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Shortsighted Midrange Rockets
In response to the intentions of the United States to place antimissile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russian officials are threatening to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. That action poses a greater threat to Russia itself than to its potential opponents, however.
How It All Started
In the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union began the massive deployment of RSD-10 Pioneer mobile missile systems with a range of 600-5000 km. Those missiles are better known under their NATO designation of SS-20. The Pioneers were supposed to kill two birds with one stone: they could reach a significant number of targets in Europe and Asia, and they their number was not limited by international treaty. The Soviet military could increase its nuclear potential unimpeded and refocus its limited number of intercontinental ballistic missiles on the United States.
The U.S. decided to place Pershing-2 missiles, with a range of 1800 km., in Europe in response. The USSR began to worry that the Americans would take advantage of the rapid strike time of the missiles (8-10 minutes) to launch a surprise attack on command points and missile silos, making a retaliatory strike impossible.
There was a third factor as well. The European allies of the U.S. understood that the SS-20 and Pershing-2 missiles would allow the USSR and U.S. to wage a “limited” nuclear war in Europe, thus avoiding direct hits in each other. The Europeans did not like the situation.
Not surprisingly, many in the USSR, U.S. and Europe were in favor of prohibiting the short- (500-1000 km. in international agreements and military manuals) and midrange (1000-5500 km.) missiles that were upsetting the system of checks and balances. Consequently, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF on December 8, 1987, after seven years of negotiations. It was the only Soviet-American agreement ever aimed at eliminating an entire class of weapons, and it was to do so within the short timeframe of three years.
How It All Continued
Russian politicians began threatening to withdraw from the INF in the late 1990s as an “asymmetrical” response to NATO expansion. Similar threats were repeated in connection with U.S. plans to withdraw from Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Every time, the rhetoric covered for Russia's surrendering of its position and, fortunately, no actions were taking toward withdrawing from the INF.
The current militant statements being made by Russian politicians are related to U.S. intentions of deploying an antimissile defense system in Eastern Europe that would allow it to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles. The U.S. plans to place ten missile silos in Poland and multifunctional radar facilities to guide them in the Czech Republic. by 2011-2012.
Russian politicians and generals are apparently in the thralls of nostalgia for the horror that embraced NATO 30 years ago after Pioneers were placed along the Western borders of the Warsaw Pact countries. The obvious assumption is that the Eastern European countries, frightened by Russian short- and midrange missiles aimed in their direction, will prefer good relations with Moscow to a dangerous and poorly defined alliance with Washington. It is also assumed that a wedge will be driven into relations between Western Europe on the one side and Eastern Europe and the U.S. on the other, with the Western Europeans being unwilling to tolerate the wrath of Russia because of the behavior of the Americans, Poles and Czechs.
All of that looks illusory and extremely naïve. If efforts to alienate Western Europe from the U.S. were fruitless in Soviet times, attempts by the militarily much-weakened “energy superpower” now will be dismissed completely by the European elite. Eastern Europe will undoubtedly use the Russian missile threat for its own practical purposes. Finding themselves the frontline, at which the Russian “new SS-20s” are aimed, Poland and the Czech Republic will justly be able to count on political and financial special treatment from their NATO allies.
How Russia Is Following into Soviet Pitfalls
Both the military and political aspects of the initiative to withdraw from the INF look poorly considered. The demonstrative deployment of midrange missiles aimed at Europe will speed the establishment of European antimissile defense. Those proponents of withdrawing from the INF contradict themselves. They call the antimissile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic “a terrible threat,” but they forget that fighting midrange missiles is much simpler than opposing intercontinental ones.
Nor do the proponents of denunciation of the INF think about the possibility of a “symmetrical” response from the U.S. The deployment of American midrange missiles in Eastern Europe would create big problems for Russian strategic forces. Russian midrange missiles cannot hit U.S. territory, but analogous American missiles in Europe would hold much of Russia within their sights, including Moscow and the nuclear forces command centers and bases. The short flight time and high accuracy of the American would theoretically permit their use for a preemptive first strike. Russia can depend on its midrange missiles only for limited and non-strategic purposes. In 1980, that realization led the political and military leadership of the USSR to make unprecedented concessions when concluding the INF Treaty with the Americans. And the Soviet military could not be accused of having a defeatist attitude.
Now the missiles of a potential enemy will be even closer to Russian territory, and that means that the flight time of the new Pershings to their potential targets will be even shorter. And Russia (unlike the Soviet Union) will have no way of competing with the U.S. in their quantity.
It should be mentioned that Russia has no midrange missiles even in the design stage, while the U.S. is actively developing them for submarine use. What would stop them from creating a land version of the same missile? The Americans have a clear advantage in midrange ship-base cruise missiles, which could also be easily adapted to land use.
The idea of a unilateral pullout from the INF is a losing one for Russia.
Kremlin Dreamers
Proponents of INF withdrawal show complete disregard for the realities of the Russian economy. The Russian federation now makes six or seven Topol-M intercontinental missiles per year. Under the state arms program for 2007-2015, 69 of those rockets will be built. That is, no major increase in the pace of production is foreseen. The Bulava intercontinental submarine missile program is being drawn out. Old Soviet missiles are being rapidly retired. Judging from this, by 2015-2020, the strategic nuclear forces of the Russian federation will be far less than the 1700-2200 warhead limit set by Russian-American agreements.
Those are the conditions under which the production and deployment of midrange missiles are being proposed. It is clear that any efforts to create them will take scant resources away from the production of “regular” intercontinental missiles. In the best case, Russia could in the foreseeable future deploy 50-100 midrange missiles, which have far fewer applications than the Topol-M and far more vulnerability. The cost of that asymmetrical response would be several dozen Topol-M missiles. Russia obviously cannot save money and secretly build up its nuclear potential the way the USSR did.
If the search for an “asymmetrical” response is a matter of principle, the Russian leadership might recall, for one thing, the informal agreement with the U.S. on the warehousing of tactical nuclear weapons. Or the outdated Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which sets clearly discriminatory quotas on weapons in the north and south of the Russia. There are less outdated alternatives to deploying midrange missiles. For example, the same thing could be accomplished by air-based cruise missiles. They cost much less and counteracting such missiles is difficult.
The impression is made that the initiators of the denunciation of the INF are either engaged in a purely rhetorical exorcise, or are cutting off their noses to spite their faces, with no understanding of how withdrawal from the treaty would weaken Russia's security.
Mikhail Baranov, science editor, Arms Export magazine
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 26, 2007
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Photo: AP
