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

with measures of power in international relations.
The latest version of Russia’s national security strategy
was released in May 2009; it points directly to this
threat in its section called “Raising the st<strong>and</strong>ard of
living of Russian citizens.” It addresses population in
part by stating that:
Reducing the level of social <strong>and</strong> property inequality
among the population, the stabilization of the population
size in the medium term, <strong>and</strong>, in the long term,
the basic improvement of the demographic situation
constitute the strategic goals for guaranteeing national
security in the realm of raising the quality of life of
Russian citizens. 11
It then continues to list a number of other issues
such as housing, the crisis of world <strong>and</strong> regional banking,
the domestic production of high quality pharmaceuticals,
<strong>and</strong> a better system of protecting human
rights.
The United Nations (UN) has long published
population projections for Russia that do not yield
optimism for reversing population decline. According
to the UN medium projection, Russia will shrink
from 143 million in 2010 to 126 million by 2050—a
drop of nearly 12 percent. In comparison, the United
States will grow in the same period from 310 million
in 2010 to 403 million by 2050, an increase of 30 percent.
12 Moreover, the number of Russian conscripts in
2012 will be only one-half of what it was in 2001, <strong>and</strong>
some of these will not be fit for military service because
of medical reasons. 13 This is not a good situation
for a nation that needs to meet minimum recruitment
numbers for its one million-man force. Certainly, it
has a negative long-term impact on Russian strategies
for national security <strong>and</strong> foreign policy. It continues
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