5 Kaplan, Fred. 1983. The Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon and Schuster, 269.
6 Ellsberg, Daniel. 2017. The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. New York: Bloomsbury, 100–104.
7 McNamara, Robert S. 1968. The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office. New York: Harper and Row, 61–62.
8 Bush, George. 1990. “Soviet-United States Joint Statement on Future Negotiations on Nuclear and Space Arms and Further Enhancing Strategic Stability.” The American Presidency Project, June 1, 1990. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/263949.
9 For the purposes of this work, the term “strategic nuclear forces” is used almost as a synonym of the term “strategic arms,” although in the future there may be a discrepancy due to the development of strategic arms with non-nuclear warheads.
10 Von Clausewitz, Carl. 1989 (first published 1832). On War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: Part I, chapter 1, section 28.
11 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 2017. SIPRI Yearbook 2017: Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 1990. SIPRI Yearbook 1990. World Armaments and Disarmament. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3–51.
12 Highly survivable capabilities refer to missile forces at sea and land-based mobile launchers. Heavy bombers in this case are not taken into account, since they are not kept in a state of high combat readiness, have a long flight time, and are not guaranteed to break through enemy air defenses.
13 Dvorkin, Vladimir. 2017. “Reduction of Offensive Weapons.” In A Polycentric Nuclear World: Challenges and New Opportunities (in Russian), edited by Alexey Arbatov and Vladimir Dvorkin. Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center: ROSSPEN, 54–74.
14 Putin, Vladimir. 2012. “Be strong: Guarantees of Russian National Security.” Rossiiskaya Gazeta (in Russian), February 20, 2012. http://www.rg.ru/2012/02/20/putin-armiya.html.
15 Ibidem.
16 Pilkington, Ed and Martin Pengelly. 2018. “‘Let It Be an Arms Race’: Donald Trump Appears to Double Down on Nuclear Expansion.” Guardian, December 24. https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/2016/dec/23/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-arms-race.
17 Office of the Secretary of Defense. 2018. U.S. Nuclear Posture Review. Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense. https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF.
18 Ibidem.
19 Putin, Vladimir (approved). n.d. “Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation” (in Russian). Accessed November 30, 2020. http://news.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d527556bec8deb3530.pdf.
20 Putin, Vladimir (approved). n.d. “Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation” (in Russian). Accessed November 30, 2020. http://news.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d527556bec8deb3530.pdf.
21 Ibidem.
22 Kremlin.ru. 2018. “Заседание дискуссионного клуба ‘Валдай.’” October 18, 2018. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/58848.
23 According to independent estimates, Russia has about 1,850 units of such nuclear weapons. See more: SIPRI Yearbook 2017.
24 Office of the Secretary of Defense. 2018. U.S. Nuclear Posture Review. Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense. https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF.
25 These asymmetries included forward-deployed U.S. nuclear forces in Eurasia; the predominant share of ground-based missiles, especially heavy types, in the Soviet strategic forces, and the sea- and air-based components of the U.S. triad; and U.S. advances in long-range cruise missiles in the late 1970s, an attempt to create space-based missile defense in the early 1980s, and, recently, leadership in the development of defensive and offensive high-precision conventional long-range systems.
26 Putin, Vladimir (approved). n.d. “Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation” (in Russian). Accessed November 30, 2020. http://news.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d527556bec8deb3530.pdf.
27 See more: Oleg Odnokolenko, Oleg. 2018. Interview with Colonel General Viktor Esin, who said: “If the Americans begin to deploy their missiles in Europe, we will have no choice but to abandon the doctrine of launch-on-warning and move to a doctrine of preemptive strike.” Zvezda Weekly (in Russian). November 8, 2018. https://zvezdaweekly.ru/news/t/2018117102-0iaAI.html.
28 Secretary of Defense Schlesinger, James R. 1975. Annual Defense Department Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. http://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/annual_reports/1975_DoD_AR.pdf?ver=2014-06-24-150705-323.
29 Ogarkov, Nikolai. 1982. Always Ready to Defend the Fatherland. In Russian. Moscow: Voenizdat, 49.
30 Redstar.ru. 2003. “Current Goals in the Development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” Red Star (in Russian), October 11, 2003. http://old.redstar.ru/2003/10/11_10/3_01.html.
31 Putin, Vladimir (approved). n.d. “Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation” (in Russian). Accessed November 30, 2020. http://news.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d527556bec8deb3530.pdf.