Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons Updated July 15, 2021 Congressional Research Service
Soviet Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons During the Cold War
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CRS RL32572 Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons-2020
| Soviet Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons During the Cold War Strategy and Doctrine During the Cold War, the Soviet Union also considered nuclear weapons to be instrumental to its military strategy Although the Soviet Union had pledged that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons, most Western observers doubted that it would actually observe this pledge in a conflict. Instead, analysts argue that the Soviet Union had integrated nuclear weapons into its warfighting plans to a much greater degree than the United States. Soviet analysts stressed that these weapons would be useful for both surprise attack and preemptive attack. According to one Russian analyst, the Soviet Union would have used nonstrategic nuclear weapons to conduct strategic operations in the theater of war and to reinforce conventional units in large scale land and sea operations This would have helped the Soviet Union achieve success in these theaters of war and would have diverted forces of the enemy from Soviet territory. The Soviet Union reportedly began to reduce its emphasis on nuclear warfighting strategies in the mid-1980s, under Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. He reportedly believed that the use of nuclear weapons would be catastrophic. Nevertheless, they remained a key tool of deterring and fighting a large-scale conflict with the United States and NATO. 35 The text of the Montebello decision can be found in Larson, Jeffrey A. and Kurt J. Klingenberger, editors. Controlling Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons. Obstacles and Opportunities, United States Air Force, Institute for National Security Studies, July 2001, pp. 265-266. 36 Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Annual Report to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1988 , January 1987, pp. 217-218. 37 Fora description of the terms and implications of this treaty see, CRS Report RL30033, Arm s Control and Disarm am ent Activities A Catalog of Recent Events, by Amy F. Woolf, coordinator. (Out of print. For copies, congressional clients may contact Amy Woolf) 38 Fora more detailed review of Soviet and Russian nuclear strategy see CRS Report 97-586, Russia's Nuclear Forces Doctrine and Force Structure Issues, by Amy F. Woolf and Kara Wilson (Out of print. For copies, congressional clients may contact Amy Woolf) 39 Ivan Safranchuk, “ Tactical Nuclear Weapons in the Modern World A Russian Perspective, ” in Alexander, Brian and Alistair Millar, editors, Tactical Nuclear Weapons (Washington, DC Brassey’s Inc, 2003), p. 53. Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons Congressional Research Service 13 Download 1.22 Mb. Share with your friends:
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