Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

ased Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs),
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and
long-range heavy bombers.
All three systems are capable of attacking targets
at great distances (at least 5,500 kilometers [km],
and often twice as far). The 1987 Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty prohibits Russia and the
United States from developing, manufacturing, or
deploying ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles
with ranges of 500-5,500 km. The two countries
still retain many nuclear weapons with ranges under
500 km. These shorter-range tactical systems can be
launched by short-range missiles, dropped from the
air as gravity bombs, loaded onto torpedoes or other
tactical naval weapons, or otherwise delivered by
nonstrategic systems (though neither country appears
to have the fabled “nuclear” hand grenade). Another
possible criterion for identifying a tactical nuclear
weapon, its small yield, offers a less helpful indicator
since the constantly improving accuracy of strategic
delivery vehicles has meant that their warheads can
also have low yields but still destroy their distant targets.
No bilateral treaty limits the number of short-range
nuclear weapons in the American and Russian arsenals.
The most important measure constraining these
weapons occurred in 1991. That fall, U.S. President
George H. W. Bush became alarmed that the ongoing
disintegration of the Soviet Union, which had been accelerated
by the failed August 1991 coup by communist
hardliners, was endangering Moscow’s control
over thousands of Soviet nuclear warheads. Therefore,
in late September, Bush announced major reductions
in the number of deployed American TNWs,
including the elimination of all U.S. ground-launched
systems and the removal of all nuclear weapons from
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