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

achieve transformative goals in the next decade. 24 But
this skepticism is, among some quarters within Russia,
fueled by the self-interest of a bloated military bureaucracy
that seeks to preserve positions for general
officers by resisting reform. One strategy for resistance
is to adhere strictly to expired threat assessments and
retro geopolitics, defining NATO and the United States
as major enemies of Russia. Even the revised Russian
Military Doctrine of 2010, which may suggest a lesser
emphasis on its nuclear weapons for covering a wide
variety of contingencies, compared to earlier versions
(and thus, may be more compatible with the thrust of
Obama’s NPR than those earlier editions of Russian
military doctrine), nevertheless includes NATO enlargement
among the dangers that Russia must take
seriously and for which it must plan. 25
Russian geostrategic thinking welcomes the emergence
of a multipolar international order in which the
leading military and economic state actors reach decisions
by consensus. 26 Ranking highest among Russia’s
state priorities are the growth of its economy and
an increase in the respect and deference accorded to
Russian foreign and security policy, especially in its
“near abroad” of former Soviet states, and particularly
in Europe. 27 From this perspective, Russia’s military
clash with Georgia in August 2008 demonstrated
Russia’s sensitivity, not only to Georgia’s perceived
provocations, but also to the Russian leaders’ view of
Georgia as a Trojan horse for U.S. and NATO political
influence and military penetration. Although Russia’s
conventional forces rapidly overpowered Georgian
resistance and declared a postwar separatism from
Georgia on behalf of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as an
accomplished fact, obvious problems marked Russia’s
military performance during this brief and one-sided
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