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

any such intent. In July 2010, Aleksandr Postnikov,
the commander of Russia’s Ground Forces, told Ekho
Moskvy radio that the Russian military was deploying
the Iskander near St. Petersburg. From there, they
could hit targets in Estonia, Latvia, and Finland. 44
STRATEGY AND TACTICS
At a minimum, Russian nuclear forces aim to
prevent the United States or any other country from
launching a major attack against Russian territory.
This requirement is likely to persist for at least the
next decade. In late 2006, Putin told Russian military
leaders that the country’s “deterrent forces should be
able to guarantee the neutralization of any potential
aggressor, no matter what modern weapons systems
he possesses.” 45 Russian nuclear planners most likely
concentrate their planning and resources on surviving
a war with the United States, since such a capability
should provide the assets that Russia would need to
defeat weaker nuclear adversaries (e.g., Britain, China,
or France). Russian strategists most fear an American
attempt to decapitate the Russian leadership through a
surprise attack involving U.S. nuclear and conventional
attacks against Russia’s centralized command-andcontrol
networks and against its nuclear forces when
they are on their lower peacetime alert status. They
worry that American leaders might anticipate crippling
the Russian military response by incapacitating
Russia’s political and military decisionmakers before
they could organize a coherent retaliatory strike. Such
a hypothetical attack could employ SLBMs with depressed
trajectories from Trident submarines on patrol
near Russia, or stealthy conventional weapons that
would exploit weaknesses in Russia’s early warning
383