Speaking on May 10, 2006, in his address to the Russian Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin gave what appeared to be the definitive Russian assessment of the widely reported U.S. proposal to equip a number of Trident II (D-5) submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with conventional warheads. The purpose of the initiative, now under consideration in the U.S. Congress, is to provide U.S. leaders the ability to strike targets virtually anywhere in the world within an hour of the decision to do so, without the need to use nuclear weapons. Currently all U.S. long-range ballistic missiles are equipped exclusively with nuclear warheads. [1]

Putin’s assessment of the concept was negative, as he emphasized the most serious potential drawback of the idea. The launch of an intercontinental missile with a conventional warhead, Putin stated, could provoke an “inappropriate” response from “one” of the nuclear powers; in fact, he continued, it could “provoke a full-scale counterattack using strategic nuclear forces.” [2]

Although Putin’s stance seemed unambiguous, the Russian reaction to the possibility that some American SLBMs might be equipped with non-nuclear warheads is not as straightforward as it first appears. It is worth noting, for example, that very little has been said on the matter in Russia since the first detailed report on the issue appeared there in January 2006. [3]

Indeed, the first official Russian reaction to the U.S. initiative, which came five days before Putin’s address, does not appear to have been reported in the Russian media. These were comments by Vice-Admiral Vladimir Avdoshin, deputy chief of the Russian Navy’s main staff, who criticized the American program on the same grounds as Putin would cite soon afterwards – namely, that the launch of a conventionally-armed strategic missile could too easily be mistaken for a nuclear attack. [4]

Moreover, through early May 2006, the very few reports on this topic in the Russian media employed neutral, analytical terms that avoided either positive or negative assessments. [5] This is unusual for Russian reporting on American weapon modernization programs. Typically, such programs receive close scrutiny, and Russian commentators are quick to declare the “anti-Russian” intentions behind them.

The dearth of criticism, and even of commentary, together with the delay in any official Russian reaction to the U.S. initiative until May, suggest that thinking on the subject in Moscow remained largely unformed. Moreover, even President Putin, on May 10, did not oppose the initiative outright and seemed to borrow from criticism widely heard in the United States. [6] Russians seem to genuinely share the concern about the risk that a launch of a conventionally armed strategic missile might be misinterpreted, but are apparently not prepared to reject the idea on these grounds.

This pattern of ambivalence has continued since Putin’s address. In fact, the official newspaper of the Russian government, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, in an article published almost three weeks after Putin’s speech, chose to cite American congressional sources rather than Russian sources in discussing the danger that the launch of a conventionally armed SLBM might be misread as a nuclear attack. [7] Moreover, in an interview also given after Putin’s speech, Andrei Kokoshin, a well-known nongovernmental expert on security affairs in the 1980s and the first deputy minister of defense in the 1990s, who is now the chairman of a Duma committee, described the Trident D-5 re-equipment program in decidedly non-negative terms – as an alternative to earlier U.S. plans to develop low-yield nuclear weapons. [8]

This suggests that the official Russian position on the conventionally armed D-5 proposal is still evolving. In particular, the Russian Ministry of Defense is continuing to study the issue and so far has not been prepared to provide a final verdict.

A hint as to one possible reason for such caution was offered in a recent remark of Chief of the General Staff Yuri Baluevski to the effect that the new defense-penetrating warheads for Russia’s strategic missiles that are now being tested might in the future be equipped with conventional explosives. [9] Thus, it is possible that the Russian military, itself, has not ruled out developing a program similar to the one currently under discussion in Washington and is hesitant to oppose the U.S. initiative, until Russian planners have fully weighed the potential costs and benefits of deploying their own conventionally armed long-range missiles.

It also appears that Russian experts are closely studying means for minimizing the risk that launch of a conventionally armed long-range missile might be misinterpreted. This could address the key concern Putin raised about the program and open the way to Russia taking a more positive view of the initiative.

Nikolai Sokov – Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies