Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

Brazil, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia,
Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, France, Germany, Italy,
the UK, Australia, and the European Union) major
powers, despite its insufficiencies in non-nuclear
forces. For the United States and its NATO allies, the
impression of nuclear-strategic parity, as between the
United States and Russia, should make Russia a more
reliable partner for resolving conflicts short of war.
In case of an outbreak of conventional war in or near
Europe, Russia’s self-confidence, as a strategic nuclear
partner of the United States, might delay Russia’s
reach for its nuclear means of threat or actual nuclear
use. Absent this reassurance, the gap between Russian
and U.S.-NATO conventional forces creates a perilous
temptation for prompt nuclear threat or use, once
conventional war has begun. Into this double helix of
escalation ladders fall U.S.-NATO and Russian substrategic
nuclear weapons.
Sub-strategic Weapons and Alliance Politics.
The conclusion and eventual ratification of New
START will leave unsettled the status of sub-strategic
nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and
Russia in Europe. Sub-strategic weapons are those
deployed on other than strategic launchers, i.e., missiles
or bombers of less than intercontinental range. In
practice, this includes delivery systems at or below the
outer limit of intermediate range missiles (5,500 kilometers),
sometimes referred to as “battlefield,” “tactical,”
“operational,” or “theater” missiles depending
on actual ranges. U.S. sub-strategic nuclear weapons
are presently located in five other NATO member
countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
and Turkey. The rationale for these forward deployed
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