Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

CHAPTER 7
RUSSIA AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Stephen J. Blank
Many U.S. analysts in and out of government maintain
that nuclear weapons are increasingly irrelevant
both politically and militarily. Allegedly at best, they
can only deter other nuclear weapons, and in any case
conventional capabilities are fast achieving a comparable
capability, rendering the military-strategic utility
of nuclear weapons increasingly dubious. A huge
and growing literature speaks to the “senselessness”
of nuclear weapons that are supposedly increasingly
devoid of military utility and that they are becoming
merely symbols of great power status. 1 Unfortunately,
this largely U.S. and European view is not grounded
in the “real world” about which these analysts sometimes
speak disdainfully. Rather, it is often rooted in
the wish to be rid of, delegitimize, or at least minimize
the utility of nuclear weapons. Certainly the idea that
nuclear weapons perform no discernibly useful military
mission is rooted in theoretical exercises not, fortunately,
empirical evidence. At the same time, much
of this writing suffers from an excessive focus on U.S.
policy and strategy and the corresponding neglect of
other states’ thinking and experience.
Analysis of Russia’s nuclear agenda, not to mention
nuclear issues in other nuclear powers or proliferators,
suggests, as this author noted a decade ago, that
even if numbers decline, the range of missions is increasing,
as is the overall importance of nuclear weapons
for Russia. 2 Moreover, close examination of Russian
defense issues, both in their domestic and foreign
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