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Further Reading

Nuclear Weapons

The Second World War demonstrated to Stalin the backwardness of Soviet science and technology. After the war, he ordered the continued expansion of the research and development base, particularly in defense and heavy industries. Allocations for science increased, new research facilities opened, and salaries and perquisites for scientists were improved dramatically. All available personnel, including captured German scientists and imprisoned Soviet scientists, were employed. This effort led to some important technological successes, such as the explosion of the atomic bomb in August 1949.

Soviet intelligence went to considerable lengths to to learn about US nuclear programs, and detailed information was provided to Igor Kurchatov, scientific director of the Soviet atomic project, in 1944 and early 1945. Klaus Fuchs confessed to British authorities in 1950 that he had passed significant information to the Soviet Union, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed in 1953 for espionage.

Within the Soviet Union, the successful U.S. nuclear test and immediate employment in war of atomic weapons through strategic air strikes had shocked the leadership. Henry Kissinger described the impact of these events: "The end of World War II confronted the Soviet leadership with a fearful/challenge. At the precise moment when Soviet armies stood in the center of a war-wrecked Europe and Lenin's prophecies of the doom of capitalism seemed on the verge of being fulfilled, a new weapon appeared, far transcending in power anything previously known. . . . Was this to be the result of twenty years of brutal repression and deprivation and of four years of cataclysmic war that at its end the capitalist enemy should emerge with a weapon which could imperil the Soviet state as never before?"

The U.S. nuclear monopoly underscored a fundamental strategic reality: America could obliterate Soviet cities but the Soviet Union had no capacity to attack the American homeland. The Soviets soon would reason that another strategic reality stemmed from the U.S. monopoly; in the near future, as a result of U.S. assistance, western nations could, with relative impunity, engage in actions against Soviet-controlled areas with the American nuclear shield to deter possible Soviet retaliation. Being vulnerable, the U.S.S.R. could not afford to challenge the West, especially the United States directly.

Such factors conditioned the long-standing Soviet disposition for defense. They also helped to put the Soviet atomic program into high gear. The U.S. Smythe Report, which provided a great volume of information on the U.S. atomic effort, was published in Moscow with an initial printing of 30,000 copies. An enforced development of the Soviet atomic bomb and the obvious priority assigned to the effort makes it clear that the Soviet leadership quickly recognized the strategic challenge in a U.S. nuclear monopoly. Unwilling to concede to the West the strategic power position thought to have been won through enormous Soviet sacrifice in the war against Germany, Stalin personally involved himself, along with other principals, in efforts to close the technological gaps that could influence the Soviet strategic position.

America judged the Soviets would take considerable time if they were to develop atomic weapons, comparing the tremendous U.S. effort and capacity with the war-damaged Soviet industrial base and limited technology. Although Soviet weapons designers benefited from the American plutonium bomb design, they had to independently validate the material they were given in preparing their first bomb. The Soviet Union also had to invest substantial resources in developing the engineering and industrial infrastructure to translate a theoretical design into an actual weapon.

General W. Bedell Smith, U.S. Ambassador at Moscow, later Director of Central Intelligence and Under Secretary of State, told Secretary Forrestal in July 1948 that the Soviets did not, in his opinion, have the industrial competence to develop the atomic bomb in quantity for five or even ten years. General Leslie R. Groves, who supervised the Manhattan Project andwho knew the enormous problems of producing an atomic bomb, reportedly advised the U.S. Government that "the Soviets would need fifteen or twenty years to build the atomic bomb." After the explosions of the first Soviet atomic device in l949 and the Soviet hydrogen bomb in August l953, the Soviet armed forces acquired nuclear weapons. Also introduced in the 1950s were ballistic- and cruise-missile technologies, jet engines, and artificial earth satellites, as well as computers and automated control systems. These important events were known in the Soviet Union as the "revolution in military affairs." Of all the new developments, nuclear weapons most affected Soviet strategy. Nuclear weapons altered the nature and methods of armed struggle on the strategic level because they could accomplish the military's strategic tasks without operational art and tactics.

Not until Stalin's death in l953, however, could the Soviet military begin exploring the full strategic potential of the new weapons. Although he had pushed for the development of the "bomb," Stalin played down its importance and did not encourage the military to formulate a new strategy incorporating nuclear weapons.

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union launched R&D to miniaturize and improve reliability of nuclear weapons. Air Force tactical units began receiving new, smaller nuclear bombs, which could be carried by supersonic fighters and attack aircraft. Nuclear depth charges were also developed for use against submarines, including those operating under the ice cap. Development activities included strategic systems for the Navy; cruise missiles, aviation bombs and artillery projectiles [the smallest nuclear charge was developed for a 152mm artillery projectile].

In the 1960s, before development of the concept of limited nuclear war, Soviet strategists debated whether or not nuclear war could be a rational tool of policy because the widespread destruction it would cause could prevent it from promoting socialism's final victory. Some Soviet leaders, notably Nikita S. Khrushchev and the Soviet military theorists who shared his views, maintained that, considering the extremes of nuclear violence, nuclear war could not be a continuation of politics by means of armed force. In the 1970s, Leonid I. Brezhnev claimed that whoever started a nuclear war would be committing suicide, and he asserted that the Soviet Union would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

In the 1980s, Soviet civilian and military leaders adopted a similar stance, repeatedly declaring that no victor could emerge in a general nuclear war and that it would lead to the destruction of humanity. These statements seemed to modify Lenin's dictum that war is the continuation of politics.

As of 01 April 2005 Kommersant reported that the Strategic Missile Force of Russia had 496 ICBMs, including 226 silo-launched (86 heavy missiles R-36MUTTH and R-36M2 Voevoda, 10 medium missiles UR-100NUTTH, and 40 light missiles RS-12M2 Topol-M) and 270 mobile ground-launched missiles RS-12M Topol. By 2010, the Force may have no more than 313 ICBMs, including 154 silo-launched (40 R-36M2 Voevoda, 50 UR-100NUTTH, and 64 RS-12M2 Topol M), and 159 mobile ground-launched missiles (144 RS-12M Topol and 15 RS-12M1 Topol M). The 270 mobile ground-launched solid-fuel missiles RS-12M Topol (SS-25 Sickle in NATO classification) may be slashed to 144 in five years. At the same time, 89 new Topol-M missiles (64 RS-12M2 and 15 RS-12M1) are to be put on combat duty, but this is nearly two times fewer than the number of ICBMs to be slashed (136). The number of warheads on the ICBMs will be reduced from 1,770 to 923. [upon close inspection these numbers don't exactly add up and are internally inconsistent, based on standard warhead loading assumptions]

As of 01 January 2006, Russia possessed 927 nuclear delivery vehicles and 4,279 nuclear warheads for strategic offensive weapons, while the United States owned 1,255 and 5,966, respectively, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Vladimir Putin said in November 2006 that developing Russia's strategic forces is the main priority on the national defense agenda. "Maintaining a strategic balance will mean that our strategic deterrent forces should be able to guarantee the neutralization of any potential aggressor, no matter what modern weapons systems he possesses," the president told a meeting with top military officials.

On 15 December 2006 Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov, commander or Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, said said his forces conducted six ICBM launches in 2006, and 12 launches are scheduled for 2007. A total of six ICBM systems of the fourth and fifth generations are on active duty, including four silo-based, RS-18, RS-20B (SS-18 Satan), RS-20V (modified SS-18 Satan), RS-12M2 (Topol-M), and two mobile systems RS-12M (Topol) and RS-12M2 (Topol-M), Solovtsov said. By the end of 2006 Russia had five missile regiments equipped with silo-based Topol-M missiles, and one regiment equipped with mobile Topol-M systems. The total number of Topol-M ICBMs, including three silo-based systems to be deployed at the Tatishchevo base, will reach 48 by the end of 2006, according to the Strategic Missile Forces Command.