Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

longer guarantee a retaliatory response to aggression
or defend against a conventional strike. Moreover, he
believes that a fierce struggle that could culminate in
a war can develop around attempts to seize Russia’s
natural resources. (This notion is also enshrined as an
official view in the 2009 National Security Concept). 114
Therefore, to prevent foreign precision-guided munitions
from destroying Russia’s C3I network, the order
may be given to launch these weapons either to preempt
such attacks or in a preventive mode. 115
Russia’s exercises fully reflect these plans (and
not only in the West). 116 The Zapad 2009 and Ladoga
exercises, bifurcated in half to avoid foreign inspections,
were part of a nation-wide series of exercises in
August-October 2009 from the Arctic to the Black Sea
and culminated in a simulated nuclear strike on Poland,
probably for the reasons given by Belov above. 117
The 2009 exercises built upon Stabilnost’ 2008 and earlier
exercises that involved the use of nuclear weapons
in a first-strike mode. During the period September
28-October 10, 2009, Russia’s SRF (RVSN), i.e., their
nuclear forces, conducted drills to launch massive
nuclear strikes using the Topol-M and Stiletto RS-18
ICBMs to apparently strike “army assets.” 118 It is noteworthy
because these exercises represented a change
from the 2004 exercises where the Russians used TNW
in a first-strike mode because they could not otherwise
stop a conventional offensive. In other words,
now it is equally as likely that they will use ICBMs or
SLBMs against the United States or Europe for those
purposes rather than TNW. 119 Since Russian leaders acknowledge
that large-scale exercises are both a show
of strength and a training exercise, the significance of
these exercises and their component operations, as
well as ongoing nuclear war exercises, is quite evident
to all observers. 120
330