Customer Reviews

Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces

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Today, Russia's nuclear forces remain the single greatest danger to the security and survival of the United States. However, because of ten years of Russian economic difficulties, too many in Government and the Western public pay far too little attention.

This book represents the best understanding of Russia's strategic forces available outside the Russian military. You can be sure that the people who really want to understand Russia's nuclear complex and their strategic rocket forces have a copy of this book. This is particularly remarkable since the contributors, all Russians, to this comprehensive overview have based their solid analysis solely on publicly available information--publicly available but dispersed over a wide variety of sources--and then used their scientific understanding to present in a thoughtful, authoritative, and most of all useful account.

Open the book to almost any page and you will find useful and important information. For instance, chapter eight presents a table of Russian nuclear tests, including the test's primary goal. This is the only such compellation I have seen and far exceeds similar lists for the United States. Right away you can see that the Soviet Union used significantly fewer tests on making sure their nuclear weapons would not explode accidentally than did the United States. Does that mean their weapons represent a significantly greater risk of accidental nuclear detonation? An interesting question to ponder.

The story behind the book would, perhaps, make even more thrilling reading. While based on information that the Russian government itself made public, recent years have seen an unjustified persecution of the book's authors by the Russian Federal Security Bureau, the successor to the KGB. In fact, one of the contributors is in under arrest (for other work he did) and all the unsold Russian language editions of this book have been confiscated by the Russian government.

Readers in both Russia and the United States who are seriously concerned about nuclear war and peace should read this book.

This is not an easy-reading book, but if you desire to know the smaller details of the history, development, design, construction, and strategy of the Soviet and current Russian strategic forces, without conjecture and without fluff, this is your book. If you can or wish to coherently discourse on the design differences between the Soviet R-36 and R-36M2 second stage and other such details, this one's for you. Highly recommended.

This is an amazing book about the history, design, strategies and current state of the Russian nuclear forces. There was not a single detail I didn't found in this fascinating material. The chapter about the process for veryfing an incoming attack and launching a response is really good.

Pavel Podvig's Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces was initially available only in Russian, however when it was finally updated and released in English we received the absolute most authoritative and detailed report on the subject available in the civilian sector.

Podvig's effort is to be highly commended, as he has compiled an impressive amount of research, much of it relating to the technical side, though good write-ups and historical overviews are included. From R&D to production and finally deployment, every Soviet/Russian ICBM, SLBM and Strategic Bomber system is discussed in extensive technical detail, including such well researched and hard to find details such as Circular Error Probability of all Russian strategic systems.

The book is a heavy volume containing nearly 700 pages, none of it filler, so you can imagine the sheer amount of information in this volume for anyone interested in attaining a deeper understanding of the subject. Given the price, it really is a no-brainer. Furthermore Pavel Podvig maintains a frequently updated and detailed web site which continually adds newer information, essentially making this a "living research" project on the subject. You can locate his site here:

Seems Amazon edits out any links in reviews, so to try again Podvig's site can be found at russianforces.org

Once again, for the incredibly low price this book is offered at, you have nothing to lose, and a wealth of knowledge to gain.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Mr. Podvig, aside from being someone who has been won over by his dedication and research to the subject at hand.

Nuclear forces, like other branches of the military, are divided into two categories: Tactical and strategic. Strategic division of the nuclear forces covers the armaments that have a wider scope of effect. These are the forces that have kept the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) balance between the superpowers so far. Strategic nuclear forces have air, land and submarine launch capability of nuclear warheads targeted for intercontinental targets.
This book covers every aspect of the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces from the very beginnings up to post-Soviet restructuring. It covers detailed development phases of strategic bombers, land-based launch platforms and the submarine leg of the nuclear triad. There are detailed data on the organization of the nuclear command, early warning systems and launch protocols. There are also detailed data on the Soviet/Russian nuclear complex and their products. At the end of the book, there is a long list of the nuclear tests undertaken by Russia.
All in all, this book should be read and kept as a reference by all those who want to have a well-balanced look at the Russian Nuclear Strategic Command's capabilities and importance. Readers of this book will appreciate why the latest efforts by the United States for a missile defense system will be highly counter-productive.

Once upon a time I was a Missileman in the Titan II Program. Nowadays people use the more Politically Correct (and Gender non-specific)"Missileer". But back then, we didn't know a lot about Russian (Soviet) ICBMs besides the fact they were big,dirty, not particularly accurate and pointed at the Site that I was pulling my alerts at and at the AF Base where my Wife was staying. We would get periodic classified briefings on Soviet weaponry, but usually only with very fuzzy pictures and spotty (mis)information. Since then I have received the occasional unclassified briefing during Missile Group reunions; but NOTHING like this.

Now - 40 years later, this text has given me an opportunity to see just what I was really facing across the North Pole, and what my likely targets would have been for my trusty W-53(9 MT)/Mark 6 RV warhead. I believe the current phrase would be "OMG"!

I have NEVER seen such a massive amount of detail on the Soviet Nuclear Program packed into the 690 pages of one relatively cheap and unclassified book. Want to know the details of every Soviet Nuclear test from 1947 through 1988 ? They're here - 86 pages worth . Want to know where the Soviet ICBMs were designed and built ? - check pages 159/170. Curious about how many SLBM submarines (by type) were in the Soviet fleet any year ? Table 5-1 will tell you. Want to know what the Soviets actually called their missiles(Hint -they did not use NATO code names...), production details, drawings, etc.? Here , you will find out the answers in mind-numbing detail. And on and on.

Now, the information in the text is current only as of 2001, so don't look for what has happened recently. But if you are looking for a rock-solid reference on what the former Bad Guys had and did that directly threatened the US as a Nation for the 50 years of the Cold War ,this is it.

Perhaps the finest recommendation as to the worth of this test is that the KGB is recently alleged to have confiscated all Russian-language copies of the text, destroyed the computer print discs and tried to arrest several of the Russian conributors!

HIGHLY Recommended!

Mr. Podvig's book, "Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces," is an excellent unclassified look into the world of Russian/Soviet nuclear weapons. The book covers weapon systems, facilities and nuclear tests since the dawn of their nuclear age. The diagrams and tables are clear and concise.

This book was very helpful in allowing an individual to quickly memorize (or 'compare and contrast') different missile ranges and warhead yields. Very useful if briefing American missile combat crews on potential nuclear threats, or if writing 'peace-nik' papers on the evils of nuclear weapons. Honestly, I don't care what your bent is - if you want to know about nukes, this book needs to be added to your library.

This 690 pages book is the most comprehensive book I read on the subject. It provides detailed account of the background of the SALT treaties and the complete history of the soviet nuclear buildup. It is detailed enough to describe the complete process, from uranium processing to the MIRV and ballistic missiles deployment. Even, a table of all nuclear tests with every detail, an incredible sort of sometimes scary reality. Sharp pictures, accurate and exhaustive tables, this book is a reference. Russian references and identifications are provided, this is more accurate than NATO equivalences. It is to be read with 'The Kremlin`s nuclear sword, Zaloga', they complement each other.

Worth having in your library.

This book is really exciting to read. I have been trying to find a book on Soviet weapons for a while and came across this book. I must say I was amazed of the amount of content and detail included in this book. The book lists different strategic missiles from the very first ICBM to the latest model that was produced in the Soviet Union. The authors even lists different missile bases and production sites i.e. (closed cities) and warhead depositories, and the nuclear fuel cycle . Even though the Cold War is over I'm wondering if some of the material should still be classified.

This book goes through the early history of the production of missiles, naval fleets, information of strategic aviation sites and production facilites and locations. This book has a section on nuclear tests which lists nuclear explosions. It also describes the decision making process of the strategic nuclear forces in the event of a nuclear war. The chapter that was interesting was the "Strategic Defense" chapter which includes missile and space defense forces, antisatellite and space surveillance the Soviet version of the United States SDI program was interesting. Toward the end of this book includes the present state of Russian strategic forces.

I would recommend this book to anyone that's interested in soviet military thinking and the history of Soviet/Russian weapons systems. A great reference.

This book is interesting in some ways but heavily focused on facilities and process rather than the history of development of some of the critical technologies. A good reference but a bit disappointing.

For most readers interested in Soviet missile development I would recommend Zaloga's The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces. Covers some of the early debates on missile development and strategy, with special emphasis on competition between the design bureaus.

Note that both of these books only focuses on Strategic missiles, as their titles certainly acknowledge, so there is little detail on short and intermediate range missiles except for the earliest missiles such as the SS-3 and SS-4. If you are looking for Scud information you won't find it here unless you are looking for the submarine launched version.