Russian tactical nuclear weapons became a major political factor in the process of ratification of the START treaty under way in Russia and the United States. Barack Obama’s Administration keeps telling the U.S. Congress that the treaty ought to be ratified because without it the chances to begin tactical nuclear arms reduction talks with Moscow are infinitesimal. (Russia is believed to have nearly 4,000 tactical nuclear weapons in its arsenals.) The Pentagon itself has four hundred B61 bombs on eight NATO bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey, and Great Britain.
Yevgeny Myasnikov of the Center for Problems of Disarmament, Energy, and Environment suggested that Russia could barter concessions to Washington in the matter of tactical nuclear weapons for American concessions in the matter of ballistic missile defense and strategic conventional arms. He admitted, however, that the United States was more likely to regard a dialogue over joint ballistic missile defense programs as a replacement for debates over ballistic missile defense in general within the framework of strategic nuclear arms reduction — i.e. for the sake of publicity alone.
NATO summit in Lisbon this autumn is supposed to decide whether or not ballistic missile defense systems are needed in the first place and, if yes, whether or not one ought to be made a project of the whole Alliance. NATO expects by then an answer from Moscow regarding its readiness and willingness to develop a ballistic missile defense framework together with the Alliance.
Shall Russia barter tactical nuclear weapons for joint development of ballistic missile defense systems, modernization of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, and solution to the problem of strategic conventional weapons?
Joint work on the project from the very beginning is the condition of Russia’s participation in ballistic missile defense systems. The way Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put it once, Russia does not want to be «fastened» post-factum to the project developed and shaped without its participation in the first place. Alexander Khramchikhin of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in the meantime said that the so called European ballistic missile framework was Washington’s political project and nothing else, certainly nothing that had anything to do with the existing military threats. NATO’s conceptual crisis might cost America control over Europe. Helping the Americans secure control over Europe is the last thing Russia needs. Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said that even though Russia and the Alliance were facing common threats, neither really needed a joint ballistic missile system. «Before going to the trouble of actually developing and installing it, we’d better try and handle these threats by diplomatic means,» he said.
Rogozin’s words are a reference to the idea of a collective European security treaty suggested by President Dmitry Medvedev. It stipulates establishment of international military bases in Europe which is going to solve the problems that have all but incapacitated the CFE Treaty. NATO countries enjoy a triple superiority over Russia in heavy weapons, and tactical nuclear weapons are Moscow’s only asset that recompenses for this disadvantage.
The Russian National Security Strategy (2009) and Military Doctrine (2010) regard deployment of strategic conventional weapons as a major external military threat (along with design and deployment of strategic ballistic missile defense systems and militarization of outer space). Addressing the UN General Assembly in 2009, Medvedev said, «Progress in nuclear disarmament is impossible without a solution to the problems of ballistic missile defense systems and strategic conventional weapons.» Indeed, the new START treaty stipulated fewer restrictions on strategic conventional weapons than its predecessor.
Said Anatoly Antonov, Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Security and Disarmament Department, «The Americans develop strategic conventional weapons in accordance with their Prompt Global Strike initiative. Coupled with the global ballistic missile defense system, this initiative or concept becomes an instrument of political and strategic domination. That’s a serious factor that undermines principles of mutual deterrence and mutual security and that might even disable the global strategic stability architecture.»
The treaty Russian and American presidents signed in Prague on April 8 imposed no restrictions on ballistic ASMs and long- range guided missiles that might be developed within the framework of the Prompt Global Strike concept.
«The issue of strategic conventional weapons might stop cold the Russian-American reduction talks,» said Myasnikov. Along with everything else, the Americans just might try to involve Russia in joint development of strategic conventional weapons.
Even with a ballistic missile defense system jointly developed and installed, the very attempt to single out sources of threats will land Russia in trouble because unlike the United States, it regards no countries as «rogues». Hypothetical cooperation with the Americans in offensive weapons development will also have far-reaching political consequences for Russia. Also importantly, high-precision weapons development is a sphere where it has absolutely nothing to offer to the West.
Strategic conventional weapons are the worst disruptive factor at this point and tactical nuclear weapons are supposed to help remedy this situation. Besides, tactical nuclear weapons are less expensive than strategic conventional weapons. Indeed, production cost of a single tactical nuclear device does not even begin to come close to that of a guided missile, much less a ballistic missile.
