LETTERS

摘要

John Tirpak's article was concise and provided a lot of good information about these new Russian strategic missiles, but on the question of "what are they for," there was one key factor that seemed to be missing ["Strategy and Policy: What are Putin's Five New Nukes For?" April, p. 16]. Like us, though for different reasons, Russia's strategic nuclear deterrent is facing across-the-board obsolescence of Cold War-era weapons, and many of their weapons are believed to be near or past their planned retirements. Russian weapons traditionally are designed to have shorter service lives to make them cheaper to build and require less maintenance and overhaul, which their force structure and industrial base are ill-equipped to do. There is little reason for Russia to put 1970s-80s weapons back into production when there are newer designs that promise to be a more credible deterrent and, if necessary, more effective against U.S. or PRC strategic defenses.