Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

Security Advisor James L. Jones, ’Even as a unilateral
declaration, a provision like this would put pressure
on the United States to limit its systems or their deployment
because of Russian threats of withdrawal
from the treaty.’ 81
Therefore even a unilateral Russian statement of
expressing these views could become grounds for
increased Senatorial opposition to the treaty, if not
a failure to ratify, as increasingly seems possible.
Should the treaty fail to be ratified, that would only
further justify the arguments made by Russian hawks.
Since the U.S. Government has just stated that it will
complete the construction of a pan-European missile
defense by 2018, Russia could easily execute its threat
to withdraw from the treaty on those grounds. 82
Nevertheless, despite the risks to the reset policy,
the Russian military remains unappeased on this issue.
Russian Chief of Staff General Nikolai Makarov
warned that:
The factor of parity should be accompanied by the
factor of stability, if the U.S. missile defense begins to
evolve; it will be aimed primarily at destroying our
nuclear missile capabilities. And then the balance of
force will be tipped in favor of the United States. . . .
With the existing and maintained parity of strategic
offensive means, the global missile defense being created
by the U.S. will be able to have some impact on
the deterrence capabilities of the Russian strategic
nuclear force already in the medium term. . . . This
may upset the strategic balance of force and lower the
threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Although
missile defense is a defensive system, its development
will basically boost [the] arms race. 83
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