By Lan Shunzheng

Russia recently held an annual strategic nuclear force exercise code-named "Grom-2019"(Thunder-2019) from October 15 to 17, which involved 12,000 troops, 213 missile launchers of the Strategic Rocket Force, 105 aircraft including five strategic bombers, 15 surface vessels, five guided-missile nuclear submarines and 310 combat and special-purpose vehicles.

The exercise took place in all five military districts across Russia, including several military airports, the training ranges of various military areas, and several maritime training ranges including that of the Northern Fleet.

The Russian military organized such a large-scale exercise, mainly because of the current international situation and its own national conditions. The US’ faster steps to “contain” Russia worldwide have brought it under a lot of pressure, while Russia is still plagued with deficiencies militarily.

In conventional military field, Russia doesn’t have sufficient national defense fund for weapon and equipment development due to the long-term sanction imposed by US-led western countries.

In 2019, America’s military budget is almost 10 times as much as Russia’s, even Saudi Arabia and Japan have a larger military budget. Given the capital shortage, spending the limited national defense fund on the R&D and deployment of conventional weapons and equipment does little to enhance Russia’s overall military strength.

Recently, General Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s Defense Minister, said in an interview that Russia doesn’t need aircraft carriers, and that it only needs to build weapons that can sink them.

On the other hand, the US and other western countries have made constant breakthroughs in national defense technology, including information combat, unmanned technology and weapons for cyber warfare, keeping a leading edge in strategic frontier technologies and subversive fields.

In comparison, Russia’s defense research, which was hurt by the disintegration of Soviet Union, isn’t innovative enough in general and cannot support the simultaneous R&D of multiple new weapons and equipment.

In nuclear armament, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in last August and began to test launch missiles with the shooting range of more than 500km soon afterwards.

This has not only caused a serious setback to the international efforts of arms control, but also threatens Russia’s national security, because it means that the US may utilize its geographical advantages and deploy missiles in Europe and Northeast Asia that’s close to Russia.

Moreover, after the INF Treaty was dead, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, another arms control treaty between Washington and Moscow, is also hung by a thread.

To counter the west’s conventional military advantages and cope with possible threats from intermediate range missiles, Moscow has to build on its strengths and nuclear force is one of the key forces it relies on.

In January this year, General Sergei Shoigu said intensifying strategic nuclear combat force is one of the key tasks of Russia’s military development this year, and Russian president Putin said in May that their strategic nuclear force is equipped with 82% of modern weapons, claiming that Russia must develop modern weapon systems based on breakthrough technologies in order to ensure the balance of international strategic forces.

Many of the weapons that Russia has displayed recently on a high profile have to do with nuclear power, including the Poseidon nuclear-powered unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), Burevestnik (“Storm Petrel”) nuclear-powered cruise missile, and Sarmat heavy-duty intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Moscow is inclined to concentrate the limited military budget on nuclear force and use nuclear deterrence to obtain a larger output-input ratio.

Although the Russian side claimed that "Grom-2019" is a defensive exercise that doesn’t target any country, the amount of importance it attached to it indicated that Russia will put more weight on nuclear force in safeguarding its national security, so as to better fend off threats with a limited budget.