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

CONCLUSION: NUCLEAR POSSIBILITIES AND
ILLUSIONS
In recent years, a number of American and international
security experts, including several who held
prominent U.S. Government positions during the
Cold War, have supported various proposals leading
toward general nuclear disarmament. 85 In his April
2009 speech in Prague, President Obama declared his
ultimate objective to be the complete elimination of all
nuclear weapons. Russian officials have publicly offered
general support for eliminating nuclear weapons
at some point. At his September 2008 meeting in
Sochi with foreign experts of Russia who were members
of the Valdai Discussion Club, Prime Minister
Putin gave conditional support for abolishing nuclear
weapons. Although Putin acknowledged that, until a
few years ago, he would have considered achieving
the practical elimination of nuclear weapons “absolutely
impossible,” he now professed that: “Today I
consider it almost realistic” given that the conventional
weapons capabilities of nuclear weapons states, like
Russia, had improved sufficiently to deter any aggressor.
86 Medvedev and Obama reaffirmed in their April
1 joint statement their ultimate goal of abolishing all
nuclear weapons. Additionally, Putin responded affirmatively
to a question at a joint news conference with
visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier
when asked whether he could imagine a Russia
without nuclear weapons, though Putin indicated he
would expect for the United States to also eliminate its
own nuclear forces. 87
Nonetheless, many foreign observers of the Russian
defense community doubt that the Russian government
would want to relinquish one of the last
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