Russia’s 2016 New START data, released by the Department of State, indicate that since New START’s entry into force (EIF) in 2011, Russia has increased its deployed warheads. Russia has reached 1,735 deployed warheads, an increase of 198 warheads since New START’s EIF when Russia had 1,537 deployed warheads.[url=http://www.nipp.org/2016/06/21/schneider-mark-russias-growing-strategic-nuclear-forces-and-new-start-treaty-compliance/#_edn1][i][/url] Russia is now 185 warheads above the New START Treaty limit. U.S. data for the same period indicate the U.S. cut its warheads from 1,800 to 1,481, 69 below the New START limit of 1,550.[url=http://www.nipp.org/2016/06/21/schneider-mark-russias-growing-strategic-nuclear-forces-and-new-start-treaty-compliance/#_edn2][ii][/url] The Russian increase is even more impressive when it is compared with their level of 1,400 warheads in October 2013.[url=http://www.nipp.org/2016/06/21/schneider-mark-russias-growing-strategic-nuclear-forces-and-new-start-treaty-compliance/#_edn3][iii][/url] From this baseline, the increase is 325 warheads or about 24%.

According to Bill Gertz, an Obama administration official told him, "The Russians are doubling their [nuclear] warhead output,” and, "They will be exceeding the New START [arms treaty] levels because of MIRVing these new systems.”[url=http://www.nipp.org/2016/06/21/schneider-mark-russias-growing-strategic-nuclear-forces-and-new-start-treaty-compliance/#_edn4][iv][/url] Gertz also reported Russia had added over 150 more warheads during the past year.

In March 2015, Russia’s Ambassador to Denmark Mikhail Vanin made, perhaps, the most explicit of the nuclear targeting threats: "I don’t think that Danes fully understand the consequence if Denmark joins the American-led missile defence shield. If they do, then Danish warships will be targets for Russian nuclear missiles.”[url=http://www.nipp.org/2016/06/21/schneider-mark-russias-growing-strategic-nuclear-forces-and-new-start-treaty-compliance/#_edn36][xxxvi][/url] In 2016, Dr. Keith Payne observed, "Russian leaders, for example, have said that Romania could be turned into "smoking ruins,” and that Poland will be in its "cross hairs.”[url=http://www.nipp.org/2016/06/21/schneider-mark-russias-growing-strategic-nuclear-forces-and-new-start-treaty-compliance/#_edn37][xxxvii][/url]

Russian nuclear strategy appears to call for nuclear first use for "de-escalation” of a conflict. In June 2015, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work and then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James Winnefeld observed, "Russian military doctrine includes what some have called an ‘escalate to de-escalate’ strategy—a strategy that purportedly seeks to deescalate a conventional conflict through coercive threats, including limited nuclear use,” a policy they categorized as "playing with fire.”[url=http://www.nipp.org/2016/06/21/schneider-mark-russias-growing-strategic-nuclear-forces-and-new-start-treaty-compliance/#_edn38][xxxviii][/url] In March 2016, Robert Scher, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities, testified before the Congress that Russia has "adopted a pattern of reckless nuclear posturing and coercive threats. Russia remains in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and remains unreceptive to the President’s offer to negotiate further reductions in strategic nuclear weapons below the limits of the New START Treaty.” He continued, "Russia’s purported doctrine of nuclear escalation to deescalate a conventional conflict amounts to a reckless gamble for which the odds are incalculable and the outcome could prove catastrophic.”