Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

Any proposals for increased transparency or TNW
consolidation would need to overcome Russian fears
about NATO preemption, since placing the weapons
in a few designated places would make them easier
to attack, creating opportunities (and incentives) for a
preemptive first strike that would destroy the weapons
before they could be dispersed to their launch sites.
Any proposals for less than total reductions would
need to address U.S. congressional concerns about the
imbalance in the Russian-U.S. TNWs, which would
become especially salient were both countries to negotiate
further reductions in the size of their strategic
nuclear arsenals. The warhead and launcher limits in
the New START may already be lower than the size
of Russia’s residual TNWs, though the latter are by
definition less threatening to the U.S. homeland and
compensated for by NATO’s superior conventional
forces.
Even if the parties are unable to secure the elimination
of all NATO and Russian TNW, or if some weapons
were exempt from the transparency arrangements
to enhance deterrence through the increased uncertainty,
mutual TNW reductions could provide several
advantages, including reducing the number of possible
terrorist targets, saving money that would have
to be spent on having to modernize a larger number of
weapons, allowing NATO to remove the TNWs from
countries no longer eager to host them (which might
leave U.S. TNWs in only Turkey and perhaps Italy),
and demonstrating NATO and Russian commitment
to making progress toward nuclear nonproliferation.
Yet, securing Russian Government approval for even
partial reductions looks unlikely for the indefinite future.
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