Increasingly Hostile US Stance
Trud 10 April 2002 [translation for personal use only] Article by Vladimir Belous, Senior Scientific Associate of Russian Academy of Sciences IMEMO, Major-General (ret.) on Increasingly Hostile US Stance in Relations with Russia, Possible Impact on Upcoming May Pres. Summit: "Russian Shield Cracked - Will Our Strategic Nuclear Forces Survive?"
The upcoming meeting of the presidents of Russia and the US is attracting the attention of military analysts, who are making far-reaching and often fundamentally contradictory predictions.
Being in a state of confusion immediately following the events of September 11th, the American administration recognized the value of Moscow's actions in supporting the US in its counterterrorist campaign. At that time, it seemed to many people that the US policy directed toward getting closer to Russia would become a long-term strategy. However, to the extent they achieved military successes in Afghanistan, Washington's attitude toward Russia gradually began to return to the same old routine.
They again began to express their previous complaints to Moscow with regard to human rights, free speech, and the Chechen's fight for "independence." In the State Department they openly welcomed Maskhadov's representative ("a good terrorist"). Then, on December 13, George Bush announced the impending US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, doing something that even Ronald Reagan decided not to do once upon a time. The repudiation of the ABM Treaty means the destruction of the state of strategic stability formed over decades not only in relations between Russia and the US, but also on a global scale.
By deploying a territorial PRO [missile defense], the US is taking a decisive step on the path toward the establishment of a unipolar world. In doing so, they are actually pitting themselves against the world community, drawing fire on themselves. 2500 years ago, the Athenian philosopher Solon warned of a similar danger: "He who is feared by many should fear many." The complexity of the situation also lies in that Russia is not the Soviet Union and across the ocean they do not hide their intent to use its weakness to strengthen the geopolitical positions of the US.
Their attitude toward Russia again made itself sufficiently evident, as everybody recalls, in the unexpected "leak" of information in the newspaper 'Los Angeles Times', in which Russia is listed in the capacity of a target of possible nuclear strikes along with the "rogue states."
George Bush's numerous statements to the effect that Russia and the US are no longer enemies sound nice, but the real policy of the current Washington administration in our countries' relations are cause for serious concern. Shifting from the concept of mutual nuclear deterrence to true partnership relations will require time (we cannot just go to bed enemies and wake up allies) and meeting each other halfway in the political, economic and military spheres.
Clearly this path will not be a bed of roses: there are just too many contradictions that have been inherited from the "Cold War." The two countries' nuclear weapons for a long time to come will continue to serve the purpose of deterring one another and preventing armed conflict.
However, objectively speaking, the process of nuclear arms reductions is irreversible. Although, to the extent there are quantitative reductions of strategic offensive arms (SNV), the qualitative indicators of armaments, the composition and structure of the Strategic Nuclear Forces (SYaS) grouping will increasingly become the top priority, especially taking into account the impending deployment of an American missile defense system.
The US plans to reduce its strategic offensive arms to the level of 1700-2000 warheads in place on delivery vehicles (the lower number was mentioned for the purpose of "sweetening the pill"). In point of fact, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who believe it is necessary to preserve the power of the nuclear triad, are insisting on the higher level. The future composition of the American strategic nuclear forces will look approximately as follows: 500 Minuteman-3 missiles with one warhead instead of three, 14 Ohio-class submarines (carrying 24 missiles with four warheads of eight on each one, for a total of 1344 warheads), 76 B-52 and 21 B-2 heavy bombers with 400 long-range cruise missiles.
For his part, President Putin is proposing more radical reductions in strategic nuclear arms - to a level of 1500 warheads. According to specialists' assessments, this number would be completely sufficient to deter any potential enemy and at the same time is acceptable for Russia in an economic sense. However, the situation could change in the event that over the course of time the US missile defense system acquires a high-level of effectiveness in intercepting attacking missiles in a retaliatory strike. In light of this, for Russia it is rather urgent to determine the optimal composition of the strategic nuclear forces grouping, which would be highly adaptable to possible changes in the military-strategic situation.
Proceeding on this, the country's political and military leadership has concentrated on the Armed Forces structuring program adopted in 2000, which is based on a structure of legislative acts and international agreements. A special role in that structure belongs to the START II Treaty and the ABM Treaty. As we know, START II stipulates the complete elimination of multiple warhead land-based missiles, which in Russia, unlike the US, comprises the main component of the Strategic Nuclear Forces. In the approved armaments program, the main emphasis was placed on the naval component of START II, in which the US traditionally has had a significant advantage.
The US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and its refusal to ratify START II changes the geopolitical situation in a fundamental way, and destroys the legal foundation of the disarmament process. But there is a silver lining to every cloud. Russia has gained the opportunity to reject the rather burdensome elimination of multiple warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles (MBR) [ICBMs] and to reduce their dominant role in the composition of the Strategic Nuclear Forces. However, judging from reports in the media, the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff continues to defend the previous Strategic Nuclear Forces reform plan, in which the greatest blow is dealt to the Strategic Missile Troops (RVSN): of the 19 currently active missile divisions, the plan is to eliminate 15, leaving only 4 in service. This would mean the complete devastation of the RVSN.
In essence, the American party never sought to weaken either the naval or aviation component of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces. Its main goal was to weaken at all costs the grouping of Russian land-based ICBMs under the pretext of their supposedly destabilizing role. As concerns the naval Strategic Nuclear Forces component, Russia for economic reasons over the last decade could not commission a single submarine missile platform. The missile-carrier 'Yuriy Dolgorukiy', which was laid with much fanfare in 1996, is still in the stocks, and there is no end of the work to be seen. Moreover, there are not enough resources to conduct average repairs to submarines every 7-8 years, as a consequence of which they end up out of commission prematurely. Meanwhile, we are trying not to remember that 80-86 percent of the submarines are constantly at their bases, making them wonderful targets.
All of this naturally will lead to the point that Russia will eliminate its ICBMs, but will not be able to replace them with submarine-launched missiles. We can hardly expect to win in the game of "political poker" during the May meeting with "trump cards" like that. (In my opinion, the Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Defense, General of the Army Andrey Nikolayev, quite reasonably criticized the Strategic Nuclear Forces reform plan.)
In the course of the preliminary negotiations on the future START III agreement, the US put forth a proposal not to destroy the warheads removed from their delivery vehicles, but rather to keep them in reserve with the idea that if needed, they could be returned to their preserved delivery vehicles. The issue here is the creation of a "return potential" of 4000 warheads. In contradistinction to this, Russia will have to destroy a significant portion of its delivery vehicles and consequently, storing the warheads removed from them would make no sense, for there would simply be nowhere to return them to.
The US preservation of a total of more than 6000 nuclear warheads is impossible to explain using the traditional references to the threat from "rogue states," and their only mission is the possibility of exerting military-political pressure on Russia and China. Under such conditions, the deterrent role of nuclear weapons is far from losing its meaning for Russia. Incidentally, this was addressed as clearly as possible in the declaration of the Worldwide Russian People's Church, which gathered in November of 1996 under the aegis of the Russian Orthodox Church. In it, specifically, it points out: "Russia cannot get by for long without its nuclear missile shield. What's more, our country's economy and its armed forces have been weakened to such an extent that the nuclear weapons that have been created through the great efforts and sacrifices of all the people in this situation are the only effective means of defense Russia has left. We appeal to the President, the Government, the Federal Assembly with a demand to weigh carefully every step having anything to do with the fate of our country's defensive nuclear shield against the long-term national interests."
One gets the impression that the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church sometimes has a better grip on national security issues and approaches its assessments with greater responsibility than some of our politicians and military chiefs.