Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

submarine in the new class, Yuri Dolgoruki, has been
commissioned, two more are being built, and the keel
of the fourth was laid in January 2010. It was also decided
to retain one more Typhoon SSBN and convert it
for Bulava. Eventually this might mean that, given the
low production capability, Russia will have serious
problems producing the necessary number of SLBMs
to equip all submarines (16 per each new Borey-class
SSBN and 20 per each Typhoon; future Borey SSBNs are
expected to carry 20 missiles each).
The sorry state of modernization of the Navy increasingly
causes displeasure of the top echelons of
the government—last year First Deputy Prime Minister
Sergey Ivanov revealed that the Navy consumes
40 percent of the total defense budget, more than the
SRF, Air Force, and Space Forces combined, and that
the bulk of that spending goes to the nuclear submarine
force. 58 Implicit in the tone of his remarks was recognition
that the yield from that investment remains
unsatisfactory.
In the meantime, the sea leg of the Russian triad
consists of Delta III and IV SSBNs. These submarines
were given an overhaul to extend their service lives.
The Makeev design bureau, which had lost the contract
for a new SLBM, produced a modernized version
of SS-N-23. In the coming decade, Delta IIIs will be
probably phased out and only slightly newer Delta IVs
will remain in service. Thus, early completion of the
Bulava program remains a must—without it, Russia
risks losing the sea leg completely by the end of this or
the beginning of the next decade.
It might be interesting to contemplate the Russian
strategic triad without the naval component. Proposals
to phase out SSBNs were quite popular in the late
1990s-early 2000s, when investment into moderniza-
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