ABSTRACT
Nuclear weapons have taught Russian leaders many enduring, valuable, but also contradictory lessons. Since the Soviet nuclear programme began Russian and Soviet leaders have understood nuclear weapons' capacity for coercion and intimidation against Russia. But Russia has also learned other lessons since then about deterrence and arms control, along with the strategic limits to nuclear weapons' utility especially against nuclear opponents. While Russia regards proliferation as a threat; it comes fifth in Russia's new defence doctrine after a whole series of US-inspired threats such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization enlargement and missile defences. Indeed, Russia has learned the lessons of deterrence so thoroughly that its leadership cannot go beyond thinking in terms of the canonical offence–defence relationship of the Cold War. Russia has become more anxious about restarting the six-party talks on Korea. Russia has long opposed Iranian nuclearization. Even before the Obama Administration, Russia withheld the S-300 surface-to-air missile and delayed completing the Bushehr reactor.
