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

are other security factors that Russians link to the issue
of TNWs, such as <strong>NATO</strong>’s overall conventional
superiority, European missile defense, <strong>and</strong> American
plans to deploy certain systems in space.
As for <strong>NATO</strong>’s overall conventional superiority,
Russians continue to stick to a post-World War II perspective
of the defense policies of the United States
<strong>and</strong> <strong>NATO</strong>. Conventional wisdom tells both Russia
<strong>and</strong> <strong>NATO</strong> that they are not enemies anymore, that
real world threats for both of them will almost certainly
come from a third party, <strong>and</strong> that they have common
security interests <strong>and</strong> should seek to establish a
firm basis for cooperation. But the psychology of the
Cold War still prevails in most of their estimate: In the
Russian view,
Washington does not take into account the established
balance of forces in the European <strong>and</strong> other strategic
regions adjacent to the Russian borders, as well as the
comparative capabilities of the sides to provide for
national security, including . . . the manifold de facto
superiority of <strong>NATO</strong> over Russia in the quantity of
conventional weapons <strong>and</strong> total superiority in their
combat potentials. 4
While the degree of <strong>NATO</strong>’s conventional superiority
differs in assessments by Russian experts, they
were unanimous in assigning TNWs the key role in
providing a counterbalance to <strong>NATO</strong>’s conventional
potential. According to Dr. Alexey Arbatov, a respected
expert in the field of nuclear arms,
Russia considers its advantage in TNW as compensation
for <strong>NATO</strong>’s superiority in conventional forces—
especially under the condition of the Conventional
Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty deadlock, as well as a
possible answer to the one-sided creation of <strong>NATO</strong>