The collapse of the Soviet Union radically changed the external and domestic environment for a new Russian state. Existing political science theories predict that radical changes to the international system or to the domestic regime affect the content of nuclear strategy. This chapter uses Russian archival and oral history sources on nuclear decision-making from the 1980s and 1990s to demonstrate that such change did not take place in Russian nuclear strategy. Soviet strategic thought and institutional mechanisms for strategy formulation would prove sticky, producing continuity rather than change in this area. The Soviet tradition for deterring nuclear war by preparing to fight it has continued to shape Russian nuclear strategy throughout the entire post-Cold War era.