RUSSIA GOES NUCLEAR IN WAR GAMES.Byline: Michael R. Gordon Michael R. Gordon is the chief military correspondent for The New York Times [1]. Together with Judith Miller, he wrote most of that paper's coverage of the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq in 2002. The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Reflecting its growing dependence on nuclear weapons for defense, Russia's military carried out mock nuclear strikes in a major exercise last month, the defense minister said Friday. The exercise was the largest since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It involved 50,000 troops, bombers, tanks and warships from the Barents Sea Barents Sea, arm of the Arctic Ocean, N of Norway and European Russia, partially enclosed by Franz Josef Land on the north, Novaya Zemlya on the east, and Svalbard on the west. to the Black Sea. One of the scenarios for the exercise underscored the expanding role nuclear weapons are playing in the Russian military's strategy and plans. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the script for the military exercise, disclosed Friday by Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev Igor Dmitriyevich Sergeyev (Russian: Игорь Дмитриевич Сергеев , Russia came under attack by an unspecified Western foe, which used nonnuclear non·nu·cle·ar adj. 1. Not causing, involving, or operated by nuclear energy. 2. Not possessing nuclear weapons. forces. At first, Russia also tried to limit its attacks to conventional forces. But its cash-strapped nonnuclear forces failed to stop the enemy onslaught, forcing Russia's leadership to turn to its still formidable nuclear arsenal. ``The exercise tested one of the provisions of Russia's military doctrine Military doctrine is the concise expression of how military forces contribute to campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements. It is a guide to action, not hard and fast rules. Doctrine provides a common frame of reference across the military. concerning a possible use of nuclear weapons when all other measures are exhausted,'' Sergeyev said Friday. ``We did pursue such an option. All measures were exhausted. Our defenses proved to be ineffective. An enemy continued to push into Russia. And that's when the decision to use nuclear weapons was made.'' Certainly, Russia has long bristled bris·tle n. 1. A stiff hair. 2. A stiff hairlike structure: the bristles of a wire brush. v. bris·tled, bris·tling, bris·tles v.intr. with nuclear weapons. During Soviet times, Moscow and Washington piled up huge nuclear arsenals as they sought to best each other in the arms race. Still, Russia's conventional forces were enormous. In those years it was NATO NATO: see North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO in full North Atlantic Treaty Organization International military alliance created to defend western Europe against a possible Soviet invasion. , fearing that it was outnumbered, that openly threatened to initiate the use of nuclear weapons in response to a non-nuclear attack. Now that the Soviet Union has collapsed, however, the tables have turned. The West has become less dependent on nuclear weapons. As the conflict with Yugoslavia showed, NATO fights its wars with laser-guided and satellite-guided non-nuclear bombs and missiles. But with Russia's military spending projected this year at about $4 billion (compared with about $260 billion for the Pentagon), the once-mighty conventional forces have deteriorated. Relying on nukes Russia's forces failed to defeat Chechnya's rebels, and Russian generals are no longer confident that they can prevail over more serious threats. And with a faltering economy, nuclear forces are virtually the only way Russia can lay claim to being a world power. ``Russia's military believes that it must rely more than ever on the first use of nuclear weapons,'' said Bruce Blair Bruce Robert Blair (b. 27 December, 1957 in Mosgiel) is a New Zealand cricketer. He played 14 one-day internationals for New Zealand in the 1980's. , a specialist on Russian nuclear capabilities at the Brookings Institution Brookings Institution, at Washington, D.C.; chartered 1927 as a consolidation of the Institute for Government Research (est. 1916), the Institute of Economics (est. 1922), and the Robert S. Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government (est. 1924). . ``It is part psychological and partly a planning assumption.'' The first sign of Russia's increasing dependence on nuclear weapons came in 1993 when the Defense Ministry abandoned the Soviet-era pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. Then, as NATO's bombing attacks against Yugoslavia reinforced the sense here that the West has a huge lead in conventional military technology, President Boris Yeltsin called together his top national security advisers to discuss plans to compensate for Russia's faltering conventional capabilities by developing short-range, tactical nuclear weapons. The projects and plans that were approved remain secret. But Vladim Putin, the secretary of the security council, said Yeltsin had approved a ``blueprint for the development and use of nonstrategic nuclear weapons.'' NATO vs. Russia? None of this means that NATO and Russia are necessarily on a collision course. The Yeltsin government has pledged to cooperate on arms control, including seeking the Russian Parliament's approval of the START II treaty reducing strategic nuclear arms. And on Thursday, Yeltsin enjoined a group of Russian generals to cooperate with NATO in enforcing the peace in Kosovo. ``The problem of our relations with NATO and the USA is very subtle, delicate and difficult,'' Yeltsin said. ``Every one of you must pursue the same line - the president's line. We shall certainly not quarrel with NATO outright, but nor do we intend to flirt with it.'' The military aim of the exercise was to test command procedures for defending western Russia and Belarus from an attack from the West. |
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