Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

concerns have become greater as the conduct of the
North Korean regime has become more erratic.
Strategic nuclear weapons loomed very large in
the Yeltsin era when the strategic arsenal was expected
to play a major political role in assuring that Russia
would establish and retaining a strategic partnership
with the United States and obtain a major say in the
emerging post-Cold War order in Europe. Since 1999,
Russia has emphasized the deterrent function of its
strategic nuclear forces, but has focused its posture on
conflict management to discourage military intervention
in Russia’s periphery. For two decades, the Russian
military has placed the likelihood of nuclear war
at a very low level and has even seen the possibility of
a general coalition war at a low probability. That being
said, the Russian government has also recognized
that its immediate periphery is quite unstable, fraught
with local conflicts that can turn into local wars, and
lead to foreign military interventions against the national
interests, territorial integrity, and sovereignty
of Russia. The question of the “near abroad,” a euphemism
for the independent states that emerged on
Russia’s periphery with the breakup of the USSR, has
been closely tied to Russian national interests, a Russian
sphere of influence, and the protection of Russian
minorities living in the successor states. Russian intervention
in ethnic conflicts in this region has been
seen by the West as one of the primary areas of conflict
with Russia, especially in the aftermath of the Russo-
Georgian War of August 2008. 53 For Russian leaders,
the Russo-Georgian conflict revealed a number of
problems associated with the command and control
of modern conventional forces, especially the integration
of air-land combat, which became a driver for the
Ministry of Defense’s “new look.” 54 At the same time,
482