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

Yet these concerns are most likely poorly founded.
First, there is no reason to believe that Isk<strong>and</strong>er missiles
are equipped with nuclear warheads. They certainly
could be, but so far there have been no indications
that the Russian military assigns them nuclear
roles. Instead, they fit well the decade-long effort to
develop high-precision conventional capability. There
are also no reasons to believe that the ground forces
have nuclear weapons. This point will be developed
in detail later in this chapter, but it is sufficient to
note here that, according to available information, all
nuclear weapons that were previously assigned to the
ground forces have been withdrawn <strong>and</strong> either eliminated
or are awaiting dismantlement. Hence, worries
about early use appear highly exaggerated. As in the
previous case, such concerns had certain grounds in
the 1990s, but hardly 15 years later.
The majority of these trepidations (except those
that pertain to safety <strong>and</strong> security of the NSNW stock)
follow traditional logic, which proceeds from two key
assumptions: (1) if weapons with certain capabilities
<strong>and</strong> in certain numbers exist, there is a political <strong>and</strong>
military decision behind that fact, <strong>and</strong> (2) weapons exist
to support one or more missions either in the context
of deterrence (suasion through credible threat) or
in the context of offensive operations. These assumptions
have an important corollary: from known facts
(that is, concerning an arsenal with reasonably known
parameters) one can derive political decisions <strong>and</strong>
military strategy. This logic was widely used during
the Cold War for analysis of Soviet nuclear strategy.
It has one, but critical, drawback: the existing arsenal
can be the result of many other factors—for example,
of unrelated decisions, inertia, <strong>and</strong> research <strong>and</strong> development
(R&D) failures.
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