Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

CHAPTER 1
RUSSIAN NUCLEAR AND CONVENTIONAL
WEAPONS:
THE BROKEN RELATIONSHIP
Dale R. Herspring
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin’s
leaders and generals have consistently believed
that whatever happens to their conventional forces, if
worst comes to worst, they can rely on their nuclear
weapons as a deterrent. After all, no country was
about to attack the Russian Federation with its triad of
nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, for the Russians this
was more of an illusion than a reality because in spite
of some minor improvements (e.g. the addition of the
Topol-M, and the SS-24), the fact is that its nuclear
forces are deteriorating along with its conventional
forces. Indeed, at present, Moscow has neither a competent
conventional nor a nuclear force. The former
are in the midst of a major reform project—encouraged
by Moscow’s poor performance in the war with
Georgia—while two-thirds of its nuclear triad is for
the most part unusable.
BACKGROUND
When the Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF)/(RVSN)
were created in 1959, they were primarily an extension
of the Soviet Army’s long-range artillery. Indeed,
most of the officers came from that tradition, and
it would be the ground leg of the nuclear triad that
would be the most important. Of the other two legs
of the triad, the Navy was second in importance, fol-
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