Abstract
Russia is both a proliferator of nuclear weapons technologies and systems and a potential victim of proliferation. In attempting to deal with its strategic dilemma Moscow has opted for a policy of selective proliferation to friendly states like India, Iran, and China and for a relatively soft approach to the overall issue of “rogue states.” It sees itself competing with the United Sates for customers in tire crucial defense exports market and under increasing global pressure on this issue. Moreover, its elites still believe that without exports the defense industry would die. At the same time Moscow's counterproliferation policy is essentially one of deterrence and threats to launch first-strike nuclear ripostes to proliferation threats in its vicinity. The trend towards reliance on nuclear first-strike strategies has intensified due to the Kosovo campaign by NATO in 1999. Today Moscow's new security concept openly proclaims a strategy of limited nuclear war using first strikes both as a means of deterrence and as a means of warfighting. The ambivalent and contradictory policies that Moscow has pursued show that it still is incapable of formulating a coherent defense policy and strategy to meet current strategic realities and can only heighten foreign concerns about Russia's proclivity to support proliferation and degenerating military capabilities.