Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

weapons by India and Pakistan in 1998 had intensified
the India-Pakistan conflict and brought with it the
possibility of a new “great game” in Central and South
Asia, played by nuclear armed states and increasing
tensions among Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi with
the United States and NATO—were directly engaged
in Afghanistan. 43
For most of the decade, Russian official literature
discussing foreign policy, national security strategy,
and military doctrine focused upon the United States
and NATO as the chief sources of challenges and
threats to Russian national security, with secondary
attention given to internal sources of instability (extremism
and separatism) and to international terrorism.
This official position masked what were developing
concerns regarding the security of its own Eastern
Siberian and Far Eastern domains. Those security concerns
are rooted in Russia’s historical experience with
this distant and relatively isolated territory.
Russian Cossacks pushed into the Far East in
the mid-17th century, and a network of settlements
spread. These remotes lands were more connected
with Moscow by sea than by land, with the Russian
Navy maintaining a nominal presence to enforce Russian
claims. The integration of these regions into Imperial
Russia took a quantum leap in the last decade
of the 19th century with the construction of the Trans-
Siberian railroad under the leadership of the Minister
of Finances Sergei Witte. Witte saw the railroad as
the key to the Russian development of Siberia and as
access to the Chinese market. However, before those
benefits could be reaped, Russia found itself drawn
into imperial rivalries over Manchuria and Korea,
leading to war with Japan and defeat. During the war,
the railroad became the chief means of Russian strate-
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