Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

from submarines is likely to complicate the matter
even further. Paradoxically, ICBMs armed with
conventional warheads might be a better option for
Global Strike because Russian inspectors could verify
the type of warheads on designated ICBMs during reentry
vehicle (RV) inspections under New START (on
the other hand, to reach the majority of targets in Eurasia,
the ICBM must fly over Russian territory, which
can be a cause for concern as well).
Even as Russian politicians, military, and nongovernmental
experts continue to criticize American
plans for Global Strike, they simultaneously advocate
acquisition of similar capability by Russia. As a wellknown
Russia expert, Aleksandr Khramchikhin, noted,
“strategic weapons are not a panacea for defense
against attack against Russia.” 74 It is worth recalling
that the 2000 National Security Concept and subsequent
documents called reliance on nuclear weapons a temporary
fix until Russia acquires a modern conventional
capability.
Efforts toward that goal were started in the 1980s,
but progress is slow. Nonetheless, it enjoys greater
attention than modernization of the nuclear capability.
Programs include long- and short-range precision
guided air- and ground-launched missiles as well as
new communication, command, and control assets,
a Russian analogue to global positioning satellites
(GPS) and GLONASS, which should enable precision
strikes.
In the early 2000s Russia began production of the
Kh-555 conventional ALCM (a version of the nuclear
Kh-55); in the 1990s, it also started to work on a brandnew
Kh-101/102 ALCM: the 101 variant for a nuclear
warhead and 102 for conventional. This R&D program
has apparently been exceedingly slow and secretive—
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