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

systems. U.S. ballistic missile and air defense systems
would then attempt to intercept any Russian nuclear
delivery platform that had survived an American first
strike and was launched in reprisal. 46
Should deterrence fail, then Russia’s nuclear weapons
could perform various strategic warfighting roles.
In terms of damage limitation, a massive counterforce
strike that overcame the adversary’s active and passive
defenses might be able to severely weaken the
targeted state’s ability to retaliate. In addition to compensating
for Russian weaknesses in conventional military
power, Russian military thinkers perceive their
nonstrategic weapons as helping accomplish missions
that otherwise might require the use of Russia’s more
limited supply of effective strategic nuclear weapons,
which at present primarily lie in the latest-generation
ICBMs due to lagging modernization of the strategic
air and Navy deterrents. For example, they could be
used to uphold Russian security guarantees offered
to some of the former Soviet republics through the
Collective Security Treaty (CST), which was signed
in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1992 by the members of
the CIS. 47 Under CST Article 4, members pledge to
render each other “all necessary assistance, including
military assistance” in case of external aggression. Following
a joint Russian-Belarusian military exercise in
June 2006, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko
said that he could not exclude the use of Russia’s
TNW in his country’s defense. 48 The CST underpins
the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO), which includes Armenia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, as well
as Russia and Belarus.
Russian strategists have long considered using
limited nuclear strikes to alter the course of a conven-
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