Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

Following the signing of the New START, Sergey
Rogov, the Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
United States, and Canada Institute, was interviewed
in the defense ministry publication, Krasnaya
Zvezda, on April 7, 2010. Like other Russian experts,
Rogov broadly welcomed the new START and outlined
a number of its features that suited Russian
policy concerns. However, he went on to realistically
assess the START breakthrough by highlighting a
number of its weaknesses. His starting point was to
explain that a balance of forces is not restricted to strategic
nuclear arms and that the new treaty continues
to preserve U.S. and NATO superiority over Russia
in nuclear and conventional terms. Then he noted
that the treaty fails to address Moscow’s concern that
precision weapons being developed by the United
States are not limited by the new START, which he
highlighted as anomalous since such weapons systems
as part of the global strike program might pose
a threat to Russian strategic facilities. Moreover, since
the number of Russian missiles capable of carrying a
large quantity of warheads will be stood down in the
future owing to aging, Rogov argued that the United
States will maintain its superiority in return potential,
though not at the same level as under the Strategic Offensive
Reductions Treaty (SORT). Continued work on
BMD, while not representing an immediate issue for
Moscow, will pose a potential problem in 15-20 years,
which Rogov suggested demands the development of
Russian countermeasures. Finally, he said that bilateral
nuclear treaties must give way to a wider multilateral
framework that takes account of the growth in
the number of nuclear states. 94
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