Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

a majority of Russian respondents (60 percent) now
oppose further nuclear disarmament. Most cited a
concern with assuring Russia’s security in case of war,
while a quarter of the respondents favored preserving
Russia’s nuclear weapons to showcase Russia’s political
power. Only 4 percent said that nuclear weapons
were essential for countering U.S. military strength,
though such a perspective may be encompassed in the
above responses and appears common among Russia’s
current generation of foreign and defense policy
leaders. 92
Most Americans would probably not presently favor
eliminating the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In its April
2010 Nuclear Posture Review Report, the Obama administration
itself sets very high standards for realizing a
nuclear-free world:
The conditions that would ultimately permit the United
States and others to give up their nuclear weapons
without risking greater international instability and
insecurity are very demanding. Among those are the
resolution of regional disputes that can motivate rival
states to acquire and maintain nuclear weapons, success
in halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons,
much greater transparency into the programs and
capabilities of key countries of concern, verification
methods and technologies capable of detecting violations
of disarmament obligations, and enforcement
measures strong and credible enough to deter such
violations. Clearly, such conditions do not exist today.
But we can—and must—work actively to create those
conditions. 93
Realizing these conditions in Russia’s case would
require a transformation in the threat perceptions,
security culture, and defense ambitions of Russian
leaders comparable to that which occurred in Ger-
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