Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces edited by Pavel Podvig. MIT Press (http://www-mitpress.mit. edu), Five Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142-1493, 2001, 620 pages, $45.00.

This Russian study, the first on nuclear weaponry, will interest both arms-control advocates and historians. Since it was written with Rus-sian source information, its perspective differs from that of other texts on nuclear arms, such as the Nuclear Weapons Databook Series by William Arkin and others, published by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Adding to the intrigue of Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, it is banned in Russia, and the team’s notes and computer disk were seized by the FSB, successor to the KGB. The translators have done an outstanding job of producing a readable gold mine of data. Like many other Rus-sian texts, this one relies on drawings rather than pictures, but this idiosyncrasy does not lessen its worth.

Rather than merely collecting data, this study describes the history and evolution of weapons and weapons systems and provides a comprehensive look at the development, deployment, and testing of weapons. For example, the release sequence for nuclear weapons is well described and shows how the Soviet Union maintained its alert posture. Some gaps, however, need to be filled in. Although the book addresses the Russian weapons-development complex, with its labs and production facilities, it includes scarce data on national nuclear-weapons storage sites, which hold most of the Russian inventory.

Some arms-control controversies of the 1970s and 1980s may undergo debate once again when data in this book is added to that released by the United States. For example, the SS-16, a mobile ICBM of SALT II fame, was deployed and then removed after the SALT Treaty was signed. The other mobile systems- the SS-14/SS-15- which the Western powers were never sure about, were built and tested but not deployed. Other issues, such as how many SS-20s the Soviets were going to deploy before the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty eliminated them, are left open by the Rus-sian authors.

The book covers all air, naval, and air defense forces. One finds no great surprises in any of the data, but much of it confirms Western suspicions about Soviet forces and weapons development. An additional chapter devoted to nuclear tests lays out a chronology of how the Soviets developed their bomb. The chapter on peacetime nuclear explosions and industrial uses of nuclear explosions will add to Western understanding of Soviet developments in this twilight area between national security and economic development.

The authors have aided Western readers by cross-referencing Soviet systems designations with those used by the United States and NATO. An appendix traces Russian nuclear defense policy and equipment to the year 2000, and maps help to pinpoint facilities once so secret that their names were banned in the USSR. This well-documented book should spur additional research in America’s national security community as comparisons are made and the history of the Cold War and strategic arms control is analyzed.

Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, USAF, Retired
Alexandria, Virginia