Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present:

Chapter 14: The Role of Imbalances on the Level of Conventional Forces andWeaponsAt lower nuclear weapon thresholds, the role of the imbalance in conventional weapons andforces, which is quite considerable these days, increases; and Russia will not benefit from thisimbalance. (One of the weighty components of this imbalance is the absolute domination of theUnited States and its allies over the world’s oceans. We can deny such domination only in someselected seas that we carefully choose. This was the focus of the formula that was once proposedby the author of this paper for the designation of a Northern Strategic Bastion located in the Europeanpart of the Russian polar region and an Eastern Strategic Bastion located in a certain areain the Pacific Ocean.)In the modern context, it is absolutely impossible to develop adequate formulas of strategic stabilitywithout taking these imbalances into consideration, whether they be imbalances in strategicweapons, general-purpose forces, or conventional weapons. These imbalances must be consideredon a global basis (with due regard for the strategic mobility capabilities of the sides) or inthe context of particular theaters of military operations and regions, especially regions with highpolitical tensions. Recently, one of the most meaningful threats against general strategic stabilitywas the aggression of the pro-Western, pro-U.S. regime of Mikheil Saakashvili against South Ossetia.This aggression was largely encouraged by the large-scale (on a scale of the South Caucasusand Transcaucasia) supply of weapons and military hardware to the Georgian armed forces andthe training of Georgia’s military personnel. The prevention of such situations in the future is oneof the priorities associated with securing strategic stability; a priority that should be the subject ofRussia’s discussions of a new European security architecture with Western countries.As a result of rapid development (primarily in the United States) of high-precision long-range(including intercontinental) weapons in recent years, the issue of the vulnerability of various SNFcomponents to such weapons is becoming increasingly topical. 114 This issue was on the agendaback in the 1980s, but nowadays it has reached a qualitatively new level that requires thoroughand highly professional consideration in Russia from all points of view—military-political, operational-strategicand military-technical. 115As mentioned above, nuclear weapons act as a sort of equalizer of the combat capabilities of thesides. 116 If the problems of limitation and reduction of nuclear weapons are to be taken seriously,we must also take combat capabilities into consideration, taking account important nationalsecurity interests, no matter how good the political relations may be. And we still do not see anycredible signs that the West is ready to eliminate the imbalance in general-purpose forces andconventional weapons or add “non-offensive defense” formulas to its armory.In this context, U.S. appeals to pursue “absolute nuclear zero” in all countries look special, to putit mildly.56Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present: Theoretical and Applied Questions