Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

that having created an umbrella against offensive
strike systems, our partners may come to feel completely
safe. After the balance is broken, they will do
whatever they want and grow more aggressive. 91
Fourth, given these conditions, the danger (as
listed in the new defense doctrine) of NATO enlargement,
and the threat of missile defenses coming closer
to Russia, Moscow believes that it is being placed under
mounting military-political pressure, or at least
professes to be so, even though it undoubtedly knows
that NATO is hardly an offensive threat and that the
U.S. missile defenses cannot threaten its systems. 92
Therefore, it has been ready for at least a decade with
its threat of striking first with nuclear weapons, even
against conventional strikes, if the threat to its interests
is dire enough. Thus in 1999 Colonel General
Vladimir Yakovlev, commander in chief of Russia’s
nuclear forces, stated that: “Russia, for objective reasons,
is forced to lower the threshold for using nuclear
weapons, extend the nuclear deterrent to smaller-scale
conflicts and openly warn potential opponents about
this.” 93 Since then, there has been no mention of any
further alteration of this threshold.
Consequently Russia sees nuclear weapons as
warfighting weapons, and both doctrinal statements
and exercises confirm this. This process of conventionalizing
nuclear weapons, in and of itself, substantially
lowers the threshold for nuclear use just as Moscow
did in 1999. Since then, others have amplified upon
this point. For example, Solovtsov stated that new
military uses for nuclear weapons are coming into being.
Thus:
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