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

ut by most accounts are kept at naval bases
ready to be loaded aboard on short notice. This
group includes a variety of weapons—short<strong>and</strong>
intermediate-range; anti-ship; <strong>and</strong> those
designed to destroy targets on l<strong>and</strong>. Although
they can be employed from surface ships, it is
strike submarines, especially the new class of
strike submarines now emerging in Russia, that
serve as the main platforms of these weapons.
• <strong>Weapons</strong> assigned to air defense <strong>and</strong> missile
defense. The roles of these weapons are unclear,
<strong>and</strong> it is difficult to fathom why Russia
still retains them. Warheads for the Moscow
missile defense system in particular do not
have a discernible role except for various flavors
of psychological manipulation. No one in
Russia seems enthralled by the idea of high-altitude
nuclear bursts over Moscow for purposes
of defense, but the system apparently cannot
function without nuclear warheads (work on
advanced non-nuclear missile defense assets,
the S-500, is still in the early stages), so one
could conclude that the retention of nuclear
warheads for missile defense is a formality. In
any event, all warheads in that category are reportedly
kept separate from delivery vehicles,
meaning that neither the missile defense nor
the remaining nuclear-capable air defense assets
are operational on short notice.
• Warheads for the ground forces. They have apparently
been removed from the active stockpile,
but there is probably a fair number of
those that still await dismantlement; whether
there are any warheads that remain usable
(i.e., were refurbished relatively recently) is
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