Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

West is taking place within a larger context of a more
decentralized, and less West-centric, world order. As
he puts it, the post-Western world “has in store not
only expertise and capital from advanced countries,
but (also) new opportunities for improving Russia’s
welfare and security in Asia, the Middle East and Latin
America.” 31 Edward Lozansky also supports the idea
that Russia’s drive for economic and technology modernization
is an all-azimuths one. The document, in
his judgment, is “oriented toward West, East, South,
North, and any other direction that has a potential for
promoting Russian interests.” 32 Putting the document
in historical perspective, Stephen J. Blank cautions
against euphoria with regard to Western expectations
for Russian foreign policy transformation:
Indeed, it is a time-honored tradition of Russian and
Soviet foreign policy to signal a détente based on common
economic interests, the main goal of which is that
Russia obtains foreign technology (which, because of
its economic-political structure, it cannot optimally
utilize) in return for sham or cosmetic concessions. 33
Thus Russia’s nuclear and conventional force modernization
depend both upon closing the gap between
Russian performance and that of the other leading
state economies.
The conclusion of New START also provides symbolic
benefits for Russia, by treating Russia as an equal
negotiating partner with the United States for purposes
of establishing a hierarchy of nuclear weapons
states. So established, Russia has an additional hand
to play at the head of the table among G-8 (the United
States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom
[UK], Canada, Italy, and Russia) and G-20 (South Africa,
Canada, Mexico, the United States, Argentina,
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