Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

as among Alliance members, future BMD plans, Medvedev’s
European security treaty initiative, and how
the global zero concept is viewed by the Russian security
elite. Karaganov has expressed skepticism over
the meaning and objective content in the reset policy,
openly questioned the administration’s plans to deploy
BMD components in Bulgaria and Romania by
2015, and has fiercely criticized global zero both in
terms of the centrality of nuclear deterrence in Russian
security policy and the contradictory posture adopted
by its architects. 98
Karaganov’s critique of global zero stemmed from
his overview of how the concept was first outlined in
January 2007 by the former U.S. Secretaries of State
Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, former Senate
Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn,
and former Secretary of Defense, William Perry. Despite
initially supporting what he regarded more as
an aspiration than a policy, Karaganov soon revised
his stance, saying that mankind continued to need the
nuclear Sword of Damocles. 99 The movement had in effect
been launched, and the aspiration was announced
by U.S. President Barack Obama in Prague in April
2009 and broadly welcomed by Medvedev and Putin.
However, he then objected that in an article in January
2010, the four same authors called for increased
spending to increase the reliability and effectiveness
of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In his view, this shift reflected
an acknowledgement that the U.S. nuclear
capability had been underfinanced in recent years,
as well as an admission that the nuclear proliferation
genie had appeared. In typically Russian style, he delighted
in the semblance of hypocrisy, suggested U.S.
power faced a strategic crisis following its experience
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and made clear that if anyone
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