Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

for them. It also took into account the process of strategic
arms limitations that had already begun between
the Soviet Union and the United States. 14
According to one Western view, by the late-1980s,
the Soviets had a fairly elaborate nuclear-use doctrine
that included the following elements:
• Preemption (first strike).
• Quantitative superiority (a requisite for preemption
and necessary because the war may
last for some time, even though the initial hours
are decisive).
• Counterforce targeting.
• Combined-arms operations to supplement nuclear
strikes.
• Defense, which has been almost totally neglected
by the United States under its concept
of mutual deterrence. 15
However, the Soviet leadership insisted publicly
that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons.
The first official declaration to this effect was made by
Leonid Brezhnev at the Second Special Session of the
UN General Assembly on June 15, 1982. 16
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV’S “NEW THINKING”
Soon after his advent to power in early 1985,
Mikhail Gorbachev, the youngest General Secretary
in the history of the USSR, announced his own vision
and proposals on the in-depth curbing of nuclear
armaments. In September 1985, he offered to reduce
strategic offensive weapons to 6,000 warheads on each
side, while concurrently prohibiting the deployment
of offensive weapons in outer space, including weap-
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