Document created: 20 August 02
Air & Space Power Journal - Fall 2002

The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945–2000 by Steven J. Zaloga. Smithsonian Institution Press (http://www.sipress.si.edu), 750 Ninth Street NW, Suite 4300, Washington, D.C. 20560-0950, 2002, 288 pages, $45.00 (hardcover).

This historical overview charts the highlights and pitfalls of Soviet weapons development. Well documented and utilizing new Russian source material, it casts light on Soviet and Russian secrets. During the Cold War, this book would have been a gold mine to Western intelligence agencies since system details and Soviet decision making regarding weapons procurement were shrouded in secrecy. Initially, Western readers will grapple with the code names and nomenclature of Soviet weapon systems—many do not even match the terms found in arms-control treaties sponsored by the Soviet Union. The practice of dual naming has led to some interesting crossovers. For example, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) designated a nuclear-attack submarine Akula, and the Soviets then named their largest missile-carrying submarine class Akula (which the West designated Typhoon). Missile variations are even harder to follow since the Soviet Defense Ministry and missile designers all used different terminology to describe the same missile or variant. However, Zaloga’s introduction, appendixes, and a Soviet/NATO cross-reference list serve as aids to the military-minded reader.

With the help of newly available sources, the book documents the threat perceptions that drove the Soviet Union to develop, build, and deploy nuclear forces, especially land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). The Soviet air force, wary of rockets and missiles in the 1950s, lost manpower and three air armies to the newly formed Strategic Rocket Forces when the Communist Party leadership decided that rockets were better than bombers. The navy, overcoming technological hurdles, finally got submarine missiles in the 1960s, and Zaloga chronicles the difficulties encountered during this process.

Like Pavel Podvig’s Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (2001), Zaloga’s book covers Soviet developments in nuclear weaponry quite closely. Zaloga, however, has a few surprises and hints that more may come as additional Soviet-era archives become available. Particularly intriguing is his account of how the Soviet defense industry manipulated and influenced the Soviet defense minister and political leadership to obtain funding and production decisions. Continuing technical problems and deep xenophobic fears forced the Soviet Union to develop and field more nuclear systems than the West. Such motivations are especially telling in the case of missiles. The desire to reach parity and then achieve nuclear superiority over the West drove the Soviets to deploy even more weapons. Zaloga also discusses defensive weaponry, unfortunately in briefer form than his chapters on offensive weapons. Nevertheless, he does explain how one of the great US-USSR arms-control controversies—that concerning the Krasnoyarsk ballistic missile warning radar—came about. Furthermore, because suspicious Soviet leaders viewed the US space shuttle as a weapon, they had it tracked and targeted by FON-1, an embryonic, ground-based antiballistic-missile system that affected the shuttle crew. The reader will find many more such vignettes that enhance the readability of the text.

The story of the SS-16 mobile ICBM as recounted in this book should serve as a source of some concern since intelligence assertions made in the early 1970s appear to be true—specifically, that the system was deployed undercover and kept from American national technical means to ensure that US intelligence agencies never learned of its existence. Zaloga also shows what effect the stagnation of the late 1980s had on the Soviet Union and how the Strategic Defense Initiative and other American weapon systems ultimately drove the USSR into ruin. The command and control systems implemented by the USSR over the years became more desperate, finally resulting in a semiautomatic system that could have launched a final, devastating strike had the Soviet leadership been killed in Moscow. Zaloga is one of the first writers to document how nuclear weapons were returned to Russia after the Soviet Union failed and four successor states with such weapons emerged. Russia’s attempts to modernize its nuclear arsenal and the associated costs of doing so, in terms of both money and manpower, are covered in the last chapter. This modernization, which continues today, shows how the former superpower still wishes to cling to great-power status by nuclear means.

Although The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword is still short on some of the details embodied in the 55 years it covers, this overview certainly helps the reader grasp how the Soviet Union conducted its nuclear business. What sets this book apart is its readability. Structured chronologically and functionally around Soviet weapon systems, it provides a comprehensive, high-level account. Now future books will have to deal with technical and operational issues by weapon system.

Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, USAF, Retired
Alexandria, Virginia

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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