The accord establishes a closer working relationship between Russia and NATO, but it does not mollify hard-line members of Russia's parliament or its senior military leadership. Even before NATO expansion was on the table, Russia was moving to erect a nuclear Maginot line against all potential adversaries. The shift first became evident in 1993, when a new military doctrine reversed a 1982 pledge never to use nuclear weapons first. If an aggressor starts a war against us using conventional weapons, we may respond with nuclear ones.
Nuclear weapons are usable under almost any circumstance.
On the gloomy side. Although Yeltsin has made it clear he does not believe that NATO poses a direct or immediate military threat, Russia's military planners see the world through a different lens. Intentions are meaningless, capabilities everything. In Desert Storm, they saw Western conventional hardware decimate Iraq's Soviet-built arms. At home, they watched poverty and chaos consume Russia's armed forces, shrinking them from 3.4 million in 1991 to 1.3 million last year.