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

<strong>NATO</strong> countries. During the last 2 years, this position
has been declared on numerous occasions by the Russian
Minister of Foreign Relations, Sergey Lavrov, <strong>and</strong>
other officials. 2
Russian experts insist that Russia, unlike the United
States <strong>and</strong> many <strong>NATO</strong> countries, is located within
the range of nuclear weapons of all nuclear states,
which elevates the TNW role in Russia’s security calculus
to a much higher level than the tactical. In addition,
long Russian borders ensure a large number of
security-sensitive areas. Such half-encirclement could
progress even further to become a full circle around
Russia because of the future competition for resources
in the Arctic. According to one typical opinion:
After even a quick glance at the geography of conflicts,
it is impossible to avoid the . . . conclusion that
Russia is surrounded by a half-circle of conflicts. This
half-circle will be closed soon—after the start of the
process of competition for the resources of the Arctic
Ocean shelf. 3
This situation, in the view of Russian commentators,
increases the importance of TNWs to Russia as
a factor in national security <strong>and</strong> deterrence. Hence,
Russians argue, calls for parity in numbers of TNWs
between the United States <strong>and</strong> Russia are irrelevant.
Moreover, since Russia failed to modernize its national
economy successfully, it cannot compete with
the West in research, development, <strong>and</strong> production
of expensive high-speed, high-precision, long-range
conventional systems, which can potentially serve as
a counterweight to TNWs. These sub-nuclear conventional
weapons systems of <strong>NATO</strong> constitute just one
of the many factors that Russians want to put on the
table during negotiations on TNW reduction. There
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