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The twin purposes of this paper are: 1) to study the present and the future status of Russia's Naukograds (the science cities) dealing with nuclear research; and 2) to examine the lO-year plan of Russia to restructure its armed forces. To justify this plan which emphasizes advanced R & D and production of new tactical nuclear weapons, Kremlin policy-makers have mentioned factors such as the NATO's expansion to the East, Western aggression against Iraq, the events in the Balkan, American effort to neutralize the ABM treaty, the growth in international terrorism and similar other uncertain issues in the present international system. On the basis of this plan, in the first five years the military personnel will be cut from 1.2 million to 550,000 and the military expenditures will be increased from 2.8% to 6.5% of Russia's
GDP.
A prevalent view of nuclear capability and the overall status of military forces of this country is that Russia's Military is undergoing a crisis situation. The government does not have adequate resources to improve the status of the armed forces. Although Russia is still considered a military superpower by many analysts based on its nuclear capability, it has to deal with major problems in all other military aspects. Under such conditions,