Comparative Strategy

ISSN: 0149-5933 (Print) 1521-0448 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucst20

A New Cold War? Missile Defenses, Nuclear Arms

Reductions, and Cyber War
Stephen J. Cimbala & Roger N. McDermott
To cite this article: Stephen J. Cimbala & Roger N. McDermott (2015) A New Cold War? Missile
Defenses, Nuclear Arms Reductions, and Cyber War, Comparative Strategy, 34:1, 95-111, DOI:
10.1080/01495933.2015.994405
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2015.994405

Published online: 25 Feb 2015.

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A New Cold War? Missile Defenses, Nuclear Arms

Reductions, and Cyber War
STEPHEN J. CIMBALA
Penn State Brandywine
Media, PA, USA

ROGER N. McDERMOTT

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Danish Institute for International Studies

Copenhagen, Denmark
This study inquires whether the United States and Russia might be headed toward a new
Cold War, at least with respect to certain aspects of their diplomatic-strategic behavior.
Those aspects have to do with missile defenses, nuclear arms control, and conflict in
cyberspace. Arguments pertinent to these three domains or issues are not necessarily
transferable, as interpretations of trends in U.S.-Russian relations, to other aspects
of their diplomacy and national security affairs. For example, one cannot necessarily
infer the outcome of Russian-American relations over Syria, Ukraine, or Afghanistan
based on prevailing tendencies in nuclear arms control or cyber war. Nevertheless, the
examination of missile defenses, nuclear arms control, and cyber conflict may yield
important insights about near- and longer term prospects, because: (1) each of these
issues has been identified by both states as a matter of vital national security interest; (2),
each issue offers a challenging mix of technical judgments and policy prescriptions; and
(3) U.S.-Russian cooperation is a necessary condition for amelioration of the security
risks in each of these issue domains, as well as in their possible areas of overlap.

Missile Defenses: Promissory Notes or Promising Deterrents?

The United States has been doing serious research and development on missile defenses for
many years, but the end of the Cold War and maturing missile defense technologies (with
some potential for air defense also) have created additional interest in the possibility of
actual ballistic missile defense (BMD) deployments to protect the U.S. homeland, deployed
forces, and/or American allies. However, the postCold War politics of missile defense are
not without their own complications. If the linkage between U.S. and NATO plans for
European missile defenses and further progress in U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear arms
reductions was not yet a hostage relationship, it was clearly a problematical connection.1
The New START agreement in 2010 does not preclude the United States from deploying
future missile defenses, despite Russian efforts during the negotiating process to restrict
American degrees of freedom in this respect.2 Then Russian President Dmitri Medvedev
and his predecessor-successor Vladimir Putin have made it clear that Russias geostrategic
perspective links U.S. and NATO missile defenses to cooperation on other arms-control
issues. Meanwhile, the U.S. and NATO in 2011 moved forward with the first phase of a
four-phase deployment of the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) for missile
defenses.3 In March, 2013, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced plans to
modify the original plan for EPAA by abandoning the originally planned deployments of
SM-3 IIB interceptor missiles in Poland by 2022. But this step failed to reassure Russian
95
Comparative Strategy, 34:95111, 2015
Copyright 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
0149-5933 print / 1521-0448 online
DOI: 10.1080/01495933.2015.994405

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S. J. Cimbala and R. N. McDermott

doubters about the U.S. and NATO claims that their regional and global missile defenses
were not oriented against Russia. Russian officials reiterated demands for a legally binding
guarantee from the U.S. and NATO that Russian strategic nuclear forces would not be
targeted by the system. For example, Russias permanent representative to NATO noted
in February, 2014, that there are no improvements in the NATORussian dialogue on
missile defense and added: . . . if we fail to resolve the fundamental issue of providing
reliable legal guarantees of non-direction of the US and NATO missile (defense) system
against Russian forces of nuclear deterrence, we can expect no improvements.4
The military-technical obstacles to U.S.-Russian and NATO-Russian cooperation in
deploying missile defenses are not trivial. Russia has proposed a sectoral missile defense
plan for Europe with shared responsibility between NATO and Russia for launch detection,
threat assessment, and response, including possible shoot-downs of attacking missiles or
warheads. NATO has insisted upon alliance and Russian missile defenses that are separately
controlled and tasked, but able to share information through joint use of warning and datafusion centers. The U.S. has offered to permit Russian experts to observe tests of the various
phases of its missile defense interceptor program based on the SM-3 (Standard) missile
currently and prospectively deployed at sea and on land. Russia regards the latter phases
of this interceptor and its supporting systems, including improved sensors and C2BMC
(command-control, battle management and communications), as potentially threatening to
the survivability of its long-range nuclear strike force of land- and sea-based intercontinental
missiles permitted under New START.5 For its part, NATO regards Russias stance as a
proposal for shared sovereignty over decisions to launch missile defense interceptors,
impossible under NATOs commitment to members only as participants in such a decisionmaking process. (Table 1 summarizes the various phases of the U.S.-NATO plan for a
European missile defense program).
A related technical issue in a two-sided U.S.-NATO and Russian deployment of advanced antimissile and air defenses is the problem of defense suppression. In order to
contribute to deterrence (or dissuasion) by denial, defenses would have to be survivable
against preemptive attack by defense suppression forces.6 Like defenses, defense suppression forces could be based (at least theoretically) in a variety of ways, including on land, at
sea, airborne, or located in spacedepending on the state of their weapons technology and
launchers. In a two-sided deterrence competition with respect to strategic nuclear forces,
each side will estimate the survivability of its offensive forces, strategic antimissile and
air defenses, and defense suppression forces.7 With present technology, defense suppression missions might be carried out by antisatellite (ASAT) weapons terrestrially based or
airborne; by kinetic or cyber-attacks on the command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) systems supporting defenses; or by submarine-launched ballistic missiles
(SLBMs) or stealth cruise missiles ahead of later and larger attacks on forces or other
targets.
If either sides defenses were perceived to be vulnerable to prompt defense suppression,
a situation of mutually reinforcing fears of anti-defensive first strikes might lead to mistaken
or deliberate strikes against the other sides defensesor against its defense suppression
weapons, arguing that those weapons constitute a standing threat to defenses that are
designed to protect ones own values, not to harm others. As Ashton B. Carter has noted:
A BMD deployment is itself a prime target, and the system is clearly useless if
it can easily be destroyed. The BMD need not be absolutely survivable, but the
offense must pay a high enough price to destroy the defense that such a tactic is
unattractive. The defense can of course defend itself, but attack on the defense

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Phase III

Phase IV (canceled March 2013)

2011
2015
2018
2020
Deploying todays capability (see Enhancing medium-range missile Enhancing intermediate-range
Early intercept of MRBMs, IRBMs,
below)
defense
missile defense
and ICBMs
Address regional ballistic missile Expand defended area against
Counter short-, medium-, and
Cope with MRBMs, IRBMs, and
threats to Europe and deployed
short- and medium-range missile intermediate-range missile threats potential future ICBM threats to the
U.S. personnel
threats to southern Europe
to include all of Europe
United States
AN/TPY-2 (FBM) in Kurecik,
AN/TPY-2 (FBM) in Kurecik,
AN/TPY-2 (FBM) in Kurecik,
AN/TPY-2 (FBM) in Kurecik, Turkey;
Turkey; C2BMC in Ramstein,
Turkey; C2BMC in Ramstein,
Turkey; C2BMC in Ramstein,
C2BMC in Ramstein, Germany;
Germany; Aegis BMD ships with Germany; Aegis BMD ships with Germany; Aegis BMD ships with Aegis BMD ships with SM-3 IIA off
SM-3 IA off the coast of Spain
SM-3 IB off the coast of Spain;
SM-3 IIA off the coast of Spain; the coast of Spain; Aegis Ashore
Aegis Ashore with SM-3 1B in
Aegis Ashore with SM-3 IB/IIA with SM-3 IIB in Romania and
Romania
in Romania and Poland
Poland
Exists
In testing
Under development
In conceptual stage when canceled
Turkey, Germany, ships off the coast
Turkey, Germany, ships off the
Turkey, Germany, ships off the
Turkey, Germany, ships off the
of Spain, ashore in Romania and
coast of Spain
coast of Spain, ashore in Romania coast of Spain, ashore in
Poland
Romania and Poland

Phase II

Separate national contributions to the mission of European BMD have been announced by Netherlands and France.
Key:
Aegis Ashore = land-based component of the Aegis BMD system;
AN/TPY-2 (FBM) = Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance, Model 2 (forward-based mode)
BMD = ballistic missile defense
C2BMC = command, control, battle management, and communications
ICBM = intercontinental ballistic missile
IRBM = intermediate-range ballistic missile
MRBM = medium-range ballistic missile
Source: Karen Kaya, NATO Missile Defense and the View from the Front Line, Joint Force Quarterly, issue 71 (4th quarter, 2013): 8489, citation p. 86.

Technology
Locations

Components

Threat/
Mission

Timeframe
Capability

Phase I

Table 1
European Phased Adaptive Approach to Missile Defense

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S. J. Cimbala and R. N. McDermott

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remains for most deployment schemes the most effective tactic for the offense
and hence the weakest link in the defense.8
For deterrence purposes, what matters are: (a) each sides estimates of the survivability
or vulnerability of its own offenses, defenses, and defense suppression forces; (b) each
sides estimates of the survivabilityvulnerability of the other sides offenses, defenses, and
defense suppression forces; (c) each sides estimate of the other sides perception about the
strength or weakness of its own forces in each category; and (d), each sides estimate of the
other sides perception about the strength and weakness of opposed forces in each category.
Regardless of the military-technical obstacles to NATO-Russian cooperation on missile
defenses and nuclear arms reductions, political factors may be even more important. Russian
political and military leaders and official policy statements continue to speak of NATO as
a danger to Russias security.9 Russia is especially sensitive to NATOs reach into former
Soviet, and now extended Russian, security space, within which Russia claims privileged
interests.10 These sensitivities to NATO influence post-Soviet space bordering or near to
Russia extend to any plans for NATO land-based interceptors, radars, or other components
of a European missile defense plan. As Jacob W. Kipp has noted, the distinction between
Russian reform of the armed forces and military reform is closely related to the issue
of future war as Russian military forecasters see it:
On the one hand, reform of the Armed Forces refers to the transformation of
the military forces belonging to the Russian Ministry of Defense and involves
both downsizing the force and transforming it into a force that will meet the
needs and requirements of Russia in the postCold War era. Military reform,
on the other hand, is a more all-embracing process which encompasses all the
military and paramilitary formations of the Russian state and addresses the core
political, economic and social questions attached to raising, sustaining, training, arming, deploying, and employing the military as an element of Russian
national power.11
Therefore, in the minds of some risk-averse Russian military planners, missile defense
nullification technologies might constitute a necessary part of their deterrent, despite U.S.
claims that present BMD technologies are only directed toward regional threats such as
those posed by Iran and North Korea.

Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons

A significant challenge to Russian-American security cooperation lies in the status of nuclear weapons of less than intercontinental (or strategic) range, so-called non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNW). The term sub-strategic or tactical applied to nuclear weapons
is a controversial point. There is considerable dispute over the nature of these weapons,
which clearly fall beyond the existing architecture of strategic or intermediate-range arms
control; efforts to define these weapons by range, yield, or capability have failed.12
States within the same geographical region or sharing borders can pose imminent
threats of mass destruction without requiring ballistic or airborne launchers of the maximum
range. In Europe, Russia and NATO both deploy non-strategic nuclear weapons, partly as
Cold War legacies, but also because those weapons are thought to have political or military
uses. For example, Russias 2010 Military Doctrine avers that the role of nuclear weapons
is prevention of nuclear military conflict or any other military conflict, and that they are

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regarded as an important factor in the prevention of nuclear conflicts and military conflicts
that use conventional assets (large-scale and regional wars).13
The Russian political-military leadership refers to anxieties over the development
of strategic conventional systems and uses this to explain its efforts to bring strategic
conventional military capabilities into future nuclear arms treaties. These linkages are made
to US Prompt Global Strike with conventional strategic weapons US/NATO BMD. Russian
officials frequently express these concerns and also refer to the potential militarization of
outer space, which is present in Russias National Security Strategy (2009) and its latest
Military Doctrine (2010).14
It is important at the outset to grasp how these terms are used and understood by the
Russian political-military leadership. The official Russian defense ministry definition of
these weapons in Voyennyy Entsiklopedicheskiy SlovarMilitary Encyclopedic Dictionary
states:
Nuclear Weapons (NW) (obsolete nameatomic weapons), one of the types
of weapons of mass destruction, in which a direct means of destruction are
nuclear ammunitions. Besides the various types of ammunition, it includes
means of delivering them to the target (nuclear delivery vehicles) and means of
combat command, control and security. Divided into strategic and non-strategic
NW. Strategic NW have nuclear warheads with a capacity of up to several
megatons and capability to reach every continent. They can rapidly demolish
administrative centers, industrial and military targets deep in the rear, destroy
main groupings of troops (forces), cause massive fires, floods and radioactive
contamination. It forms the basis of strategic forces. Non-strategic NW have
nuclear ammunitions with a capacity of up to several hundred kilotons, and
are intended to engage targets at operational and tactical depth of the location
of the enemys troops (forces). This type of NW includes operational-tactical
and tactical weapons of respective configuration and equipment: ground-based
missile systems, cannon artillery, aerial bombs, ship-borne missile systems,
torpedoes, anti-missile systems, controlled and naval mines.15
This definition distinguishes such weapons from strategic-level weapons and subdivides them into operational-tactical and tactical weapons of various configurations, while
evidently assigning a military utility to them. From a Russian military perspective, these
weapons and reliance upon them in certain escalating security crises scenarios implies that
they play a significant role in security thinking; which may continue as a key factor in Russian security thinking until Moscow successfully redresses its conventional weaknesses.
This is seen in official statements, as well as in the role assigned to these weapons during
operational-strategic exercises.16 For Moscow, they do not merely have political value, they
play a role in military planning that compensates for conventional weakness and in certain
scenarios are considered as operational systems.
The possibility that Russian nuclear weapons would be used in a conventional conflict
for the purpose of de-escalation, by means of inflicting calibrated damage, first appeared in
the 2000 Military Doctrine and is tacitly acknowledged as a possibility in the 2010 version.17
Calibrated damage is a proportional amount of damage that is subjectively unacceptable to
the enemy and exceeds the benefits the aggressor expects to gain from the use of force.
The 2010 Military Doctrine sets out the main condition for the use of nuclear weapons:
The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use
of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and (or) its allies, as

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S. J. Cimbala and R. N. McDermott

well as in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations

critical to the national security of the Russian Federation. One Russian analyst noted:
To do this, the doctrine establishes the task of supporting the composition
and state of combat and mobilization readiness and training of the strategic
nuclear forces and the forces and assets that provide for their functioning and
use, as well as the command and control systems, at a level that guarantees
the infliction of assigned damage to an aggressor under any conditions or
situations. Also established are tasks such as supporting the capabilities of
nuclear deterrence at a proscribed degree of readiness, and comprehensive
equipping of the strategic nuclear forces with modern models of weapons and
military and special equipment.18

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The 2009 National Security Strategy outlines threats stemming from

the policy of a number of leading foreign countries aimed at achieving overwhelming supremacy in the military sphere, first of all in strategic nuclear
forces, through the development of precision guided, information, and other
high-tech means of conducting armed combat, strategic weapons with nonnuclear warheads, the formation of a global missile defense system on a unilateral
basis, and the militarization of near Earth space.19
There is no certainty on the precise nature of Russian nuclear policy, known fully only
to the few privileged persons, but NSNW play a role in Russian security policy and this
is visible in the countrys operational-strategic exercises. Zapad 2009 and Vostok 2010,
for example, both involved simulated nuclear strikes on enemy forces, consistent with the
concept of using nuclear weapons to de-escalate a conflict. Despite official claims to the
contrary, the multiple vignettes involved in the scenarios for Vostok 2010 in Russias Far
East likely envisaged China as the hypothetical enemy,20 as Russian forces rehearsed combat
against enemy mechanized formations and submarines, neither of which is associated with
terrorist organizations or pirates. Vostok 2010 reportedly witnessed the simulated use of
SSNW, allegedly including the use of a nuclear land mine (yadernyi fugaz).21
In the Russian Far East, where its hypothetical opponent is no longer seen simply
as a mass industrial-era military, but one increasingly making high-technology advances,
including in network-centric capabilities, Moscows options in a crisis are limited; this
raises the potential utility of such weapons exponentially, especially as Russia lacks similar
advanced conventional capabilities. Some Russian commentators question whether the use
of NSNW against advancing Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) forces would prove
successful; but it would certainly make Beijing stop and think. Moreover, the presence of
platforms such as the Tochka-U (SS-21 Scarab), inaccurate when armed with a conventional
payload, may well be one of the platforms of choice to deliver a tactical nuclear strike.22
Whether non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons would be used for this mission is
unclear: the role of non-strategic nuclear weapons in Russian military strategy is a subject
of uncertainty.23 Among the Russian armed forces, the navy is the principal advocate for
maintaining non-strategic nuclear weapons capabilities, regarding them as essential for any
conflict with the U.S. Navy.24 Another possible use for theater or tactical nuclear weapons
is presented by Russias conventional military weakness relative to the PLA. In addition
to the greater size of PLA forces deployed within the Far Eastern theater of operations,
there is also the possible inability of Russias air force to guarantee air superiority against

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attacking Chinese units.25 Although some Western experts regard Russian non-strategic
nuclear weapons (as well as NATOs) as passe and militarily superfluous, Russian arms
control expert Alexei Arbatov commented in 2010 that the colossal U.S. superiority in
conventional weapons and the growing lag in delivery vehicles for the (Russian) strategic
nuclear forces meant that the role of TNW only grows as an instrument of foreign policy.26
One prospective use for Russian tactical nukes might be to take out enemy precision
strike and C4ISR capabilities, thereby leveling the playing field of advanced conventional
warfare otherwise tilted against Russia.27 For this and other reasons, NATO remains sensitive to the possible modernization of Russias non-strategic missile forces. U.S. reports to
NATO in January, 2014, claimed Russia tested a new medium-range ground-launched cruise
missile (GLCM), a possible violation of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by
Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.28 Russian military commentators suggested the missile in question might be the RS-26 Rubezh, an intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) with an adaptive warhead that behaves like a cruise missile in the
final stage of the weapon systems flight. In 2014, Colonel-General Vladimir Zarudnitsky,
head of the Main Operations Department of the Russian General Staff, noted that, as part
of plans for augmenting the Russian armed forces the Russian Defense Ministry (MOD)
had conducted a test launch of the new Rubezh ICBM, which has greatly improved strike
precision characteristics, presumably against missile defenses.29
The previous distinction, as between a U.S.-NATO political and a Russian military
emphasis on the rationale for tactical nuclear weapons, should not be reified into a clear
demarcation between different kinds of strategies for nuclear use or deterrence. This statement has two aspects. First, the weapons have no political value unless leaders under some
exigent circumstances are actually willing to use them. Second, the Russian threshold for
nuclear first use depends upon its political and military leaders expectations as to whether
their employment is deliberately preemptive, grows out of a process of escalation, or is
forced upon Russia as a means of response to unacceptable NATO escalation. A reasonable
interpretation is that Russian non-strategic and other nuclear weapons carry the water for
conventional forces only in the extreme cases of existential threats to Russian territory,
resources, or sovereignty.30 On the other hand, expert analyst Nikolai Sokov notes that
factors other than military strategy are needed to explain Russias reluctance to part with
its SSNW:
A solution to the paradox of theater nuclear weapons (TNW), or non-strategic nuclear
weapons hereassets that Russia apparently does not need, but continues to hold ontocan
be found in domestic politics rather than in strategic planning. The Russian government
attitude toward TNW appears to represent a complex mix of domestic and bureaucratic
politics, (mis)perceptions, and idiosyncrasies.31
During his first term, President Obama called for another round of U.S.-Russian nuclear
arms talks, following the New START agreement, including discussions about non-strategic
nuclear weapons and non-deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The United States has
approximately 500 non-strategic nuclear warheads, of which some 200 B61 air-delivered
bombs are deployed in Europe. Russia is credited with 3,7005,400 non-strategic warheads
in its total inventory, but discounting older systems thought ready for retirement soon, the
nominal load of Russian non-strategic warheads is estimated at 2,080 weapons.32
The lack of official transparency concerning tactical nuclear weapons leads to estimates
of numbers in the Russian inventory varying from 2,000 to 6,000.33 One estimate in 2010
claimed that the Russian ground forces possess more than 1,100 tactical warheads, with over
2,200 available for naval deployment.34 One unofficial Russian estimate suggests Russia
has up to 5,400 tactical warheads, with 2,000 in a combat-ready state and mostly west of

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S. J. Cimbala and R. N. McDermott

the Ural Mountains.35 In Fall, 2010, the Russian Defense Ministry website confirmed the
continued role of SSNW in the rocket troops and artillery of the ground forces, though
in late 2010 the website briefly stopped displaying information on individual elements of
the ground forces.36 By May 2011, a revamped Defense Ministry website defined their
role as: The Missile Troops and Artillery (MT & A) are an Arm of the Land Force,
which is the primary means of fire and nuclear destruction of the enemy during conduct of
combined-arms operations (combat actions).37
In February 2011, another Russian source estimated that by 2000 all SSNW in the
navy and naval aviation were moved to storage facilities and 30 percent of these were later
eliminated. In the air force and air defense forces, up to 50 percent of SSNW had been
eliminated, with similar reductions in the warheads of the ground forces artillery, tactical
missiles, and landmines. The same source cited the majority of expert assessments as
indicating that Russia has 2,000 intermediate-range and tactical nuclear weapons, including
500 air-launched missiles and bombs for 120 Tu-22M medium-range bombers. There are
300 air-launched missiles, free-fall bombs, and depth charges for naval aviation using 180
Tu-22M, Su-24, Be-12 and Il-38 aircraft. More than 500 tactical devices are anti-ship,
antisubmarine, and antiaircraft missiles, as well as depth charges and torpedoes. Some
warheads are also believed to be in use as interceptor missiles in the Moscow Air Defense
System and in other air defense systems. Moreover, Russian analysts note the secrecy
involved in relation to such weapons in the inventories of other nuclear powers, including
China, Israel, France, Pakistan, India, and North Korea.38
The prospects for further reductions in U.S. and Russian NSNW weapons are uncertain,
given prevailing political climates in both states and in NATO. For its part, Russia insists
upon a going in position that the U.S. must first remove its forward deployed nuclear
warheads from Europe and return them to United States territory.39 Russia argues its
position thus: the U.S. is the only country that currently deploys nuclear weapons outside
of its own state or national territory. The United States, on the other hand, points to the
fact that Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons are at least partly deployed in European
Russiathus, closer to the actual geographical theater of military actions within which
European deterrence or defense missions apply.
Indeed, the sensitivity within the Russian security elite concerning US Prompt Global
Strike is so deep and pervasive that some officials present this as a direct future threat
to Russias nuclear deterrent. Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Rogozin addressed a conference in Moscow on June 27, Be Strong: A Guarantee of Russias National Security.
Rogozin delivered the startling claim that The United States can destroy in a few hours
up to 90 percent of our nuclear capability. Rogozin linked this to the highly advanced
conventional technologies linked to the US Global Prompt Strike concept; in his view
Russias nuclear deterrent could be overwhelmed within the first six hours of conflict. As
chairman of the Military Industrial Commission, Rogozin is desperate to ignite a fire under
the ailing domestic defense industry, which lacks the capacity to compete with advanced
Western high-technology linked defense systems. He also wants to close or narrow the
gap in defense technologies between Russia and the U.S. To underestimate the threat to
Russias security is not just silly, Rogozin told the conference, promising that Russia will
not participate in the race of military technology as a detached observer.40
Russian military doctrine and the top brass persistently criticize U.S. global strike plans,
conventional high-precision weapons, and other high-tech developments, and this partly
reflects the chronic shortages of such options at the disposal of Russian commanders.41
China looms larger in these calculations than NATO, and, though it poses no immediate
security threat to Russia, Moscow fears strategic isolation as it looks east. SSNW reduction

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or elimination is a gamble few in the general staff would risk, and fewer in the security elite
would dare even to contemplate. Colonel-General Vladimir Chirkin, the former commander
of the ground forces, said in reference to the presence of PLA armies close to the Russian
Far East that Russia wants friendly relations with strong nations, but understands that to
quiet a friend down, in the view of the army command, a conventional or nuclear club
is needed. With one club disproportionately compensating for the weakness of the other,
the weapon of choice in extremis is all too clear.42
Some Russian analysts consider U.S.-Russian relations as having reached their lowest
point since the early 1990s, and the reasons or causes are numerous, including differences
over the Arab Spring and color revolutions and arms reduction, as well as opposing views
of the 2014 revolution in Ukraine. According to official statements, Moscow reserves the
right to withdraw from START unless the U.S. behaves itself over BMD and Prompt
Global Strike, and understands that Russia will not discuss reductions in tactical nuclear
weapons. Moscow appears to be particularly sensitive about the possibility of SSNW
emerging on the bilateral agenda.43
NATO political leaders and their military advisors are not of one mind about the problem of non-strategic nuclear weapons deployed in Europe. Some government officials and
leading policy analysts in NATO countries favor elimination of the B61 bombs deployed
with NATO aircraft, on various grounds, including: (1) the weapons are militarily superfluous due to NATOs conventional military superiority relative to Russia; (2) elimination of
non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe improves the prospects for U.S.-Russian cooperation on other arms control issues, including the movement toward global nuclear abolition
endorsed by President Obama and by other world leaders and military experts; and (3) a
nuclear no-first use agreement among states in Europe and elsewhere is a predicate to a
safer world, and NATO and the elimination of NATO and Russian non-strategic weapons
would contribute to this objective.
On the other hand, those opposed to elimination of U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons
deployed in Europe advance other arguments, including: (1) U.S. nuclear weapons forward
deployed in Europe enhance deterrence against attack on any member of the alliance,
by creating a shared risk of escalation from conventional into nuclear conflict; (2) nuclear
weapons have a singular political visibility and a special threshold status among weapons
that increases the status of states that possess their own inventories or host the weapons
of others; and (3) domestic political forces in some NATO member countries are wary of
concessions to Russia on this issue, fearing that removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from
NATO European territory would invite Russian efforts to divide the alliance by nuclear
coercion.44

Nuclear and Cyber

What are the implications for U.S.-Russian security relations of potential overlap between
concepts or practices for cyberwar and for nuclear deterrence?45 Cyberwar and nuclear
weapons seem worlds apart. Cyber weapons should appeal to those who prefer a nonnuclear, or even a post-nuclear, military-technical emphasis in development. War in the
digital domain offers, at least in theory, a possible means of crippling or disabling enemy
assets without the need for kinetic attack, or while minimizing physical destruction.46
Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, are the very epitome of mass destruction, such that
their use for deterrence, or the avoidance of war by the manipulation of risk, is preferred to
the actual firing of same. Unfortunately, neither nuclear deterrence nor cyber war will be
able to live in distinct policy universes for the near or distant future. This is a potentially

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S. J. Cimbala and R. N. McDermott

challenging development, but not necessarily game changing across the board of deterrence
and defense missions. As Erik Gartzke has commented, with respect to the usefulness of
cyber weapons for leveling the playing field of military strategy and warfare:

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Even if cyberattacks are available to weaker actors, their effectiveness will be

stymied where these actors lack the ability to prosecute advantages generated
by cyberwar, and where weakness in more traditional modes of diplomatic,
economic, or military competition ensure that these actors are exposed to
countermeasures. The intractable nature of vulnerabilities ensures that cyberwar
will not fundamentally transform either war or world affairs.47
Nuclear weapons, whether used for deterrence or fired in anger, must be incorporated
into systems for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance (C4ISR). The weapons and their C4ISR systems must be protected
from attacks both kinetic and digital in nature. In addition, the decision makers who have to
manage nuclear forces during a crisis should ideally have the best possible information about
the status of their own nuclear and cyber forces and command systems, about the forces
and C4ISR of possible attackers, and about the probable intentions and risk-acceptance of
possible opponents. In short, the task of managing a nuclear crisis demands clear thinking
and good information. But the employment of cyber weapons in the early stages of a crisis
could impede clear assessment by creating confusion in networks and the action channels
that are dependent on those networks.48 The temptation for early cyber preemption might
succeed to the point at which nuclear crisis management becomes weaker instead of
stronger.
Ironically, the downsizing of U.S. and post-Soviet Russian strategic nuclear arsenals
since the end of the Cold War, while a positive development from the perspectives of
nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, makes the concurrence of cyber and nuclear
attack capabilities more alarming. The supersized deployments of missiles and bombers
and expansive numbers of weapons deployed by the Cold War Americans and Soviets
had at least one virtue. Those arsenals provided so much redundancy against first-strike
vulnerability that relatively linear systems for nuclear attack warning, command-control,
and responsive launch under, or after, attack, sufficed. At the same time, Cold War tools
for military cyber mischief were primitive compared to those available now. In addition,
countries and their armed forces were less dependent on the fidelity of their information
systems for national security. Thus, the reduction of U.S., Russian, and possibly other forces
to the size of minimum deterrents might compromise nuclear flexibility and resilience in
the face of kinetic attacks preceded or accompanied by cyber war.49
Offensive and defensive information warfare, as well as other cyber related activities,
are obviously very much on the minds of U.S. military leaders and others in the American and allied national security establishments. The Obama administration has apparently
engaged in an extensive and secret debate about the use of information tools for military
purposes.50 Russia has also been explicit about its cyber-related concerns. President Putin
urged the Russian Security Council in early July, 2013, to improve state security against
cyber-attacks.51 Russia is forming a cyber-command in the military, but plans to complete
its introduction only by 2017. The Federal Security Service and not the MOD is currently
Russias lead agency for cyber security. Russian security expert Vladimir Batyuk, commenting favorably on a June, 2013, U.S.-Russian agreement for protection, control, and
accounting of nuclear materials (a successor to the recently expired NunnLugar agreement on nuclear risk reduction) warned that pledges by Presidents Putin and Obama for

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cooperation on cybersecurity were even more important: Nuclear weapons are a legacy of
the 20th century. The challenge of the 21st century is cybersecurity, he noted.52
On the other hand, arms control for cyber operations is apt to run into daunting security
and technical issues, even assuming a successful navigation of political trust for matters
as sensitive as these. Political trust between Washington and Moscow was obviously not
helped by the stealing of U.S. National Security Agency files by former contractor Edward
Snowden and Russias asylum for him as a U.S. fugitive. Of special significance is whether
cyber arms control negotiators can certify that hackers within their own states are sufficiently
under control for cyber verification and transparency. Russia is in fact suspected of using
officially deniable hackers to carry out cyber missions against state approved targetsas
is China. In addition, comparing challenges in cyber arms control to nuclear arms control
cannot be pushed beyond the membrane that separates one from the other. The unique
prompt lethality of nuclear weapons creates a separate grammar for the conduct of war,
even if such a war would remain within the boundaries of strategic logic.53 As Colin Gray
has warned:
First, except for highly unusual cases, cyber power is confined in its damaging
effects to cyberspace. This is not to understate the problems that can be caused
by cyber-attack, but it is to claim firmly that the kind of damage and disruption
that cyber might affect cannot compare with the immediate and more lasting
harm that nuclear weapons certainly would cause.54
This skepticism about cyber hype is justified. But due diligence is also required for the
possibility that cyber, crossing over into nuclear and other military-related domains, may
create the military equivalent of a genetically modified organism, as discussed in debates
about food alteration. The sidebars and spillovers of cyber creep into arts of war, and
warfare, are only beginning to be appreciated by theorists and policymakers. Doubtless,
more surprises are in store. Perhaps we will live to see the day that missile launches can be
ordered into effect or deflected off course by hand-held devices from remote locations or
by military impersonators with faux addresses and portable Stuxnets.

Conclusions
No return to the Cold War as we knew it is on offer. U.S.-Russian security relations are far
removed from the Cold War that ended even before the fall of the Soviet Unionand history
is irreversible save in fictitious time machines. But the postCold War world has also left
behind the nuclear-strategic simplification of global dominance by two nuclear superpowers. U.S.-Russian security cooperation in the present century is a necessary condition for the
accomplishment of both states interests in various issue areas, including the three discussed
here. However, progress or lack thereof is driven more by politics, including domestic politics in the United States and in Russia, than it is by strategy or other military considerations.
The priority of politics over strategy has important implications for future success, or failure,
in the management of strategic force modernization, nuclear arms control, and military cyber
threats.
First, a postNew START strategic nuclear arms reduction agreement is not impossible,
but will be more difficult to enact than the New START agreement. In that atmosphere,
prospects for Russian interest in reducing non-strategic nuclear weapons deployed in Europe
or elsewhere are not auspicious. Lagging Russian conventional defense modernization
makes Russia more dependent on nuclear weapons as trumps in deterrence, including for

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escalation dominance and control in regional conflicts. Less ambitious but more creative
proposals might have traction on this issue; for example, efforts to improve NATO-Russian
transparency as to the locations of weapons, storage sites, and launchers. Not implausibly, a
thawing of U.S.-Russian relations on this issue awaits the departure from office of Vladimir
Putin and/or Barack Obama.
Second, the relationship between offensive nuclear force reductions and missile defenses is a complicated one. Missile defenses are more promising technologies than they
were in the previous century. But expert studies suggest that anti-ballistic missile defenses
are much more viable prospects against small attacks by regional foes than they are strategic counterweights to massive long-range missile attacks.55 These issues, from a Russian
security perspective, are further complicated by linkage between missile defense and U.S.
Prompt Global Strike plans; at heart there is very real concern within the Russian security
elite about preserving the long-term future of the nuclear deterrent. Moreover, as Russias
conventional armed-forces modernization proceeds to 2020 and beyond, there is an equally
real sense in which Moscow perceives itself as playing a near impossible game of catch-up.
In the absence of high-technology C4ISR capabilities, including well-trained and motivated
personnel to match, it is unlikely that Moscow will reduce the role played by NSNW in its
security planning anytime soon.
There is room for security cooperation in missile defense by NATO and Russia
against possible threats posed by Middle Eastern or other regional nuclear capabilities.
But the risks of nuclear weapons spreading in the Middle East or additional proliferation
in Asia cannot be precluded by missile defenses or even by solely military responses.
Smart diplomacy combined with limited regional missile defenses might buy time for
more ambitious nonproliferation and counter-proliferation initiatives to work.56 Emphatic
versions of U.S. air-sea battle to deter and defeat anti-access, area-denial strategies on
the part of regional miscreants will be a necessary part of the U.S. tool kit, especially in
Asia.
Third, the potential of cyber-deterrence and cyberwar to contribute across-the-board
uncertainty into U.S. and other states military planning is presumably considerable, but
not necessarily fatal. Cyber wars are continually in progress, as between and among states
and non-state actors, regardless of the utility of computers and networks for deterrence
of malfeasance. Cyberwar is a military-strategic contradiction: it maintains its domain
uniqueness (www.cyberwar.com) or specific gestalt, but it also invades other domains
by creating a dependency upon computers, networks, and communications for all things
military and strategic. Cyber support for nuclear deterrence and for conventional force
enhancement is vital, but information-age hype is a distraction from the rigors of strategy
as laid down by Clausewitz. It is first necessary to understand the kind of war or coercive
operation in which one is engaged, and then to be equally clear as to what one wishes to
achieve in doing so.57 Information technology may change the character of war but not the
fundamental nature of itwith or without nuclear weapons.58

Acknowledgments
The authors greatly acknowledge Stephen Blank, Paul Bracken, Paul K. Davis, Andrew
Futter, Colin Gray, Olga Oliker, Timothy Thomas, and Mikhail Tyspkin for ideas and suggestions pertinent to this study. Grateful acknowledgment is also made to Steve Lambakis
for helpful editorial suggestions. They bear no responsibility for any arguments or opinions.

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Notes
1. For U.S. and NATO missile defense plans, see Karen Kaya, NATO Missile Defense and
the View from the Front Line, Joint Force Quarterly, issue 71 (4th quarter, 2013): 8489; Steven J.
Whitmore and John R. Deni, NATO Missile Defense and the European Phased Adaptive Approach:
The Implications of Burden Sharing and the Underappreciated Role of the U.S. Army (Carlisle, PA:
Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, October 2013); and LTG Patrick J. OReilly,
USA, Director, Missile Defense Agency, Ballistic Missile Defense Overview, Presented to the 10th
Annual Missile Defense Conference (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, March 26, 2012,
12-MDA-6631), available at http://www.mda.mil/news/downloadable resources.html
2. Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures
for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, April 8, 2010), available at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/140035.
pdf
3. The Obama Phased Adaptive Approach to missile defense will retain and improve some
technologies deployed by the George W. Bush administration, but shift emphasis to other interceptors,
supported by improved battle managementcommand-control-communications (BMC3) systems
and launch detection and tracking. See John F. Morton and George Galdorisi, Any Sensor: Any
Shooter: Toward an Aegis BMD Global Enterprise, Joint Force Quarterly, issue 67 (4th quarter,
2012): 8590; and Frank A. Rose, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification
and Compliance, Growing Global Cooperation on Ballistic Missile Defense, Remarks as Prepared,
Berlin, Germany, September 10, 2012, available at http://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/197547.htm
4. Dialogue between Russia and NATO on Missile Defense ExhaustedGrushko, The Voice
of Russia, February 10, 2014, in Johnsons Russia List, no. 28, February 10, 2014, available at
davidjohnson@starpower.net
5. Expert commentary on missile defenses as related to Russian (and U.S.) arms control
objectives appears in Jacob W. Kipp, Russias Future Arms Control Agenda and Posture, 162,
and Steven Pifer, The Russian Arms Control Agenda after New START, 6392, both in Stephen J.
Blank, ed., Russia and the Current State of Arms Control (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,
U.S. Army War College, September 2012). See also Andrew Futter, The Elephant in the Room: U.S.
Ballistic Missile Defence under Barack Obama, 316; Daniel Goure, The Obama Administrations
Phased-Adaptive Architecture: Technological, Operational and Political Issues, 1735; Stephen
Blank, The Chinese and Asian Impact on Russian Nuclear Policy, 3654; and Mikhail Tsypkin,
Russia, America and Missile Defense, 5564, all in Martin Edmonds and Julian Palmore, eds.,
special issue, Defense and Security Analysis, no. 1 (March, 2012).
6. Paul K. Davis, RAND Corporation, suggests that dissuasion by denial (DND) is the preferable term in his article, Toward Theory for Dissuasion (or Deterrence) by Denial: Using Simple
Cognitive Models of the Adversary to Inform Strategy, Working Paper, Santa Monica, CA: RAND
National Security Research Division, WR-1027, January, 2014.
7. The topic of defense suppression receives more detailed treatment in Dean Wilkening,
Kenneth Watman, Michael Kennedy, and Richard Darilek, Strategic Defenses and Crisis Stability
(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, April 1989), 3540.
8. Ashton B. Carter, BMD Applications: Performance and Limitations, in Ashton B. Carter
and David N. Schwartz, eds., Ballistic Missile Defense (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution,
1984), 98181, citation p. 106.
9. Russias 2010 Military Doctrine refers to dangers as well as threats, whereas prior
editions made reference only to threats. Although dangers might seem less menacing than threats
to interested readers, the dangers mentioned are concrete and specific compared to the threats, the
latter of a more general nature. Listed dangers include the desire of NATO to globalize its force
potential and move its military infrastructure closer to the borders of Russia. See Marcel de Haas,
Russias Military Doctrine Development (200010), in Blank, ed., Russias Military Politics and
Russias 2010 Defense Doctrine (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College,
March 2011), 161, esp. pp. 3943.

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10. For additional historical perspective on Russian military doctrine, see Jacob W. Kipp, Russian Military Doctrine: Past, Present, and Future, in Blank, ed., Russias Military Politics, 63151.
See also The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, text, www.Kremlin.ru, February 5, 2010,
in Johnsons Russia List. - no. 35, February 19, 2010, available at davidjohnson@starpower.net
11. Jacob W. Kipp, Forecasting Future War: Andrei Kokoshin and the Military-Political Debate
in Contemporary Russia (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, January, 1999),
available at http:www.fas.org/nuke/guide/Russia/agency/990100-kokoshin.htm
12. Gunnar Arbam and Charles Thornton, Russias Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Part 1: Background and Policy Issues (Stockholm, Sweden: Swedish Defense Research Institute (FOI), 2003),
9.
13. The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, www.Kremlin.ru, February 5, 2010, in
Johnsons Russia List, no. 35, February 19, 2010, available at davidjohnson@starpower.net
14. Ye. Myasnikov, Counterforce Potential of Precision Weapons, in A. Arbatov and V.
Dvorkin (eds.), Yadernoye Rasprostraneniye. Novyye Tekhnologii, Vooruzheniya i Dogovory [Nuclear Proliferation: New Technologies, Arms, and Treaties] Moscow Carnegie Center, Moscow:
Rossiyskaya Politicheskaya Entsiklopediya (ROSSPEN), 2009: 105128; Speech by President
Medvedev at the University of Helsinki, April 20, 2009, available at http://www.kremlin.ru/
transcripts/5552 http://news.kremlin.ru/tran scripts/3805/print; Speech by President Medvedev at
64th UN General Assembly Session, September 24, 2009, available at http://www.kremlin.ru/
transcripts/ 5552
15. Voyennyy Entsiklopedicheskiy Slovar, Ministry of Defense: Moscow, 2007, 882. Definitions
in earlier versions of Voyennyy Entsiklopedicheskiy Slovar or other official sources are not as clear.
In 2001, the Russian foreign ministry categorized nuclear forces into two broad categories: strategic
weapons designed to strike targets in remote strategic areas (over 5,000 km) and non-strategic
nuclear weapons, which in turn fall into two categories: tactical nuclear weapons designed to
strike enemy targets to an operational depth of 300 km and operational nuclear weapons, to strike
up to 600 km to accomplish an operational mission. See: Arbam and Thornton, Russias Tactical
Nuclear Weapons.
16. For an overview of the issues involved and an outline of the Baltic approach to an arms
control regime for SSNW, see Fredrik Lindvall, John Rydqvist, Fredrik Westerlund, and Mike Winnerstig, The Baltic Approach: A Next Step? Prospects for an Arms Control Regime for Sub-Strategic
Nuclear Weapons in Europe(Stockholm: Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI), February 2011).
17. Ibid.
18. Vladimir Dvorkin, The Prague Border Has Been Crossed: What Are the Goals for the
Future of Russias Nuclear Policy? Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, February 6, 2011.
19. Russias National Security Strategy, May 12, 2009, available at http://www.scrf.gov.ru/
news/436.html; Voyennaya Doktrina Rossiyskoy Federatsii [Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation], February 5, 2010, available at http:// www.scrf.gov.ru/documents/33.html
20. Sergei Kazennov, a geopolitics expert in the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Vladimir
Kumachev, from the Russian governments Institute of National Security and Strategic Research,
objected to Khramchikhin presenting the Peoples Republic of China as a threat to Russia, though
they did make a reference to secret little boxes, a veiled allusion to nuclear weapons, as Russias
only plausible answer to Chinas conventional military power during a crisis. Though Khramchikhin
portrayed China as a threat, he more pointedly highlighted Russias relative isolation on this strategic
axis. Speaking of the deployment of two new brigades near the Russian-Chinese border, LieutenantGeneral Vladimir Chirkin, commander of the Siberian military district at that time, said these were
deployed to counteract the presence of five PLA combined-arms armies across the border. Chirkin
stated that the Russian military must station conventional forces there due to the presence of PLA
armies, since Moscow could not afford to ignore this strategic direction. Chirkin said these were part
of a deterrent force to remind China that, despite friendly relations, the Russian army command
understands that friendship is possible only with strong countries who recognize that sometimes to
quiet a friend down a conventional or nuclear club is needed. Russia Strengthens the Border with
China, Argumenty Nedeli, March 410, 2010; Novosti, Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, March 3,

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2010; Sergei Kazennov and Vladimir Kumachev, Ne Nado Absoliutizirovat Ugrozu s Vostoka,
[No Need To Exaggerate Threat from the East), Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye,, August 13,
2010, available at http://nvo.ng.ru/concepts/20100813/12 menace.html
21. Sergey Ishchenko, Russia Won the All-Round Defense: Number 1 ThreatChina,
Svobodnaya Pressa, December 2, 2010; Oleg Falichev, Vostok2010: Nachalo, Kulminachia, Epilog, [East2010: Beginning, Culmination, Epilogue), Voyenno-Promyshlennyy
Kuryer, no. 29, July, 28August 3, 2010, available at http://www.vpk-news.ru/27343/cis/
vostok-2010-nachalo-kulminatsija-epilog. In late 2009, Lieutenant-General Sergei Skokov, chief
of the ground forces main staff, identified China as a potential enemy. Although he did not name
China, he outlined three different types of war Russia may face on differing strategic axes. In the east,
Skokov referred to facing a multimillion-strong army, which could only refer to China: Alexander
Khramchikhin, Only 85 Combat Ready Brigades, Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, October
16, 2009, available at http://nvo.ng.ru/forces/20091016/185brigad.html
22. On Russias military reliance on nuclear weapons, including SSNW, in the Russian Far
East, see, Jacob W. Kipp, Russias Nuclear Posture and the Threat That Dare Not Speak Its Name,
in Stephen J. Blank, ed, Russian Nuclear Weapons, Past, Present, and Future, (Carlisle, PA: Strategic
Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2011.)
23. Andrei Kokoshin, Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present: Theoretical and
Applied Questions (Cambridge, MA.: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard
Kennedy School, June 2011), 33, available at http://belfercenter.org
24. Roger N. McDermott, Russias Conventional Armed Forces: Reform and Nuclear Posture
to 2020, in Blank, ed., Russian Nuclear Weapons, 7072.
25. Ibid., 7172. See also Kipp, Russias Nuclear Posture, 459503.
26. Arbatov, cited in McDermott, Russias Conventional Armed Forces, 72.
27. I am grateful to Jacob Kipp for this insight.
28. Michael R. Gordon, U.S. Says Russia Tested Missile, Despite Treaty, The New
York Times, January 29, 2014, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/world/europe/
us-says-russia-tested-missile-despite-treaty.html. The treaty bans production, testing, and deployment of intermediate and shorter range ballistic and cruise ground-based missiles by NATO or the
former Soviet Union (and now Russia) with ranges from 500 to 5,500 kilometers.
29. See Viktor Litovkin, Russian ICBM Missile Tests: What Lies behind U.S. Allegations?
Russia Beyond the Headlines, www.rbth.ru, February 5, 2014, in Johnsons Russia List, no, 25,
February 6, 2014, available at davidjohnson@starpower.net
30. The authors gratefully acknowledge Olga Oliker, RAND Corporation, for insights and
suggestions pertinent to this section. She is not responsible for any arguments here.
31. Nikolai Sokov, Nuclear Weapons in Russian National Security Policy, in Blank, ed.,
Russian Nuclear Weapons, 187260, citation p. 216.
32. Pifer, The Russian Arms Control Agenda., 6391, esp. p. 68.
33. The Strategic Posture Commission stated that Russia has around 3,800 operational
nonstrategic nuclear weapons. See William J. Perry, Chairman and James R. Schlesinger, Vice
Chairman, Americas Strategic Posture, The Final Report of the Congressional Commission
on the Strategic Posture of the United States, Washington, DC, April 2009, 111, available at
http://www.usip.org/files/Americas Strategic Posture Auth Ed.pdf
34. Miles Pomper, William Potter, and Nikolai Sokov, Reducing Tactical Nuclear Weapons
in Europe, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 52, no. 1 (FebruaryMarch, 2010):7596.
35. Joshua Handler, The 19911992 PNIs and the Elimination, Storage and Security of
TNW, in Brian Alexander and Alistair Millar, eds., TNW (Washington DC: Brasseys, 2003); Robert
S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, Russian Nuclear Forces, 2010, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
January/February 2010: 79; US Nuclear Development Concerns Russia, Interfax, November 26,
2003; Russian Military Chief Defends Nonstrategic Nukes, Interfax, December 17, 2008; Andrea
Gabbitas, Non-strategic Nuclear Weapons: Problems of Definition, in Jeffrey A. Larsen and Kurt
J. Klingenberger, eds., Controlling Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons: Obstacles and Opportunities
(United States Air Force, Institute for National Security Studies, July 200); Robert S. Norris and

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Hans M. Kristensen, Nuclear Notebook: Russian Nuclear Forces, 2009, Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, May/June 2009; Perry and. Schlesinger, Americas Strategic Posture, commentary by
Sergey Karaganov, The Echo of the Past War or Strategic Confusion, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March
17, 2010.
36. I am indebted to Fredrik Westerlund in Stockholm for drawing my attention to this;
http://www.mil.ru/848/1045/1272/1356/1357/20812/index.shtml
37. Ground Forces Structure, http://eng.mil.ru/en/structure/forces/ground/structure/rvia.htm,
Accessed on May 9, 2011.
38. Sergei Ishchenko, Interview with Colonel-General (retired) Leonid Ivashov, Svobodnaya
Pressa, February 8, 2011.
39. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has called for withdrawal of all U.S.
non-strategic nuclear weapons from the territories of non-nuclear countries in NATO and the dismantling of supporting military, industrial, and technological infrastructure located in those states.
U.S. Tactical Nuclear Weapons Must Be Withdrawn from EuropeRussian Defense Ministry,
Interfax, August 14, 2013, in Johnsons Russia List, no. 148, August 14, 2013, available at davidjohnson@starpower.net
40. Roger N. McDermott, Rogozin Questions Survivability of Russias Nuclear Deterrent as
Defense Industry Crisis Deepens (Part One), Eurasia Daily Monitor, vol., 10, issue 125 (July 9,
2013).
41. Roger N. McDermott, US Prompt Global Strike Moves Center Stage in Russian Security
Planning, Eurasia Daily Monitor, vol., 11, issue 7(January 14, 2014).
42. Russia Strengthens the Border with China.
43. Vladimir Evseev, Russia Makes No Sense Out of the START Treaty, Nezavisimoye
Voyennoye Obozreniye, February 21, 2014, available at http://nvo.ng.ru/realty/20140221/1 snv.
html#
44. Gotz Neuneck, European and German Perspectives, in Tom Nichols, Douglas Stuart
and Jeffrey McCausland, eds., Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies
Institute, U.S. Army War College, April 2012), pp. 257278.
45. Insightful analyses pertinent to this topic include: Colin S. Gray, Making Strategic Sense
of Cyber Power: Why the Sky Is Not Falling (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War
College, April 2013); Kamaal T. Jabbour and E. Paul Ratazzi, Does the United States Need a New
Model for Cyber Deterrence? in Adam B. Lowther, ed., Deterrence: Rising Powers, Rogue Regimes,
and Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012), 33 45; and Martin
C. Libicki, Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009). Other references on
this topic appear in later notes. The chronology of key government documents pertinent to cyberspace
and U.S. national security strategy is nicely summarized in Thomas M. Chen, An Assessment of the
Department of Defense Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,
U.S. Army War College Press, September 2013), Appendix, pp. 4546.
46. On the information operations concepts of major powers, see Timothy L. Thomas, Cyber
Silhouettes: Shadows Over Information Operations (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies
Office, 2005), chs. 56, 10, 14, and passim. See also Pavel Koshkin, Are Cyberwars between major
powers possible? A Group of Russian Cybersecurity Experts Debate the Likelihood of a Cyberwar
Involving the U.S., Russia or China, Russia Direct, russia-direct.org, August 1, 2013, in Johnsons
Russia List. no..143, August 6, 2013, available at davidjohnson@starpower.net
47. Erik Gartzke, The Myth of Cyberwar: Bringing War in Cyberspace Back Down to Earth,
International Security, no. 2 (Fall, 2013): 4173, citation p. 65.
48. Cyber weapons are not necessarily easy to use effectively as enabling instruments for
operational-tactical or strategic effect. See Martin C. Libicki, Conquest in Cyberspace: National
Security and Information Warfare (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), esp. chs.
45.
49. An expert critique of proposals for minimum deterrence for U.S. nuclear forces appears in
Keith B. Payne, Study Director, and James Schlesinger, Chairman, Senior Review Group, Minimum
Deterrence: Examining the Evidence (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, National

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Institute Press, 2013). For a favorable expert assessment of the prospects for minimum deterrence,
see James Wood Forsyth, Jr., B. Chance Saltzman, and Gary Schaub, Jr., Remembrance of Things
Past: The Enduring Value of Nuclear Weapons, Strategic Studies Quarterly, no. 1 (Spring, 2010):
7490.
50. David E. Sanger, Syria War Stirs New U.S. Debate on Cyberattacks, The New York Times,
February 24, 2014, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/world/middleeast/.
See also Joel Brenner, Glass Houses: Privacy, Secrecy, and Cyber Insecurity in a Transparent World (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2013).
51. Putin Calls to Strengthen Protection against Cyber Attacks, Itar-Tass, July 5, 2013, in
Johnsons Russia List, no. 122, July 5, 2013, available at davidjohnson@starpower.net
52. Batyuk, cited in Jonathan Earle, U.S. and Russia Sign New Anti-Proliferation Deal,
Moscow Times, June 19, 2013, in Johnsons Russia List. no. 111, June 19, 2013, available at davidjohnson@starpower.net
53. Patrick M. Morgan discusses the relationship between reexamination of deterrence theory
and practice and cyber security in his article, The State of Deterrence in International Politics Today,
Contemporary Security Policy, no. 1 (April, 2012): 85107, esp. 101103.
54. Gray, Making Strategic Sense, 36.
55. Committee on an Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives, Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment
of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives
(Washington, D.C.: National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, National Academies
Press, 2012), www.nap.edu, downloaded September 17, 2012.
56. Sources of instability in the second nuclear age will be based on regional rivalries, overlaid
by great-power competition within a multipolar nuclear system. See Bracken, The Second Nuclear
Age, esp. pp. 93126; James E. Goodby, The End of a Nuclear Era, The New York Times, August 15,
2013, in Johnsons Russia List, no. 148, August 14, 2013, available at davidjohnson@starpower.net;
and C. Dale Walton and Colin S. Gray, The Geopolitics of Strategic Stability: Looking Beyond Cold
Warriors and Nuclear Weapons, n Elbridge A. Colby and Michael S. Gerson, eds., Strategic Stability:
Contending Interpretations (Carlisle, PA Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, February
2013), 85115.
57. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), book eight, ch. 2, 579.
58. War, according to Clausewitz, is always a remarkable trinity of primordial violence,
hatred, and enmity; of the play of chance and probability; and of reason, in its element of subordination
to policy. Ibid., book one, ch. 1, 89.

Stephen J. Cimbala (sjc2@psu.edu) is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn

State Brandywine. He is the author of numerous works in the fields of national security,
defense and nuclear arms control, and is an award winning Penn State teacher. Dr. Cimbala
has served as a consultant to various U.S. government agencies and defense contractors
on nuclear arms control and other issues. He recently authored Nuclear Weapons and
Cooperative Security in the 21st Century: The New Disorder (Routledge: 2010).
Roger N. McDermott is a Senior International Fellow, FMSO, Fort Leavenworth, Affiliated
Senior Analyst, Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, Senior Fellow in
Eurasian Military Studies, Jamestown Foundation, Washington, DC and a former Visiting
Professor in the Department of International Relations, Kazakhstan National University,
Almaty. He specializes in Russian and Central Asian defense and security and is a member
of the editorial board, for The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Central Asia, and a
member of the scientific board, Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies.