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

in the next round of U.S.-Russian arms control discussions.
68
Apparthurai observed that, while NATO might take
actions affecting its nuclear weapons policies without
a direct Russian input, “Russia had to be taken
into account when looking at the broader issue of reducing
the total holdings of nuclear weapons in Europe.”
69 Nonetheless, Apparthurai acknowledged that
the Russians have not shown interest in negotiating
formal limits on their TNWs, and that the allies have
yet to propose initiating formal negotiations with the
Russians.
Indeed, Russian officials have expressed little interest
in entering into TNW reduction negotiations with
NATO. Instead, they have regularly denounced the alliance’s
nonstrategic weapons as being threatening to
Russia and have persistently urged NATO to relocate
all foreign (i.e., American) TNWs to their home territories.
In this regard, Russian Government representatives
often refer to how Moscow has already eliminated
the majority of the nonstrategic systems that it
inherited from the Soviet Union and relocated the remainder
in secure storage exclusively within Russian
territory. 70 In late 2003, General Baluyevsky observed
that the hundreds of U.S. air-deliverable TNWs in Europe
“are for Russia acquiring a strategic nature since
theoretically they could be used on our command centers
and strategic nuclear centers.” 71 In June 2005, Defense
Minister Ivanov said that Russia was “prepared
to start talks about tactical nuclear weapons only when
all countries possessing them keep these weapons on
their own territory.” 72 In March 2010, Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov said that ending the forward-positioning
of U.S. TNWs “should be the starting point in any
conversation on this topic.” 73
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