Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

conventional wars. The public debate began in earnest
in October 2009 when Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of
Russia’s Security Council, told an interviewer that the
forthcoming defense doctrine will be amended to allow
for the possibility of preventive and preemptive
first strikes, including nuclear strikes, even in the
context of a purely conventional local war and even
at the lower level of operational-tactical, as opposed
to strategic, strikes. 10 This triggered a major public debate
over those questions that paralleled the private
debate among Russia’s leaders. Although ultimately
the published doctrine omitted to say these things, the
citation above about armored vehicles suggests that
for many Patrushev’s views are nevertheless reflected
there. 11 In addition, the doctrine was accompanied by
a classified publication on nuclear issues that left foreign
observers in the dark about when Russia might
or might not go nuclear and for what purposes and
missions.
At the same time, a concurrent and related debate
became public between Putin and Medvedev as
to whether or not Russia needs to build more offensive
nuclear weapons than it had originally planned
in order to meet the alleged challenge posed by U.S.
missile defenses in Eastern Europe. Even as Medvedev
was hailing the progress being made in negotiating
this treaty, saying that a final version was close
at hand, Putin decided to show who was boss and to
play to the hawks’ gallery. On December 28, 2009, in
Vladivostok, he said that:
The problem is that our American partners are developing
missile defenses, and we are not, . . . But the
issues of missile defense and offensive weapons are
closely interconnected….There could be a danger that
having created an umbrella against offensive strike
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