More Realpolitik

[I B Hankering]

Putin Announces Doubling of Missile Production
By NABI ABDULLAEV
Published: 21 Mar 2011 15:22



MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said March 21 that Russia will double production of missile systems beginning in 2013 as the government plans to spend $2.7 billion to launch their serial production until 2020.

"New missile weapons, strategic and tactical, such as Yars, Bulava and Iskander-M, will enter service, and beginning in 2013 the production output of missile systems should effectively double," Putin said.

Speaking in Votkinsk at a government meeting dedicated to the $670 billion 2011-2020 state arms procurement program, Putin added that the local Votkinsk plant will get $340 million for its modernization within the next three years. Other companies involved in the same production chain with the Votkinsk plant will get $190 million to upgrade their equipment in the next three years, the prime minister said.

The Votkinsk plant, launched in the Volga region Udmurtia republic in 1984, produces the Topol-M, Yars and Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are expected to remain the core of Russia's strategic nuclear forces for decades ahead.

Putin, who visited the plant March 21, called it "the most key one in the whole industry," adding that it will enjoy guaranteed state defense orders.

Under the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty between Russia and the United States, which went into effect in February, both countries should have up to 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 deployed launchers. According to the official disclosure, Russia now has more than 4,000 nuclear warheads and over 800 deployed launchers.


http://www.defensenews.com/story.php...83&c=AIR&s=TOP

[gnadfly]

I wonder if President Obama will give back his Nobel Peace Prize. Nah...

But back to your original post. I think those missiles are "bridges to nowhere." The only use for them is to sell under the table to terrorists which is very dangerous for both Putin and the US. Other than that its poorly spent bargaining chips. But somebodies gotta buy that Uranium/Plutoniom now that the nuclear reactor market has gone cold.

[Mazomaniac]

First off, I'm really wondering why this is "realpolitik". I don't see anything in that story that changes the strategic position of Russia vis-a-vis the US one bit. If anything it's a stupid move on their part. If the want to blow a couple billion on new toys so be it. It doesn't change the balance of power one bit.

What I'm really wondering, though, is how this . . .

Originally Posted by gnadfly

I wonder if President Obama will give back his Nobel Peace Prize. Nah...

. . . and this . . .

But back to your original post. I think those missiles are "bridges to nowhere." The only use for them is to sell under the table to terrorists which is very dangerous for both Putin and the US. Other than that its poorly spent bargaining chips. But somebodies gotta buy that Uranium/Plutoniom now that the nuclear reactor market has gone cold.

. . . have anything to do with the subject of the thread.

Obama's Nobel? Plutonium? What do either of these issue have to do with improvements to missile plants?

Mazo.

[Grad Girl Next Door]

Interesting press release considering the timing of both the movement into Libya and the meeting Putin and Medvedev are having with Defense Sec. Gates today. I think part of the timing was to send a message that they still have a stronghold in the nukes department if the alliance screws them in the Libya movement.

I wonder how much US funding will go towards seeing those meetings go smoothly. Gotta love ambiguous budget items

Here's 2 related articles:

U.S. welcomes 'mutually reinforcing' missile defense cooperation with Russia
http://en.rian.ru/world/20110322/163135633.html

Medvedev, Gates to discuss missile defense in St. Petersburg
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110322/163135093.html


No country will ever be completely forthcoming in the nuclear arms department. It's a great principal in theory but not practical in today's tense global world.

If I was Russia I'd probably be a bit stand-offish to the US too, considering Russia was never included in the Trilateral Commission. US and CA pair up with EU and Japan ...that in itself is reason for Russia to want to side with China, and whatever other African nations it feels it can trust.

With so many of the world's wealthiest people hailing from Russia and the Ukraine these days however, they really need to be factored into the modern economic equation more. I think they've learned from their flaws in past war strategies. No doubt if things really got ugly they could throw down with the best of them.

Of course I'm sure part of today's meeting is the whole keep your friends close and your enemies closer thing. Medvedev can chat it up till he's blue in the face but the voice still sounds like Putin, and he will always keep the US an arms length away from being fully aware of the goings ons if he can help it. Likewise, I'm sure we do the same.

[I B Hankering]

@ Grad Girl Next Door - Thank you for the links and welcome aboard.

@ Mazo – Missiles are tangibles—realpolitik—serving as both deterrents to aggression and as bargaining chips in international diplomacy. I think Putin prefers to negotiate from a position of strength, which historically has a good track record (compared with weakness, for example, Czechoslovakia in 1938). Furthermore, it appears, Putin is not so much into the “touchy feely” diplomacy preferred by the current U.S. administration.

Originally Posted by gnadfly

I wonder if President Obama will give back his Nobel Peace Prize. Nah...

Russia's Zhirinovsky calls to revoke Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

http://en.rian.ru/world/20110321/163134252.html

[Marshall]

Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

First off, I'm really wondering why this is "realpolitik". I don't see anything in that story that changes the strategic position of Russia vis-a-vis the US one bit. If anything it's a stupid move on their part. If the want to blow a couple billion on new toys so be it. It doesn't change the balance of power one bit.

What I'm really wondering, though, is how this . . .



. . . and this . . .

. . . have anything to do with the subject of the thread.

Obama's Nobel? Plutonium? What do either of these issue have to do with improvements to missile plants?

Mazo.

You obviously have not been paying attention to the Chinese military buildup and you aren't familar with the history of Sino-Russian relations....

[Mazomaniac]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

@ Mazo – Missiles are tangibles—realpolitik—serving as both deterrents to aggression and as bargaining chips in international diplomacy. I think Putin prefers to negotiate from a position of strength, which historically has a good track record (compared with weakness, for example, Czechoslovakia in 1938). Furthermore, it appears, Putin is not so much into the “touchy feely” diplomacy preferred by the current U.S. administration.

All this may be true, but in this instance the actions just don't represent any threat.

Under New START you're limited to 1,550 warheads and 700 launchers. They already have those. They're reducing the number of both to meet the limit. It's those limits that determine balance of power, not the ability to build new systems. Modernizing their production facilities does nothing to change the basic nuclear equation.

So what if they want to build improved launchers? The ones they already have are plenty capable. They don't need added throw weight because warhead numbers are limited. They don't need added precision because Russian nuclear strategy is designed around multi-megaton city-buster warheads that don't need pinpoint targeting. I don't see how building new launchers does anything for them except keep a few hundred factory workers in their jobs for another ten years.

Think about it from our perspective. The only ICBM's we've got are the Minuteman and the Trident. All of those launchers are now between 30 and 50 years old. Do you feel threatened because we don't have a newer launcher? Would you feel safer if we spent $300B to design a new one to replace them? Nobody is even talking about doing that because what we have is perfectly good enough.

The only potential advantage I can see to these new launchers is their alleged ability to evade anti-missile defense systems. However, anti-missile systems that work in boost phase rather than re-entry phase are pretty much a pipe dream. Nobody has a system that can detect and interdict a missile during boost so trying to hide the heat or radar signature of an ascending ICBM is pretty pointless. Again, the new launcher just doesn't do much for ya.

I just don't see how what they're doing makes a difference to us. There was a huge advantage in going from liquid fueled, single warhead ICBM's to the current MIRVed solid fuel boosters in the '60s and '70s. After that improving the launcher just didn't give you any more bang for the buck. That's why we stopped messing with it. I don't think anybody is worried about them building new missiles. The old ones were already perfectly good for annihilating things.

Now, if Putin announced an unmanned, stealthy, global-range cruise missile then yes, that would be realpolitik. This is whimperpolitik at best.

Cheers,
Mazo.

[Marshall]

Originally Posted by Marshall

You obviously have not been paying attention to the Chinese military buildup and you aren't familar with the history of Sino-Russian relations....

ALSO, nuclear arms reduction can spur need for more effective BOOM-FOR-BUCK if actual numbers are reduced.....

US-Russia nuclear treaty on the cards after Senate vote

US Senate votes to end debate on ratification of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, paving way for ratification itself

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• Ewen MacAskill in Washington
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 December 2010 21.11 GMT
• larger | smaller
• Article history

John Kerry says the vote on Start means 'we are on the brink of writing the next chapter' in the history of dealing with nuclear weapons. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP Barack Obama is on the verge of securing his biggest foreign policy achievement so far after the US Senate voted today in favour of a US-Russian treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals.
The Senate vote by 67 to 28 was to limit debate on ratification of the treaty. It is expected to vote as early as today on ratification itself, which requires the support of two-thirds, or 67, of the members.
The scale of today's vote means passage is all but certain.
John Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate foreign affairs committee, said: "Today's bipartisan vote clears a significant hurdle in the Senate. We are on the brink of writing the next chapter in the 40-year history of wrestling with the threat of nuclear weapons."
Ratification would fulfil a campaign pledge by Obama that he would work to reduce the number of nuclear weapons.
The new treaty, replacing one signed in 1991, lowers the size of the US and Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles, limiting warheads and launchers, and updates the verification process. It has a seven-year deadline for implementation.
The vote represents a sudden turnaround in Obama's fortunes after the low in early November when he presided over disastrous midterm Congressional elections in which the Republicans trounced the Democrats.
The present Congress, despite being labelled initially as a lame duck, has managed to reach agreement on three important issues within a matter of weeks: a bipartisan compromise on tax that will help stimulate the economy, repeal of the ban on gay people serving openly in the military and now, almost certainly, ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start).

Although the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, on Sunday vowed to vote against ratification, saying it was being rushed through, many of his colleagues broke ranks today to vote with the Democrats.
Obama, in contrast with the seemingly aloof approach he has adopted in the past towards Congress, has been lobbying aggressively in favour of ratification. Yesterday, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, sent on a letter of support for ratification and today the defence secretary, Robert Gates, issued a similar statement.
Gates said: "The treaty will enhance strategic stability at lower numbers of nuclear weapons, provide a rigorous inspection regime including on-site access to Russian missile silos, strengthen our leadership role in stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and provide the necessary flexibility to structure our strategic nuclear forces to best meet national security interest."
The vice-president, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, also made a rare visit to the Capitol to lobby senators.
The balance tilted towards passage when a senior Republican senator, Lamar Alexander, came out in favour. "I will vote to ratify the New Start treaty between the United States and Russia because it leaves our country with enough nuclear warheads to blow any attacker to kingdom come and because the president has committed to an $85bn, 10-year plan to make sure that those weapons work," he told the Senate.
Eleven Republicans voted with all the Democrats present.
New Start is the successor to Start I and Start II, treaties signed over the past 20 years. Start III was the monicker for a failed attempt by Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin.
Under the New Start treaty, the maximum number of warheads held by the US and Russia will be 1,550 each, and the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles set at 700.
However, the rules contain a loophole. While each warhead on a ballistic missile is counted as one warhead, a heavy bomber is counted as carrying "one warhead" even though it may have (in the case of a US B-52) up to 20 of them.
Obama signed it in Prague in April with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, the firmest sign of growing US-Russian relations. If the Senate had rejected or even significantly delayed ratification, it could have led to a sharp deterioration in relations.
The US and Russia between them possess more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons.

[gnadfly]

Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

All this may be true, but in this instance the actions just don't represent any threat.

Under New START you're limited to 1,550 warheads and 700 launchers. They already have those. They're reducing the number of both to meet the limit. It's those limits that determine balance of power, not the ability to build new systems. Modernizing their production facilities does nothing to change the basic nuclear equation.

So what if they want to build improved launchers? The ones they already have are plenty capable. They don't need added throw weight because warhead numbers are limited. They don't need added precision because Russian nuclear strategy is designed around multi-megaton city-buster warheads that don't need pinpoint targeting. I don't see how building new launchers does anything for them except keep a few hundred factory workers in their jobs for another ten years.

Think about it from our perspective. The only ICBM's we've got are the Minuteman and the Trident. All of those launchers are now between 30 and 50 years old. Do you feel threatened because we don't have a newer launcher? Would you feel safer if we spent $300B to design a new one to replace them? Nobody is even talking about doing that because what we have is perfectly good enough.

The only potential advantage I can see to these new launchers is their alleged ability to evade anti-missile defense systems. However, anti-missile systems that work in boost phase rather than re-entry phase are pretty much a pipe dream. Nobody has a system that can detect and interdict a missile during boost so trying to hide the heat or radar signature of an ascending ICBM is pretty pointless. Again, the new launcher just doesn't do much for ya.

I just don't see how what they're doing makes a difference to us. There was a huge advantage in going from liquid fueled, single warhead ICBM's to the current MIRVed solid fuel boosters in the '60s and '70s. After that improving the launcher just didn't give you any more bang for the buck. That's why we stopped messing with it. I don't think anybody is worried about them building new missiles. The old ones were already perfectly good for annihilating things.

Now, if Putin announced an unmanned, stealthy, global-range cruise missile then yes, that would be realpolitik. This is whimperpolitik at best.

Cheers,
Mazo.

See Mazo, you really did understand my "bridge to nowhere" post. Congrats.

[Mazomaniac]

Originally Posted by gnadfly

See Mazo, you really did understand my "bridge to nowhere" post. Congrats.

Don't you dare start telling people that we agree on something.

Don't you fucking dare.



Cheers,
Mazo.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

All this may be true, but in this instance the actions just don't represent any threat. Now, if Putin announced an unmanned, stealthy, global-range cruise missile then yes, that would be realpolitik. This is whimperpolitik at best.

Cheers,
Mazo.

Per one of GGND’s articles, NATO doesn't want Russia to share in Europe’s missile defense system. Then consider Putin's timing. The U.S. is involved in three wars, and in major humanitarian relief actions in Haiti and Japan. Plus, North Korea remains an on going issue. Perhaps this is Putin’s way of asserting Russia’s position and ensuring Russia is involved in the European missile defense system. In this way, Putin may achieve through negotiation (from the vantage of power) what Russia hasn’t achieved with 300 years of war: a dominant, non-peripheral place for Russia in European affairs. Regardless of all other factors and considerations, this power play keeps Russia in play as a major arms dealer—Iran is still looking to upgrade its missile system.

[Mazomaniac]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Regardless of all other factors and considerations, this power play keeps Russia in play as a major arms dealer—Iran is still looking to upgrade its missile system.

Ah, OK. I see what's missing here.

Russia won't export those missiles because of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Any country in the MTCR - and Russia is - faces automatic and very serious trade sanctions if it exports ballistic missile technology to another state. Similar rules are set up in the Hague Code of Conduct concerning missile proliferation.

Here's a good overview of the MTCR although it is a little dated.

"A Russian or Ukrainian or Chinese ICBM/SLV sale to a pariah state like Libya or Iraq would cause an unparalleled uproar and would undoubtedly have grave consequences. It is inconceivable that a missile sale to a rogue government or terrorist cell could be more lucrative than access to western launch markets, cooperative space projects, bilateral aid and access to funds from the international financial institutions. These and other benefits would be lost when the transfer was discovered, and the transfer would quickly be discovered: ICBMs are large objects easily tracked by satellite. Moreover, if any country exported an ICBM/SLV to any non-MTCR government---pariah or not---the U.S. administration would be forced to levy stringent import/export sanctions."

Cheers,
Mazo.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

Here's a good overview of the MTCR although it is a little dated.
Mazo.

Interesting article: “The MTCR is not a binding treaty but, rather, a voluntary arrangement. As such, it is open to differing interpretations and subject to varying levels of compliance and enforcement.” But it has been extremely effective in curbing missile proliferation to date. Yet the article goes on to say this about the Russian missile program:

“A 1987 State Department fact sheet on the MTCR says the guidelines ‘are not designed to impede national space programs or international cooperation in such programs as long as such programs could not contribute to nuclear weapons delivery systems.’ This is an inherently contradictory statement, since any space launch vehicle (SLV) could by definition contribute to a ballistic missile that could deliver a nuclear or chemical payload. But, as stated above, the MTCR is not an iron-clad legal prohibition against selling SLVs to MTCR partners if adequate end use assurances are guaranteed. (This would likely mean that the missile remained under physical control of the selling country in the purchasing country.) Some critics argue that countries are now joining the regime so that they can procure SLV technology and covertly develop ICBMs. In particular, this claim has been made in reference to Brazil, which has negotiated a bilateral space cooperation agreement with Russia possibly to include the transfer of ICBMs for space launch. Brazil straddles the equator, an ideal location for a launch site. This hypothetical future transaction is at this point still highly controversial, even though Brazil is a responsible member of the world community and an MTCR partner.”

http://www.fas.org/asmp/library/articles/mtcr1996.htm

[Marcus Aurelius]

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

Russia won't export those missiles because of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

I was reading last night and perchance (I was not looking for this) came across a couple of references about the Russian Federation perhaps selling ABMs to Saudi Arabia in 2002. “The Saudi government even considered paying Russia $4 billion for the development of an ABM system of the fifth generation.” [Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, Winter 2004, Vol. 7, Issue 1 22] I searched the internet unsuccessfully for the cited sources (supposedly in Pravda October 2002), but I found this instead:

Saudis bargain with Russia over Iran missile deal
Published: 03 October, 2009, 16:40 Edited: 05 October, 2009, 11:00
Saudi Arabia’s proposal to buy an advanced missile system S-400 from Russia is aimed at aborting Moscow’s similar deal with Iran, say Gulf analysts and diplomats, AFP news agency reports.
http://rt.com/usa/news/saudis-bargain-russia-iran/

“The anti-missile capability of the S-400 system has been increased to the limits established by the ABM Treaty demarcation agreements.” http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ssia/s-400.htm

On further investigation, I found that an earlier version ABM, the S-300, has already been widely marketed. Certain models of the S-300 can carry a nuclear payload. In addition to former Soviet states, the S-300 is currently employed by China, Syria, Venezuela and Vietnam, and possibly Algeria, Libya and Iran.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_%28missile%29
http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russi...s/abmdescr.htm

And, as mentioned earlier, the Russian Federation is exporting its ICBM technology to Brazil.
http://www.fas.org/asmp/library/articles/mtcr1996.htm