Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

Indeed, from Boldyrev’s remarks we may discern
that he, and presumably his colleagues, fully expect
both sides to use nuclear weapons as strike weapons
in combat operations. The comments above concerning
armored vehicles point in the same direction. 7
At the same time, an analysis of Russia’s current
thinking about nuclear issues reveals ongoing and vigorous
high-level debates about nuclear weapons. This
debate is evidently linked to the domestic struggle for
primacy between the factions around Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. In
other words, one vital subjective factor that will drive
future Russian thinking about nuclear weapons, policies,
and strategy is the identity of the chief decisionmaker,
whatever his title. In a system devoid of checks
and balances, any democratic control over the armed
forces and where many military men, and maybe civilian
elites, still harken for a military leadership like
that of Stalin in World War II, the personality, outlook,
and thinking of the leader is of much more critical
importance than is the case in more structured and
accountable polities. 8 This point is even more compelling
when we realize that the structure of Russian
politics means that this absence of democratic controls
in defense policy generates a constant temptation to
use military forces to solve political problems.
This debate concerning nuclear weapons is not only
visible in the controversies surrounding the recent defense
doctrine of February 2010, indeed, it precedes
the publication of the doctrine. 9 It involves several
questions revolving around nuclear weapons. First,
it comprises the question of using nuclear weapons
in a preventive or even preemptive mode in smaller
or so-called local wars that have hitherto been purely
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