[NukeNet] Russian view on BMD and the "illusory advantage of the first strike"

Thu Jun 7 23:49:11 EDT 2007

Russia finds the placement of U.S. BMD systems in former Warsaw pact nations to be threatening for a variety of important reasons which are not recognized by the Bush administration and which are rarely, if at all, discussed by Western media.

What concerns the Russians most about U.S. BMD is the prospect that it could be used as a mop-up system to destroy the few remaining Russian ICBMs that would survive a U.S. nuclear first-strike upon Russian strategic nuclear forces.  The suggestion of a surprise U.S. nuclear attack on Russian nuclear forces may be ridiculed in the West, but the Russian concern is premised upon the idea that you should not judge your adversary by his intentions but rather by his capabilities.   

The proposal that the U.S. can now (or soon will be able to) completely destroy Russia's strategic nuclear forces via a surprise first-strike was made in an influential article entitled, "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy", which was published in the March/April 2006 edition of Foreign Affairs (see http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85204/keir-a-lieber-daryl-g-press/the-rise-of-u-s-nuclear-primacy.html ).  This publication by the Council on Foreign Relations received wide attention and criticism in Russia and is still routinely mentioned in Russian articles which criticize the deployment of U.S. BMD. 

Although the nuclear primacy argument is fatally flawed (see http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4991 and http://www.armscontrol.ru/), the Foreign Affairs article did an excellent job of detailing the serious imbalances between Russian and U.S. nuclear forces which obviously do worry Russian warplanners.  And the article also provided a very convincing argument that the BMD systems, which the Bush administration claims are designed to be used against (non-existent) Iranian and North Korean ICBMs, are actually being deployed as the final aspect of an offensive system designed to destroy the entire Russian strategic nuclear forces.

Here are some excerpts from "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy":

"The improvements to the U.S. nuclear arsenal offer evidence that the United States is actively seeking [nuclear] primacy. The navy, for example, is upgrading the fuse on the W-76 nuclear warhead, which sits atop most U.S. submarine-launched missiles. Currently, the warheads can be detonated only as air bursts well above ground, but the new fuse will also permit ground bursts (detonations at or very near ground level), which are ideal for attacking very hard targets such as ICBM silos. Another navy research program seeks to improve dramatically the accuracy of its submarine-launched missiles (already among the most accurate in the world). Even if these efforts fall short of their goals, any refinement in accuracy combined with the ground-burst fuses will multiply the missiles' lethality. Such improvements only make sense if the missiles are meant to destroy a large number of hard targets. And given that B-2s are already very stealthy aircraft, it is difficult to see how the air force could justify the increased risk of crashing them into the ground by having them fly at very low altitudes in order to avoid radar detection -- unless their mission is to penetrate a highly sophisticated air defense network such as Russia's or, perhaps in the future, China's. . . .

Some may wonder whether U.S. nuclear modernization efforts are actually designed with terrorists or rogue states in mind. Given the United States' ongoing war on terror, and the continuing U.S. interest in destroying deeply buried bunkers (reflected in the Bush administration's efforts to develop new nuclear weapons to destroy underground targets), one might assume that the W-76 upgrades are designed to be used against targets such as rogue states' arsenals of weapons of mass destruction or terrorists holed up in caves. But this explanation does not add up. The United States already has more than a thousand nuclear warheads capable of attacking bunkers or caves. If the United States' nuclear modernization were really aimed at rogue states or terrorists, the country's nuclear force would not need the additional thousand ground-burst warheads it will gain from the W-76 modernization program. The current and future U.S. nuclear force, in other words, seems designed to carry out a preemptive disarming strike against Russia or China. . . 

The intentional pursuit of nuclear primacy is, moreover, entirely consistent with the United States' declared policy of expanding its global dominance. The Bush administration's 2002 National Security Strategy explicitly states that the United States aims to establish military primacy: "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States." To this end, the United States is openly seeking primacy in every dimension of modern military technology, both in its conventional arsenal and in its nuclear forces.
Washington's pursuit of nuclear primacy helps explain its missile-defense strategy, for example. Critics of missile defense argue that a national missile shield, such as the prototype the United States has deployed in Alaska and California, would be easily overwhelmed by a cloud of warheads and decoys launched by Russia or China. They are right: even a multilayered system with land-, air-, sea-, and space-based elements, is highly unlikely to protect the United States from a major nuclear attack. But they are wrong to conclude that such a missile-defense system is therefore worthless -- as are the supporters of missile defense who argue that, for similar reasons, such a system could be of concern only to rogue states and terrorists and not to other major nuclear powers.

What both of these camps overlook is that the sort of missile defenses that the United States might plausibly deploy would be valuable primarily in an offensive context, not a defensive one -- as an adjunct to a U.S. first-strike capability, not as a standalone shield. If the United States launched a nuclear attack against Russia (or China), the targeted country would be left with a tiny surviving arsenal -- if any at all. At that point, even a relatively modest or inefficient missile-defense system might well be enough to protect against any retaliatory strikes, because the devastated enemy would have so few warheads and decoys left."

The Bush administration will not recognize the validity of this portrayal of BMD as a "mop-up system" because it will never admit to pursuing a policy which is designed to execute and "win" a nuclear war.  However, to many Russian military observers this appears to be exactly what the U.S. is doing -- and thus these aggressive U.S. policies support the rise of ultra-nationalists in Russia who will indeed work to follow the lead of the Bush administration by abandoning arms control agreements and expanding the Russian nuclear arsenal.

______________________________________________________________________

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070531/66433776.html

      Is the world in for a new cold age? 
                  21:56 | 31/ 05/ 2007 

MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev for RIA Novosti) - Today's strategic balance is an expression of the quantitative and qualitative alignment of forces with due account of the factors determining the strategic situation. Its parameters form a sophisticated dynamic system; nuclear, primarily strategic weapons are one of its elements. 

But the general condition of this system largely depends on its other elements. Thus, there is an inseparable connection between offensive and defensive arms. Both the Soviet Union and the United States acknowledged it when signing the ABM Treaty. Indicatively, this treaty and the first agreement on the limitation of strategic offensive arms (SALT-1) were signed simultaneously (in 1972). 

The gist of the problem is as follows: centuries-long escalation of a sword-and-shield race (offensive and defensive weapons) has always been won by the sword, but reached a fatal point with the invention of nuclear arms. A shield became useless even if it could parry 99% of all nuclear strikes. One percent would be enough to paralyze civilization. At the same time, a scientific and technical analysis of the problem shows that offensive weapons will continue leaving defensive arms far behind. No shield will parry even 90% of attacking missiles. 

Many factors make it impossible to consider the U.S.-declared global ABM system as an effective protection against a massive first strike. But its deployment will create an illusion that it is possible to repel a weakened retaliatory strike. The illusory advantage of the first strike is one of the main dangers inherent in a global ABM system. Any crisis will increase the impetus for a pre-emptive strike and simultaneous measures to neutralize enemy anti-missile defenses. 

American officials are adamantly denying the fact that their ABM system will threaten Russian security. This is what Condoleezza Rice said on this subject: "Let's be real about this," she said. "The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic return is purely ludicrous and everybody knows it." Indicatively, she used the Cold War term "Soviet." This is all true, but not in case of retaliation, when it will be much easier to intercept the few surviving missiles. Moreover, in perspective the Americans are going to equip their missile interceptors in Poland with hit-to-kill kinetic cassette warheads - 30 to 40 each. They will be much more powerful than 10 simple interceptors. 

The main goal of the United States is to create basic elements of the ABM infrastructure - it won't be difficult to build them up in the future. The planned location of the American radar in the Czech Republic is very convenient - it will allow the United States to detect all Russian ICBMs within 60-75 seconds after launch and will immediately produce a mathematical model close to the missiles' flight paths, thereby facilitating their interception. 

Washington's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and particularly its intention to deploy ABM elements in Europe have been subjecting Russian-American partnership to the most serious test in the last few years. The Russian government's initial response was very reserved. It merely expressed "regret." This is quite natural considering that in the next 10 to 15 years this will be a political rather than a military problem for Russia. Today's technologies cannot produce a reliable ABM system. It will be even less effective against MIRVed ICBMs accompanied by multiple decoys in a well-orchestrated counteraction. 

Nonetheless, Moscow made a decision to extend the service life of RS-20 Satans and RS-18 (UR-100N UTTKh) missiles with multiple warheads. If they remain in use, it makes no sense to speed up the re-equipment of single-warhead Topol-Ms with their three-warhead versions. Be that as it may, on May 29 Moscow announced a successful test of a new MIRVed RS-24 ICBM. 

By the time the interceptor systems become combat-ready - in 2013, the Russian ICBMs would be capable of overcoming the American ABM system. But this is bound to create an issue of a response to offset a potential military imbalance. 

Prominent military and political leaders have made a number of statements about potential response measures. Generally, they are described as asymmetrical and are capable of maintaining strategic stability. In practical terms they boil down to modernizing strategic offensive arms and enhancing their ability to overcome any future ABM system in order to inflict unacceptable damage on the aggressor in a massive retaliatory strike. It is especially important to guarantee immunity of ICBMs at the boost stage when they are the most vulnerable. One of the possible options is to reduce this stage and make a missile maneuverable. 

Nuclear warheads should be also able to maneuver at the final stage of their flight. The first maneuverable warheads were tested in February 2005 at the Topol-M ICBMs. Judging by all, its warhead had several maneuvering slides and one ramjet. A warhead that slowed down during re-entry into the atmosphere is again propelled by this ramjet to supersonic speeds, and maneuvering slides send it into a zigzag flight with a completely unpredictable path. 

Apparently, Russia tested not simply a ballistic missile warhead but an independent craft that an ICBM can carry to enemy targets. Chief of the Russian General Staff Yury Baluyevsky said that missiles with maneuvering warheads would go on combat duty in 2010. 

Finally, the most often mentioned asymmetrical response to American ABM deployment is Russia's unilateral withdrawal from the treaty on medium and shorter-range missiles. This option is unviable both militarily and economically. It will require tremendous military expenditures on large-scale R&D, re-orientation of plants to the production of new types of weapons, construction of military bases and so on and so forth. 

Maybe, this is what Washington is after - to involve Russia in a new arms race and let it drop from exhaustion like the Soviet Union did in a desperate bid to catch up with the United States in strategic nuclear armaments. Contrary to the assurances of our overseas and European friends, they do not need a strong Russia, and many became concerned when it started rising from its knees. 

During talks with U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Vladimir Putin emphasized once again that the deployment of American ABM elements in Eastern Europe would upset the current global balance of forces. The Russian president said that the American plans were not a problem only for Russian-U.S. relations but concerned the interests of all European countries, including non-NATO members, to a greater or lesser extent. 

Russia, Europe and the United States should jointly evaluate all potential strategic risks. Otherwise, we will be in for a new cold age. 

Yury Zaitsev is an expert of the Institute of Space Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. 
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