Tactical Nukes: A Strategic Asset or Future Liability?

The US-Russian summits in April and July ended the erosion of the strategic arms control architecture that had gained space during the eight years of the Bush administration.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his US counterpart Barack Obama not only committed their countries to a new round of strategic arms reductions, but also agreed to seek a compromise on missile defense, including joint assessment of potential missile threats and responses.

Critics note that the new ceiling for strategic nuclear weapons that the two leaders are aiming for in the START follow-on treaty is only 25 warheads lower than the one set by the 2002 SORT treaty. But the insignificance of the proposed cuts is secondary to the very facts that START probably will not be allowed to expire without a replacement and that the follow-on treaty will feature accounting and verification regimes contrary to the policies of the Bush administration, which was averse to negotiating any new constraints on US nuclear forces.

However, while ensuring that strategic nuclear arms remain the subject of verifiable arms control regimes, the two leaders and their negotiators have steered clear of another class of weapons in spite of the latter’s formidable destabilizing potential.

Russia and the US still have 2,000-3,000 and 1,000 tactical nuclear warheads operationally deployed, respectively, according to a recent estimate by US think tank Arms Control Association. The two countries also have thousands more tactical nuclear warheads either stored or awaiting dismantlement in line with the unilateral initiatives, which the nations’ leaders unveiled in the early 1990s to reduce the arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs).

These initiatives were political declarations, which are non-binding and stipulate no verification procedures. In fact, the only bilateral arms control accord that regulates Russian and US TNWs is the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which bans both sides from either developing or deploying ground-launched missiles with ranges of more than 500 and less than 5,500 kilometers. And the future of even this accord is in doubt because Moscow has threatened to abrogate it unless it is internationalized.

Both Moscow and Washington have been discouraged from negotiating a TNW control treaty by a number of issues, including difficulties in establishing effective accounting and verification procedures for tactical nuclear weapons control agreements, asymmetry in US and Russian tactical nuclear weapons arsenals, ambiguity of dual-use delivery systems and even lack of a common definition of tactical weapons.

While these obstacles remain, the Obama administration has stated its interest in making TNWs the subject of US-Russian arms control talks. The US would be interested in launching such talks once the START treaty, which expires in December 2009, is replaced, chief US arms control negotiator Rose Gottemoeller said in May.

The Russian side, however, appears to be less enthusiastic. When asked about the possibility of negotiating a tactical nuclear arms control treaty with the US, Russian diplomats do not rule out such talk, but insist that a deal on TNWs be contingent on a number of other conditions.

“When you go to substrategic [arms], there will be a lot of other things that need to be entered into the play,” Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak told an April panel, on which he sat jointly with Gottemoeller in Washington, DC.

The issues, with which Russia would like to bundle US-Russian negotiations on control of TNWs, include withdrawal of US TNWs  from Europe, internalization of the INF Treaty, constraints on US missile defense, consent of other nuclear weapons countries to reduce their own arsenals and constraints on major powers’ conventional forces, including long-range high-precision systems.

Tactical benefits

One reason why Russia has bundled TNW control with so many issues is that the country’s military-political leadership continues to see a number of utilities in maintaining a formidable tactical nuclear weapons arsenal.

Russia’s strategic documents require nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent against other nuclear weapons states, to respond to large-scale aggression using conventional weapons in situations critical to national security and to deescalate aggression.

Roles of tactical nuclear weapons per se include equalization in the face of the weakness of Russia’s conventional forces vis-à-vis the US and NATO. “Tactical nuclear weapons […] are a factor of deterrence against the enormous amount of weapons, which are currently deployed in Europe,” chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov said in December 2008.

Russian defense policymakers also would not rule out that TNWs could be used to target US global missile defense.

Medvedev vowed in November 2008 to deploy nuclear-capable Iskander surface-to-surface missiles in the Kalinigrad exclave if the US went ahead with plans to build missile defense facilities in East Europe. When asked if Russian authorities are considering whether to deploy nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, chairman of the State Duma’s defense committee, Vitkor Zavarzin, said “such proposals are being made.”

There are also a number of roles, which have not been officially assigned to TNWs, but are considered as options by Russian military strategists. They say that TNWs could be used as a counter-balance to China as well as a deterrent against southern neighbors to demonstrate resolve and localize armed conflicts, change the balance of forces on specific theaters and help maintain combat stability. TNWs also play lead role in creating ambiguity around Russia’s actual nuclear potential in what also, arguably, helps to deter potential foes.

Substantial risks

However, apart from benefits, TNWs also incur a number of substantial risks and costs for the nations who possess them – and Russia is no exception.

They are more likely to be used in case of war than strategic nuclear weapons, given that the chain of command authorizing use of tactical nuclear weapons will be shorter in case of a war. This increases the likelihood of the conflict escalating into an all out nuclear war even though the Russian military counts on TNWs to de-escalate an aggression. They also entrench Russia and NATO in a military stand-off, according to Alexei Arbatov, one of Russia's top arms control experts who has co-written the country's new national security strategy.

TNWs are also more vulnerable to unauthorized access and use than strategic nuclear weapons. Chechnya-based terrorist groups are known to have sought nuclear weapons and so has al-Qaida, which has close ties with groups operating in Chechnya and other parts of Russia’s troubled North Caucasus.

These external and internal costs and risks associated with keeping TNWs outside the domain of arms control are too serious to ignore. Russia should join the US in negotiating the reduction and control of TNWs with the subsequent involvement of other nuclear weapons countries in this process.

Engagement in such negotiations may not lead to the ultimate elimination of tactical nuclear weapons unless Russia and the US make deep progress toward Global Zero in line with the April statements signed by Obama and Medvedev.

However, even an incremental reduction of these weapons by the US and Russia, if coupled with joint verifiable accounting and improvement of their security, will enhance both nations’ security, advancing their joint vital interest in preventing the use of nuclear arms by existing nuclear powers and acquisition of such arms by either nation states or non-state actors.

Simon Saradzhyan is a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. He is the author of several papers on security and terrorism.