At the International Conference on Missile-Defense (May 3-4th, 2012) in Moscow, Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov stated that the Kremlin will present mathematical modeling to “irrevocably demonstrate” how the US proposed European Phased Adaptive Approach (or EPAA) will pose a certain and unacceptable risk to the Russian nuclear arsenal.

Madelyn Creedon, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs, told a telephone news conference: “We haven’t seen the presentation and are looking forward very much to actually seeing the presentation”.

Just curious how this was received and if there is any more information.

Frank Shuler
USA

If the RF is so concerned about its missiles going over Norway, why doesn't it just move the missiles so they don't?

@Silent Hunter: Most missiles in European Russia are based on fixed sites. Moving them and constructing new silos is insanely expensive.

@Frank: General Gerasimov's presentation lays out their case. http://www.mil.ru/files/morf/Eng_Gerasimov_Assessment%20of%20BMD%20Global%20capabilities.ppt

As for how it was received... Well, I think I can make an educated guess to say that it was received politely, but with absolutely zero positive response. In the current climate, this is a non-starter. Not saying it doesn't make sense technologically, but where Russia is at the moment, and where NATO is, the heat death of the universe is more likely to occur before Estonians agree to be in the Russian area of responsibility. 8)

Frank: As I understand, the much advertised "irrevocable demonstration" is in Gerasimov's presentation. There are the videos as well (although my computer is having problems with the format). I haven't looked at the details, but as far as I can tell, the analysis just assumes that an interceptor can be launched shortly after the ICBM launch and then it's just a matter of it's velocity whether it could reach the missile or not. This is not how this kind of calculations are done. Not to mention that they seem to be way too generous with interceptor speed. Anyway, I'm not surprised that the analysis is weak - it's never been a technical issue. It's pure politics.

This seems like a very minor sacrifice on NATO's part...

artjomh

Historically, when the decision to press forward with the Ground Based Interceptor System (GBI) was made by then President Bill Clinton, the assumption was made that the existing ABM Treaty could be inhered to and that the 100 interceptors and associated radar systems could be installed at Grand Forks Air Base (North Dakota, USA) protecting the entire country. Then the political question was raised as to “what was the entire country”? As it turned out, parts of western Alaska and most of Hawaii was deemed too far “over the horizon” for the GBI to mathematically intercept a missile shot from North Korea. Then hopeful presidential candidate Al Gore, intended to work hard for a modification to the original ABM treaty with Russia upon election but, of course, George W. Bush won. By that time, the hang-up with the old ABM treaty wasn’t base location, or number of interceptors but testing. It would have been impossible to develop and test any “modern” ABM system under the existing declarations of the ABM Treaty. A treaty that Russia had no desire to change at all. Farther pushing the issue was the fact that the two most powerful Senators’ in the US Congress just happened to be from, you guessed it, Alaska and Hawaii. A new ABM system that didn’t defend the entire country, every square mile, wasn’t getting a dollar from Congress. President George Bush finally decided to throw out the ABM Treaty and here we are. (In fairness, President Bush only exercised the Treaty’s protocols for ending the agreement.)

Any NATO system that doesn’t protect “every square mile” of NATO territory is a non-starter.

I won’t even broach the “it won’t work anyway” argument.

Frank Shuler
USA

Pavel

Disappointed that the definitive Russian argument was a powerpoint presentation and not the sophisticated computer model expected. I was just hoping Russia could make their position technically understood. Politics? Yes.

In recent quote by Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov, Wednesday, May 2, 2012, Russian threatened a “pre-emptive strike” on the US-European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) when that system reaches Poland in the 2018-20 timeframe. The Polish base would include the faster US Block II interceptors that the Kremlin seems to fear so. However, his remarks didn’t seem to make many headlines in Europe or here in the US. It does beg the question, where is the compromise?

Frank Shuler
USA

Hi Frank,

the Russian Thread made some lines in German newspapers, it wasn't ignored. But at the moment we have that Timoshenko-Ukraine-Soccer thing taking the headlines. No one cares for Russian missiles while there is a soccer-related issue going on elsewhere.

Cheers.

Martin

My friend, I certainly understand. You must have national priorities! (grin) I’m personally trying to pull my NHL Hockey team through the playoffs and on to the Stanley Cup. We’re down 3-1 now in the quarterfinals and facing elimination tonight. What can Russian nuclear missiles do to compete with such drama? (even bigger grin)

However levity aside, I could not end our conversation without asking you where do you think the compromise is between Russia and NATO on this issue?

Frank Shuler
USA

Frank, if I understand the point of the Russian proposal, the entirety of NATO territory would be covered. By a joint NATO-Russia system. Now, if only NATO would trust Russia to protect it...

As Pavel has correctly noted, this isn't about technology. In my opinion, this is about lack of trust. Russia doesn't trust US assurances which it cannot physically verify. US doesn't trust Russian intentions or motives. It doesn't help anyone that there are elections everywhere, so issues of trust are blown to truly enormous proportions. Until both sides find that trust, this issue isn't moving anywhere.

As for your disappointment with the presentation, well, in my opinion, you (or US DoD) weren't the true addressees. The point of the conference was to win the court of public opinion, to make Russia look the responsible party engaging in dialogue, instead of the stonewalling Mr. Nyet. Obviously, no breakthrough is going to happen until some cultural shifts in both countries occur. But until then, there are always geopolitical points to be scored.

@artjomh

"Russia doesn't trust US assurances which it cannot physically verify. US doesn't trust Russian intentions or motives."

And it goes without saying nobody trusts the scientists who say that the missile shield is worthless because of the decoy discrimination problem.

artjomh: It's not about lack of trust. Russia doesn't really want to trust the U.S. - very much everyone in Russia benefits from hyping up the threat of missile defense. Nobody really cares if it's real or not. They don't even bother to put together a decent set of slides. (To be fair, the politics of missile defense in the U.S./NATO is not much different, but with better slides.)

Speaking of better slides, here is an interesting letter from NAS on the European missile defense: http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/nas_response.pdf

Derek, decoys can't be effectively employed against boost stage interception, which European ABM is all about.

Yes, of course, Pavel, cynical intransigence of Russian politicians is the only thing standing in the way of peace and mutual cooperation. If only they were more like their American colleagues, who come with open minds and welcoming hands.

artjomh: I thought I've made it clear long ago that I have no sympathy for the U.S. program and U.S. missile defense politics. Still, the U.S. is reasonably open about cooperation, data sharing, information exchange and things like that. Also, we know that there are people in Russia who would be happy to work with the U.S. But every attempt to do something gets buried under the stupid "legally binding guarantees" stuff.

reko: European defense has never been about boost phase.

Pavel, the last time NATO and Russia were on the verge of a mini-breakthrough in terms of stationing Russian officers at the missile defence site in Europe, it was NATO (Poland and Czech Republic) who scuttled the deal, not Russia. And, of course, now US can't even share any missile data because of Republican politics. US position has basically devolved to: "Just go away and die quietly".

I'm not sure there was any promise in the idea of stationing of Russian officers at missile defense sites - if there was ever a chance of a deal, it was probably this one in 2007. I'm fairly positive NATO did not have anything to do with killing it, though - looked like U.S. politics to me. Which, as I said, is not any better than the Russian one.

I would disagree on the current U.S. position, though - at this point the administration would much rather have Russia on board in some shape or form. Neither Obama nor people around him seem to be ideological about missile defense, but they cannot afford to be seen as giving Russia a veto. Of course, you could say that the same applies to Russia - i.e. for internal political reasons Putin cannot afford to be seen giving green light to U.S. missile defense. It's a fair point, even if one believes (as I do) that Russia's opposition to missile defense is totally artificial. But Russia didn't have to change its official position - the New START has language that is completely compatible with it. The link between offense and defense and all that stuff. As I understand, it was not a small thing for the U.S. to agree to that language and get the treaty ratified. But instead of using New START to resolve the issue, Russia went back to its "legally binding" nonsense.

I agree that there are limits (including ones set by Republican politics) on how far the U.S. administration could go in sharing data and knowledge with Russia. But there is a lot that can be done in an unclassified setting. For example, it would be good if someone could tell MoD how to do missile footprint calculations - the slides presented at that meeting are a joke.

Politics is perception. I would disagree only in the concept of categorizing the American ballistic missile efforts as Republican or Democratic. Both American political parties have strongly endorsed the testing and operational deployment of ABM systems. Where they differ it seems is on particular technologies or approaches. I suspect if Mitt Romney is the Republican candidate for president and wins the White House in November, the US ABM systems will be under yet another review and refocus. Candidate Romney has spoken on the need for ballistic missile defense and seems more inclined to invest in the 3rd US site and revamp the GBI system with new missiles and radars. He seems less enthusiastic about the Obama System in Europe; only suggesting he would be willing to participate in any “NATO decision” to fund such a system for European defense. Candidate Romney is a strong supporter of the US Navy’s Aegis System for ballistic missile defense but it’s unclear if his vision for this technology is for “homeland (national)” or fleet defense. Who knows what position Mitt Romney as president would take, but you could naturally expect a push-back from the approach of President Obama. That’s politics.

It’s assumed here that President Putin and Russia’s “position” is the same. However, that is an assumption. Do we think that President Putin has any interest in a “grand compromise” on this issue?

Frank Shuler
USA

Hello Gentlemen

There is nice discussion unfolding and it concerns my main field of interest, so here are my comments:

1. As Pavel has noted, the presentation is laughable in, let’s say, real terms. Its authors use label “interception possible” in every situation where interceptors’ range circles even slightly touch ICBMs trajectories. In some cases it means that to kill Russian missile, the SM-3s from Poland should be launched even before ICBM takes off! Much better assessment You can find in the article ЕвроПРО без мифов и политики, published in NVO last month (http://nvo.ng.ru/armament/2012-04-13/1_pro.html). For those who can’t read Russian, in short, only the SS-19s from Kozielsk may be intercepted if they are shot against easternmost US targets, counting reaction times and assuming that SM-3 block IIB will have burnout speed of 5,5 km/s. But we can also look at the presentation from other perspective. I fully agree that it is directed to broad public in Russia and abroad and is supposed to bring some political gains, no further argument is needed on that, artjomh commented it perfectly.

2. I also agree that Russian stance concerning MD, especially in Europe, is fully artificial. The issue is about non-existent interceptors that have virtual technical parameters and that are supposed to be bought for the money that probably will never appear. If it is estimated that block IIAs are supposed to cost up to 24 million USD (Ronald O’Rourke for CRS, April 19, 2011) the IIBs will most probably cost twice as much (or even more, due to US military industry’s perfected ability to inflate the costs). It is one of the main flaws in thinking of missile defense at all and that is what killed the dream of total area missile defense against Russia as early as in 1969 when Sentinel turned Safeguard. The same issue, with the others of course, destroyed the SDI. I repeat, the greatest problem of the area missile defense against massive threat is the economy (see Israel and Iron Dome cost efficiency: Tamirs vs. Grads and Qassams).

3. But there is another, much broader issue, not yet addressed in our discussion. It is the question of the strategic dialogue and what it means for Russia. There are of course many perspectives but I will point out to one: prestige. The strategic dialogue is just one field that RF may feel and show equal to the US that greatly surpasses Russia in almost everything else that matters. The strategic dialogue then is what put Russia in the position of equality to sole (even when diminishing) superpower. Thus Russia is not really interested to find the solution to the MD issue, but rather to work on it as long as possible, linking it with the strategic stability dialogue.

4. And finally, Frank’s persistent question about the compromise. I think there are reasonable options and room to find solution, for Russians know (I think) that they can’t go on discussing forever. It is because there is two needed to that and the US may go weary and decide to stop discussing, depriving Russians of desired prestige. This could also mean some real threat to strategic stability, so both sides may come to the conclusion that it is better to talk. The shape of compromise may, of course vary for many reasons, Americans will also add some stakes to the game. One possible scenario, take it as just “possible scenario”, is as follows:
- Americans will sign the limitation agreement, freezing the number of interceptors in Europe at the level envisioned in EPAA phase IV and settling the number of sea-based 4+ km/sec interceptors at the level, say 300-500 (they will never have the money to buy that number anyway) with the right to develop new models, provided they remain within the burnout speed limit; such an agreement would allow the US to do what they claim they really want, it is to create robust (in their minds) MD against limited, regional threats (if they, remember, have money for that),
- Russian will agree on non-strategic nukes limitation, by half for example, with proper means of verification and control; this will safeguard the deterrence balance and could be shown as great victory against dreaded MD at home and abroad; by the way it will allow Russia to do something with much to many, mainly obsolete non-strategic weapons, what, in longer perspective, would be positive in the terms of internal security and from the economic point of view.
I repeat that it is just one possible and I can argue for many others (I can argue even against them :)). Trust is needed and may be helpful but is not a key. What is crucial is just (JUST!) plain recognition of own national interest. Common sense is most important but this stuff may not be in abundance on both sides of the North Pole. (As Youssaf Butt said once in Foreign Policy, although in another context: “millions for defense not a dime for common sense”).

5. And finally in short. In my opinion, whole US missile defense concept is mostly about China and it is created to counter Chinese access denial capabilities. You may read it put straightforward in Ballistic Missile Defense Review and I think this time they do what they claim.

Yours
M

Now, with all this heat about U.S. anti-missile shield, do you think that Russia, in the upcoming decade, will invest more in its strategic fleet?
And by the way is there any effective intercepting system against submarines based ICBM's?

RIA Novosti had a release today that was interesting. Andrei Goryaev, deputy director of the Russian missile maker NPO Mashinostroyeniya, was quoted as saying that the new 100-ton liquid fueled ICBM project would be a ten year development and the earliest it could be delivered would be 2022. He also said realistically it was hard to make any forecasts about the timeframe. “If the country has not done it for 30 years then difficulties are inevitable,” he said.

What I found interesting was a quote in the article by Strategic Missile Forces chief Lt. Gen. Sergei Karakayev, who said back in December, that Russia’s current solid-propellant ICBMs might be unable to penetrate the advanced U.S. missile defenses that the country is deploying in Europe. Was his comments just posturing or is there some Kremlin concern about its SS-27, SS-25, RS-24 fleet? I was thinking that the new “heavy ICBM” project was a replacement for the R-36M2 (SS-18) ICBM. Could this project be more broad based and serve as a replacement down the road for the “Topol fleet” as well?

Frank Shuler
USA

Karakayev was just fishing for budget funds. Isn't this how all defence agencies get project funding? Actualize a threat, request funds to counter it, rinse and repeat.

Nice comment Mr. Mareczcek. Agree totally about Russian desire for respect and prestige. Wars have started over lesser motives.

OT regarding the 100t missile: What has NPO Mash to do with the development as to my knowledge the contract went to Makeyew? Will NPO Mash design the engines?

Martin, the contract went to Makeyev, but Makeyev and NPO Mash had a joint research project back in 2007 (called "Argumentacia") for a new liquid fuel missile to replace both Bulava and Topol-M.

It was at the height of the "Bulava is crap" hysteria, and the Makeyev/NPO Mash proposal was for a new unified land- and sea-based missile with a 4 ton payload, Sineva engines and Bark post-boost vehicle.

I wouldn't be surprised if the new missile proposal is essentially resurrection of Argumentacia, but without the SLBM version.

artjomh: Cheers mate!