Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

arsenal, as well as approximately an equal number in
the U.S. inactive stockpile. These TNWs consist of B61-
3 and B61-4 nuclear gravity bombs for airplanes (some
at U.S. air bases in Europe) and nuclear-armed submarine-launched
Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles
(TLAM-N) deployed at secure land facilities in the
United States. 4 The Obama administration’s Nuclear
Posture Review Report, published in April 2010, decided
to retire the TLAM-N after the Japanese Government
indicated that Tokyo no longer saw that particular
weapon system—as opposed to other U.S. nuclear
and conventional forces—as essential for maintaining
the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence guarantees
for Japan. 5
The U.S. Armed Forces have been dramatically reducing
their holdings of TNWs because the advent of
precision-guided conventional munitions has reduced
the number of missions that might require nuclear
warheads. In addition, an important role for TNWs—
defending NATO allies in Europe from the large
conventional militaries of the Soviet bloc—vanished
with the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, many
U.S. commanders and civilian strategists doubt that
the American President or other senior civilian and
military leaders would authorize the use of a nuclear
weapon except under the most extreme circumstances.
The U.S. military has preferred to redirect monetary
and other resources to researching and developing
conventional weapons whose use is more likely. At
present, the main factor sustaining the U.S. TNWs is
to meet NATO’s formal requirements for such weapons,
make U.S. extended nuclear deterrence guarantees
appear more credible to countries that might otherwise
decide to pursue their own nuclear weapons,
and have some nonstrategic assets to trade away in
any TNW negotiations with Moscow.
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