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

on the role of NSNWs in Russian defense policy. Pavel
Felgengauer, citing well-placed sources, wrote on Minatom’s
plans for a whole new generation of TNWs,
but went on to say that the weapons would not be just
for battlefield use but would affect both tactical <strong>and</strong>
strategic nuclear weapons with the goal of making
limited nuclear war possible. 26
What this emphasis on the development of
NSNWs meant in terms of force development was not
immediately apparent. What was immediately apparent
was an overt shift in the policy governing nuclear
first use. In June 1999, as the conflict over Kosovo was
ending, the Russian Ministry of Defense <strong>and</strong> General
Staff conducted the first large-scale military exercise
since the end of the Cold War. Zapad 99’s scenario
involved a defense against an attack on Belarus by
western forces <strong>and</strong> the first use of nuclear weapons to
de-escalate that conflict. The bombers employed to deliver
the simulated strikes over the Atlantic Ocean <strong>and</strong>
along the coast of Norway carried cruise missiles <strong>and</strong>
were supposed to strike operational targets to bring
about the end of a local war before it escalated into a
general war with risks of strategic nuclear exchange.
The political intent in the aftermath of the <strong>NATO</strong> air
campaign over Yugoslavia was to give the West a
warning concerning the risks of local war to strategic
stability. 27
Since 1999, the Russian government has remained
mum on the exact size, deployment, <strong>and</strong> modernization
of its tactical nuclear arsenal. In 2004 when the
U.S. Government raised the issue of Russia’s fulfillment
of its “obligations” to reduce this arsenal in
Europe, the Foreign Ministry raised objections to the
word obligations as used in the question:
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