nuclear weapons can achieve both
results at a lower financial cost than Moscow would
incur by acquiring and sustaining a conventional force
equivalent in strength to that of the United States (if
this were even possible, notwithstanding the major
weaknesses in Russia’s military-industrial base). Fifth,
Russia’s response to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s
(NATO) expanding ballistic missile defense
program has been to strengthen its offensive nuclear
forces so as to overwhelm any defense system. Russia’s
large number of TNWs would almost guarantee
that at least some nuclear strikes, especially against
frontline forces, would evade enemy defenses.
365