Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO.pdf - Program on Strategic ...

for Russians to consider using them at all in a future
conflict, since they might have to be used on Russian
soil, particularly in a possible conflict with China, or
could have effects on the Russian populations living
near “tactical” nuclear strikes in Eastern Europe.
THE RUSSIAN MILITARY-STRATEGIC
PERSPECTIVE
Perceived weakness in the conventional military
balance in Europe conditions Russian thinking about
NSNWs in part. Russia is faced with a panoply of
conventional assets from the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (<strong>NATO</strong>) side, including conventional
precision-guided munitions (PGMs). The result is
that Russia wishes to keep its huge superiority of
NSNWs—there is a ratio of about 3,000-6,000 Russian
NSNWs, a portion of which are deliverable now, to
about 180 <strong>NATO</strong> NSNWs that could be employed
in the European theater—to counterbalance <strong>NATO</strong>’s
conventional superiority. In other words, the Russian
perspective on NSNWs stresses the deterrent utility
they possess <strong>and</strong>, therefore, the existing threat, however
remote, that they could actually be used in a conflict.
The objective military balance in Europe may place
Russia in one of two positions, according to participants.
The first is stasis. Some Russians believe that
the situation as it exists currently is acceptable for the
time being. During an undetermined period, Russia
will be able to hold off any real military threat from
nations of the West just by possessing NSNWs <strong>and</strong>
using them as deterrents until such time as Russia is
able to develop its own alternatives to them, particularly
the construction of PGMs <strong>and</strong> drone aircraft. The
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