Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

Figure 9-2. Russian Surviving and Retaliating
Warheads, 1,550 Deployment Limit.
A close inspection of Figures 9-1 and 9-2 reveals
that U.S. and Russian New START-compliant forces
can easily satisfy requirements for mutual deterrence
based on assured retaliation. Each, under a variety
of operational conditions, has sufficient numbers of
surviving and retaliating warheads to guarantee unacceptable
societal damage to the first striker. In addition
to this “assured destruction” or “assured retaliation”
metric, each side can also provide for additional
warheads with which to attack nuclear, other forces,
and command-control systems. The addition of defensive
weapons to the equation for both sides does not
change this picture fundamentally, although it does
reduce the flexibility of targeting for each side in retaliation.
What happens if the maximum number of strategic
nuclear weapons permitted for each side is reduced to
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