Table of Contents
Firstly, tactical nuclear weapons are a much more complex subject for any verifiable measures of limitation, primarily because of the fact that they are carried by dual use delivery systems (short range missiles, tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, etc.), which can carry conventional warheads as well. The spectrum of delivery systems for tactical nuclear weapons is much broader th an for their strategic counterparts. The agreements limiting the strategic nucle ar weapons were aimed at reductions of ICBM, SLBM, heavy bombers and numbers of warheads deployed on these systems, but they did not contain any provisions about dismantlement and liquidation of nuclear warheads withdrawn from active service. It is evident that such an approach is not applicable to tactical nuclear wea pons because arms control measures in this field should deal primarily, if not exclusively, with nuclear explosive devices themselves, but not with delivery systems.
Secondly, changes in military and political environments which resulted in the end of the Cold War, and the global bi-polar confrontation of nuclear superpowers have dramatically affected Russian nuclear strategy. The process of its formation is not over yet, but it looks likely that the role of tactical nuclear weapons will grow substantially.
Finally, one should bear in mind that any problem related to the nuclear weapons field, like non-proliferation, safety and security of warheads, their dismantlement and utilization of weapon-grade fissile materials, cannot be solved unless it includes the tactical nuclear weapons dimension.
The first types of tactical nuclear weapons were developed in the United States in the early 50's. Miniaturization of nuclear explosive devices made it possible to design nuclear shells for high caliber artillery (155 and 203 mm. Self-propelled howitzers). Later on nuclear warheads for tactical missiles and front combat aircraft were developed. Nuclear warheads were also designed as well for a broad variety of sea-based systems, (torpedoes, missiles, anti-submarine weapons). By the beginning of the 70's the American arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons had grown to 7000 units. The overwhelming majority of these weapons were deployed in Europe. Changes in strategic concepts and qualitative modernization of tactical nuclear weapons resulted in gradual reductions of American nuclear arsenals deployed in Europe. Defense Secretary R. McNamara stated that by the end of the 80's the United States had 4680 nuclear weapons in Europe including drop bombs, warheads for surface-to-surface and air-defense missiles, artillery shells and ground mines. The yield power of these systems varied from one to several hundreds kilotons.
In the Soviet Union tactical nuclear weapons started to be deployed in 1954 when the Air Force had recieved a nuclear drop bomb small enough to be carried by a tactical bomber. This carrier was the first Soviet tactical jet bomber Il-28A. In the middle of the 50's the approach towards tactical nuclear weapons was defined by the Soviet operational strategic concepts which demanded such a velocity of counterattack for the Soviet armed forces in the European theater that it would have been absolutely impossible, even theoretically, without massive use of nuclear weapons. These requests were reflected in the amount of tactical nuclear weapons produced for the Soviet Army and Air Force. The possibility to deploy tactical nuclear weapons was met with great enthusiasm by the Soviet Navy as well. This type of weapon was seen as the only means to fulfill the mission in fighting against its main opponent - the aircraft carrier groups of the American Navy. Later on American nuclear powered submarines were included in the list of high priority targets. Bearing in mind the relative weakness and vulnerability of the Soviet ocean fleet, the task of successfully attacking and hitting an American aircraft carrier could only be fulfilled if the target was sunk after the first launch. The Soviet naval authorities were so interested in getting nuclear explosive devices that they sometimes supported the projects which did not even promise a positive outcome. A good example of this is the first false test of the nuclear warhead RDS-9 which was designed to be used in tactical missiles and torpedoes. In the first test this nuclear explosive mechanism failed to work but the Soviet Navy nevertheless continued to support this project. The reason why the naval authorities did not reject the hopeless design was absolutely clear. The cancellation of this project and the beginning of a new one would have meant the postponement of tactical nuclear weapons deployment on the sea-based platforms for three-four years, and this was absolutely unacceptable to the Soviet Naval command. As a result in 1955 a T-5 torpedo armed with a modernized RDS-9 nuclear warhead was tested in the Novaja Zemlia test site and shortly after that was deployed on combat ships. But only two years later the Soviet Navy had to withdraw its first tactical nuclear weapon from active service due to its extremely low efficiency.
The Air Defense forces interest in getting their own nuclear weapons resulted from a combat mission description this service received from the Soviet political leadership. It was defined that the Air Defense forces should not allow even a single hostile aircraft to break through their barriers in case of a massive attack. The term "massive" had a very precise description. For instance, the air defense system of the Moscow region was designed to fend off an air attack equal to three times the attack of Allied Air Forces on Dresden in 1945. In other words the Moscow air defense system should not allow a single bomber to penetrate it and reach a target even if 1000 aircraft should attack Moscow simultaneously. Of course, to fulfill such a mission, even theoretically, air defense missiles should carry nuclear warheads. Using these mission descriptions as a methodological base Soviet armed forces started massive deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in the 1950-60s. This approach resulted in one important technical consequence. Practically all the services required the industry to develop a dual- use combat payload compartment for different tactical systems, (missiles, torpedoes, etc.) allowing the same delivery system to carry either conventional or nuclear warheads. As a result starting from the 1960s all the Soviet tactical weapon systems (excluding drop bombs) were simultaneously developed and produced in two modifications - conventional and nuclear.
Gradually all the services in the Soviet armed forces acquired and deployed tactical nuclear systems. American sources reported that tactical nuclear warheads were deployed in all the republics of the former Soviet Union, namely: 12320 in the Russian Federation, 2345 in Ukraine, 1180 in Belorussia, 330 in Kazkhstan, 325 in Lithvania, 185 in Latvia, 125 in Turkmenistan, 105 in Uzbekistan, 90 in Moldova, 320 in Georgia, 270 in Estonia, 200 in Armenia, 75 each in Tadzhikistan, Azerbijan and Kirghizstan. Nuclear competition between the Soviet Union and the United States resulted in irrationally huge nuclear arsenals being deployed by both sides. Expert assessments show that by the end of the 80's the United States had more than 11 000 strategic and around 7-8 thousand tactical nuclear explosive devices and Soviet Union 11 and 15-17 thousand respectively. There is no accurate numerical information on the current Russian nuclear arsenal. In 1996 Greenpeace experts estimated that Russia had 23200 nuclear weapons. This included roughly 7100 warheads deployed with strategic delivery methods and 6-13 thousand tactical nuclear weapons. Supposedly the other 100-10000 nuclear warheads of different types were either in reserve or waiting for dismantlement. the composition of Russian tactical nuclear arsenals looked like the following: anti-ballistic missile system - 100 warheads, 1100 air defense systems, 1600 units for ground forces tactical aviation, 1700 units for the Navy (550 of them for Naval aviation, 500 for sea based cruise missiles, 150 air based anti - submarine weapons and 500 nuclear weapons for attack submarines).
It is interesting to note that for a long period nobody in the Soviet Union thought seriously about unifying tactical nuclear explosive devices by using the same designs in different delivery systems, something which could have resulted in substantial savings. On the contrary, different nuclear explosive devices were developed and modernized for each tactical weapon system. Needless to say, very shortly the Soviet nuclear arsenal was saturated with an enormous variety of tactical nuclear warheads of different construction. It was very difficult and costly to maintain such a broad spectrum of highly complicated systems. Sometimes the situation looked absurd. For instance there was one case in a not so distant past when a new nuclear warhead was designed and deployed on a tactical missile system, which had only one year of service time ahead due to its age. A year later this weapon system had exhausted its service time and was withdrawn from service together with the newly designed nuclear warhead.
The American initiatives of 1991 included reductions in all categories of tactical nuclear weapons and even the complete elimination of some of them. It was stated that the United States should return to its national territory all nuclear artillery shells and nuclear warheads for tactical missiles and liquidate them. In addition tactical nuclear weapons should be withdrawn from all surface combat ships, attack submarines and land based naval aviation. This included sea-based nuclear cruise missiles "Tomahawk" and nuclear bombs from the aircraft carriers. Part of the sea-based tactical nuclear warheads had to be eliminated. The only category of American tactical nuclear weapons deployed now in Europe is nuclear bombs for tactical aviation.
Responding to these American initiatives Russia announced that it would terminate production of nuclear artillery shells and warheads for land-based tactical missiles and decided to completely eliminate these categories of nuclear devices. Russia would withdraw all tactical nuclear weapons from surface combat ships and attack submarines and eliminate one third of them. In addition to these moves Russia would eliminate 50% of nuclear warheads for air-defense missiles and air-based tactical nuclear weapons. Nuclear explosive devices, which were to be withdrawn or had already been taken out of active duty units and were waiting for further utilization, were to be stored in four central storing facilities (so-called objects "S" subordinated to the 12 Main Directorate of Defense Ministry). It is known that Russia lost the rest of these bases after the Soviet Union fell apart. That is why these four bases Russia inherited from the Soviet Union are overloaded. It is estimated that their initial capacity was exceeded roughly by 100%. Concentration of tactical nuclear weapons in the central bases, which have the most efficient safety and guard systems, began at the end of the 80's by initiative of the Soviet military command. Motivations for such redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons followed the forecasts of the political developments in the Soviet Union. These forecasts clearly indicated the growth of political instabilities and the possibility of losing reliable control over some regions of the Soviet Union which were stocked with substantial quantities of nuclear weapons.
After President B.Yeltsin's statement of January 1992 Russia publicly announced the tight timetable for the dismantlement of its tactical nuclear weapons. It was declared that obligations taken on naval tactical nuclear weapons were to be fulfilled by the end of 1995, warheads of air- defense missiles - by the end of 1996, nuclear land mines - by the end of 1998, warheads for tactical surface-to-surface missiles and nuclear artillery shells- by the end of the year 2000. Supposedly the fulfillment of obligations taken by the USA and Russia will diminish both their sides' arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons by the number of 2500-3000 warheads for each country when they are completely implemented.
The estimations made by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) show that by the beginning of the 90's the American arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons was composed of 7992 delivery systems and 7147 nuclear warheads for them. According to the same source the Soviet Union had in the same period respectively 13759 delivery systems and 11305 warheads respectively. SIPRI experts consider that the realization of obligations taken by the USA and Russia will result in the substantial reduction of tactical nuclear weapons. In particular the USA will preserve 1300 tactical aircraft able to carry nuclear bombs and 1800 nuclear bombs. Russia will have 2560 aircraft and 3100 bombs respectively. These estimations mean that Russia is facing a challenging economic and technical problem - how to dismantle and utilize 16-18 thousand nuclear explosive mechanisms of different types in the years to come. This quantity includes nuclear warheads for strategic and tactical weapons, in other words obligations specified in the START treaties and unilateral statements on tactical nuclear weapons.
The Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy states that its industrial capacities permit the dismantling of not more than 2000 nuclear devices per year. The estimated cost of one nuclear warhead dismantlement is $10-15 thousand. It is well known that nuclear safety requirements demand that a nuclear warhead must be disassembled in the same plant by the same specialists who designed and assembled it. The total costs related to transporting and disassembling this number of nuclear weapons are evaluated at $2 billion. The perspective of getting rid of such numbers of nuclear weapons inevitably creates the related problem of utilization of weapon-grade fissile materials that are to be are left over from the elimination process. . These nuclear warheads are constituted of highly enriched Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239. Of course it is most important to include new elements in the nuclear arms control agenda, which would prevent the re-utilization of weapon- grade fissile materials for new nuclear weapons. But the description of this problem exceeds the framework of this paper.
Thus, the spreading out of chemical, biological, or, (what seems even worse) of radiological materials in the close proximity of the defending target means that the ATBM system failed to fulfill its mission. On the other side, those who launched such a missile, especially if it was a terrorist group, could consider the attack mission successfully fulfilled. To solve this problem some specialists propose designing special nuclear warheads for missile interceptors. They consider that only an interceptor which carries a nuclear warhead would be able not only to destroy the attacking missile(s) but to burn out its dangerous payload whatever it is: chemical, biological or radiological.
But the most important reason which defines the contemporary role of tactical nuclear weapons in Russian military strategy is linked to changes in traditional conventional warfare balances in Europe, which followed NATO's enlargement, and the weaknesses in the conventional weapons warfare Russia is facing now. The Soviet Union together with other WTO states traditionally enjoyed numerical superiority over NATO in all main categories of conventional weapons. Now Russia is lagging behind NATO in the same categories of weapons at a ratio of 3 to 1. After planning enlargement of the alliance the ratio will grow to 4 to 1, and not in favor of Russia. In this situation the Russian military, together with political figures, have started to repeat the arguments which were popular in military circles of NATO countries during the 70-s. They are saying that Russia is too weak right now and is going through serious economic crises. In this situation it would be unrealistic to compete with developed countries in quantitative and qualitative parameters of conventional arsenals. The only way to keep the balance is to buy a cheap equalizer - tactical nuclear weapons.
It would be interesting to note that the former head of the Russian nuclear industry, minister V.Mikhailov, published an article in the winter of 1997 where he argued in favor of the design and deployment in Russia of several thousand (he mentioned the number 10 000) miniaturized tactical nuclear weapons in response to NATO enlargement. Of course this proposal did not reflect the position of the Russian Government and was a personal view of the industry head who is interested in finding jobs for his plants, research centers, workers and scientists, but one should accept that such views are shared by some Russian military and politicians. The western counter-arguments usually say that with the end of the Cold War traditional conventional balances should not be considered because they are no longer relevant. But we have failed up to now to propose new principles for a European security system, and to provide the officers of General Staff with new methodologies. These would substitute the calculations of military balances, continuosly made during long years of ideological confrontation. The first visible change in the Russian nuclear strategy appeared in the Key Foundations of Military Strategy of the Russian Federation, which were officially adopted in November 1993. In this document Russia clearly refused to follow "a no first use principle" that was a part of Soviet military strategy for many years. Serious military reform, which has now started in Russia, includes a partial adoption of the new military doctrine, but until now the development of this document has not been completed. The discussions on this issue in Russia allow us to conclude that tactical nuclear weapons as well as the general concept of nuclear deterrence will continue to play an important role. For instance, one of the military doctrine drafts, prepared by the Defense Council experts headed at that time by its Secretary Ju.Baturin, said that in future Russia "may be engaged in armed conflicts of different types. If it is engaged in local conflict this must be localized and stopped by the forces of one or two military districts using conventional weapons only.
If Russia is engaged in regional conflict this must be localized and stopped by the forces of three- four military districts with the use of conventional weapons only. If Russia is facing the perspective of the conflict escalating to a global level Russia reserves the right to use all the available means to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty and to stop the war". From the moment of this draft publication (1997) the Defense Council of the Russian Federation ceased to exist and its Secretary left his position, but this did not change the general attitude towards tactical nuclear weapons. One should not consider this trend as reflecting deep review of nuclear issues. Most likely it simply reflects two factors: the weaknesses of the Russian armed forces and their numerical and qualitative inferiority in conventional weapons, and economic crises, which does not give too much hope that the situation will change for the better anytime soon. Russian military are not sure that they will be able to win a serious armed conflict if it happens. But the most worrisome factor following all these theoretical discussions is the growing conviction of the Russian military as well as of some political figures that conventional nuclear weapons are not only a means of political deterrent but a military warfare solution which can be used in combat operations.
Thus, the problem of nuclear weapons reduction and their complete elimination must include tactical nuclear weapons, liquidation of nuclear warheads and prevention of the re-use of weapon- grade fissile materials to be extracted from these weapons, and utilization of fissile materials extracted from weapons to be reduced. But the most important pre-condition for the successful solution of the tactical nuclear weapons problem is confidence-building measures and setting up a European security system, which would exclude destabilizing changes in conventional military balance.