Russia's Evolving Strategic Nuclear Deterrent

摘要

Russia's nuclear deterrent remains an important component of its national security policy and of its military strategy. The significance of Russian nuclear forces has changed since the end of the Cold War: the emergence of information-led warfare, the advent of American military hyperpower, and the spread of NATO eastward to Russia's borders, are among the forces that have created new political and military settings for Russian nuclear force development. In addition, the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Asia has created a new regional and global security environment with the potential to destabilize existing arms control regimes. Finally, the US has begun deploying a nationwide ballistic missile defense system (BMD) and Russia has taken this into account in its plans for modernizing its offensive strategic nuclear forces.rnWithin this complex and fast-moving context for Russia nuclear force modernization, how deterrence-stable will future Russian forces be? This study provides a partial answer to that question in three steps. First, we compare the performances of Russian and American Moscow Treaty-compliant forces with an alternative, smaller "minimum deterrent" force for each state. Second, we test the sensitivity of these forces to requirements for early generation or alerting of forces, and for prompt launch of retaliatory forces. Third, we consider whether the introduction of missile defenses of notional effectiveness affects the balance of deterrence credibility as between the two states.