The Russian government disclosed some of its defense spending and acquisition plans for 2007. According to the minister of defense, in 2007 the total spending on national defense will reach “more than 820 billion rubles”, “more than 300 billion rubles” of which will be the “state defense order”. A similar figure for 2006 was 237 billion rubles. Taking inflation into account (expected to be 8.5% in 2006), we can estimate that the real growth of the acquisition budget will be roughly 17%, which is comparable to the 16% growth this year. Of the 300 billion rubles, 144.4 million will be spent on acquisitions, 61.9 million - on repairs, and 94.1 - on research and development.
In a significant change from the established pattern, the defense ministry is planning to increase almost threefold the number of new ICBMs – the 2007 plan includes acquisition of 17 new ballistic missiles. So far Russia has been deploying no more than six missiles annually. No further details were given, but it is clear that these 17 missiles will be silo-based and road-mobile Topol-M missiles. (Five and twelve respectively? By the end of this year Russia is expected to have 45 silo-based Topol-Ms and three road-mobile ones. And does this mean that the earlier plan to get 69 Topol-Ms by 2015 will be reconsidered?) [UPDATE 12/18/06: Only five of the 17 missiles will be Topol-M ICBMs. Other 12 are expected to be R-29RM Sineva SLBMs]
The acquisition plans in space include purchase of four new spacecraft and four launchers for them. These numbers apparently do not include the Glonass navigation satellites – two launches with six spacecraft are scheduled in 2007 (this is in addition to the launch of three Glonass satellites scheduled on 25 December 2006). Earlier, Glonass launches were counted as military.
The long-range aviation is also expected to receive a wing of new (or upgraded?) planes, but the details are sketchy at the moment.
Neither submarines nor Bulava missiles have been mentioned in the 2007 plan – these are quite far from being operational. The Bulava tests flights, however, are expected to continue, and the first ship of the Project 955 Borey class, Yuri Dolgorikiy, is expected to begin sea trials in 2007. The long-term plan (up to 2015) calls for deployment of four submarines of this type, so we can expect construction of a new submarine to begin shortly after Yuri Dolgorukiy leaves the dock.
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Unlikely to procure 17 Topols given that the armament plan to 2015 calls for only 69 new Topols. Likely the 17 ICBM figure includes production of submarine based missiles.
I will refer to your info page on the ssbn fleet where you mention that 2 other Borei's are already being constructed...so is it realistic to expect no. 2 and no. 3 to be comissioned in 2009 and 2010?
I wouldn't bet my house on it, but I think it's quite possible. Still unlikely, though.
There is a simple hypothesis that can explain the surge in the deployment of ICBM without a considerable spike in costs: The SRF will just start to fuel and deploy the dry “Ukrainian” missiles. I.e. 7 Topol-m will be produced (6 for deployment and 1 for testing) and 10 “SS-19” will be fuelled and deployed to partially compensate the retirement of older “SS-18” and “SS-19”. In the whole this will allow a “soft landing” of the strategic forces to the stationary target level.
Is this possible or not?
I think it is unlikely. As I understand, in the context of the budget, "ordering new ICBMs" means getting actual new ICBMs, which means Topol-M.
Perhaps - this is of course a guess - there is a delay in the Bulava program/deployment and so the money for the latter might be re-routed to the Topol-M ?
Money isn't an issue. With a 60 billion dollar surplus this year they could order much more, but they are smart enough to set the right priorities.
I have heard on a Russian site that the limited procurement of Topol M missiles may not be a money issue, but may in fact be a physical production constraint issue. Namely, so much of the USSR infrastructure is lost that there are limits on the production of nuclear warheads and components and Russia has not invested the dollars to replace the production assets. In a like vein, when I worked in Russia I worked with a former "rocket scientists" who felt that Russia would suffer a "brain drain" and lose its ability to produce strategic weapons - the problems with the Bulava may be partially a result of this loss of human talent. As an aside, does any poster know the actual cost of a Topol M missile ?
Production constraints may be an issue, but I would doubt they are. As I understand, the most difficult part of the process is to line up all subcontractors and suppliers. Once this is done, production could be scaled up relatively easily. The plant in Votkinsk can certainly handle much larger production volumes than it does today.
As for "brain drain", certainly there is some, but I don't think the problems with Bulava have anything to do with it. Failures are part of a normal development process.
Finally, on Topol-M cost. I don't think anybody can come up with a reliable estimate of the "actual cost".
Why not ? Surely the Russian MOD knows the cost. I would just be curious about the order of magnitude. Does a Topl M cost $10MM, $50MM, $100MM ?