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

preemptive strike, is not ruled out in critical situations
for national security.” 21 At the same time that President
Medvedev endorsed the public Military Doctrine,
however, he also approved a classified document:
“The Foundations of State Policy in the Area of Nuclear
Deterrence until 2020,” which defined in greater detail
the conditions under which Russia might employ
nuclear weapons. Observers speculate that this document
may contain some of the more expansive language
about the use of nuclear strikes for purposes of
preemption, regional conflicts, or other purposes not
explicitly identified in the public Military Doctrine. 22
Other Russian Government security documents
confirm that maintaining a strong nuclear force and
the option to use it has long been—and will likely remain—a
key element of Russian security policy. 23 The
statements of Russian officials and defense analysts
also support this declaratory policy—Russia must retain
and be prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend
itself from major conventional as well as nuclear
threats. In a January 12, 2006, article entitled, “Military
Doctrine: Russia Must Be Strong,” published in the
Russian Vedomosti newspaper, then Defense Minister
Sergey Ivanov said Russia’s first task for the 2006-10
period was “to sustain and develop strategic deterrent
forces at the minimum level needed to guarantee that
present and future military threats are deterred.” 24 In
February 2007, Ivanov stressed to the Russian Duma
that, were deterrence to fail, the Russian military was
prepared to use these nuclear forces, observing: “What
else were they built for?” 25
Russian Government representatives openly acknowledge
that they take U.S. nuclear capabilities
into account when structuring their own forces. As
Ivanov put it: “Moscow is attentively tracking the developments
in the U.S. strategic nuclear forces.” 26 In
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