Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

Russia’s reaction to Asian military challenges comprises
both conventional force reforms and nuclear
strategies. Here we restrict ourselves to nuclear issues.
The Pacific Fleet will be the main fleet and one
of two nuclear fleets, suggesting that the main mission
of the fleet is to provide a reliable second-strike
deterrent. The mission of the non-nuclear vessels of
the fleet is to protect the “boomers” (nuclear armed
submarines) and prevent hostile forces from coming
within range. In other words, Russia is following a
deterrence strategy here just as they are in Europe.
Meanwhile, Russia’s long-term rearmament program
apparently envisions the renewal of the submarine
fleet as nuclear propelled multirole submarines, in an
effort to save money. Three missions for them will be
anti-submarine warfare, anti-aircraft carrier missions
(mainly against U.S. carrier battle groups), and attacking
surface ships and transports. They will be armed
with precision conventional weapons in an effort to be
a strategic non-nuclear deterrence force. 166
The drive to the Arctic also presupposes the use of
both Pacific and Northern Fleets, in particular the latter
which is also a nuclear armed fleet, as a swing fleet
that can challenge enemies from the North Pacific,
presumably from bases there. Just as that fleet has a
bastion or bastions in the Kola Peninsula, so too does
the Pacific Fleet have its major bases which the Northern
Fleet or elements thereof may be tasked to help
defend. Alternatively, the Northern Fleet and Russian
air forces based in the high north will be used to sweep
the North Pacific of enemy air and naval assets. Nonetheless
and even though the Far East is very much a
naval theater, Moscow’s main investments through
2010 will evidently go not so much to the Navy as to
nuclear weapons (to redress Russia’s conventional
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