Russia planning large nuclear manoeuvres: Report

The Star ^ | January 30 2004 | VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV/AP

[knighthawk]

MOSCOW — Russian nuclear forces are preparing for a massive exercise that would be their largest in more than 20 years, a newspaper reported today.

The one-day manoeuvres set for next month would involve test-firing several ballistic missiles and taking almost the entire fleet of Russia's strategic bombers into the air in a simulation of a nuclear conflict, according to the business daily Kommersant.

Official comments on the exercise have been sketchy. The chief of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, Col.-Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, was quoted by the Interfax-Military News Agency yesterday as saying the exercise would involve several launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles in various regions of Russia but gave no further details.

Kommersant said that the manoeuvres would be the largest since the 1982 exercise of Soviet nuclear forces dubbed by the West as the "seven-hour nuclear war."

In the exercise planned for February, Russian Tu-160 bombers are set to test-fire cruise missiles over the northern Atlantic, and other strategic bombers are to conduct flights over Russia's Arctic regions and test-fire missiles at a southern range near the Caspian Sea, the newspaper said.

In addition, Russia's strategic forces are scheduled to launch military satellites from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia, Kommersant reported.

A system warning of an enemy missile attack and a missile defence system protecting Moscow will also be involved in the exercise — which President Vladimir Putin is set to attend, the newspaper said.

Putin has tried to revive Russia's military might, eroded by post-Soviet funding shortages, and the ambitious exercises are certain to further bolster his popularity in the run-up to the March 14 presidential election which he is expected to win in a landslide.

"Pre-election manoeuvres," Kommersant acerbically dubbed the exercises. It said Moscow had warned Washington about the exercises, describing them as part of efforts to fend off terror threats.

[flamefront]

Ha-Hah.
Keep laughing, Poohbah, but aren't you seeing how the US is trying to bring a knife to a gunfight?

Perhaps the Ruskies are just celebrating the news that the Pentagon is about to denuclearize its ICBMs. Yeah, defend the goofy paper treaties that will likely put us under someones boot.

From AFPC.org:

RUSSIA FOCUSES ON THEATER DEFENSES
Moscow is developing a new missile for its advanced S-300 theater missile defense system, a top Russian military official has revealed. According to Vladimir Mikhailov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, Russian specialists are currently working on an extended range interceptor for use in the sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-missile system, which the Kremlin has been marketing to clients in the Middle East and Asia. Work on the S-300 has been mirrored by stepped up development of both the next-generation S-400 and the Pantsyr short-range air defense system, the RIA-Novosti news agency (January 14) reports Mikhailov as saying.



---


PENTAGON MULLS MISSILE ARSENAL OVERHAUL
A top Defense Department official has floated the possibility of a dramatic reconfiguration of the American strategic arsenal, the January 26th Defense Daily reports. Speaking at a roundtable on precision strike weaponry earlier this month, Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Director Stephen Younger aired the possibility that the Pentagon could shortly re-equip its intercontinental ballistic missiles, now tipped with nuclear warheads, with advanced conventional weapons. "We are able to generate those weapons today," Younger said, citing a short development and deployment cycle for such a move. "We are taking a fundamentally new look -- a clean-sheet-of-paper look --at what to do when we need to defense the country from a strategic perspective." The suggestion remains a controversial one, however. While supporters cite the utility of conventional ICBMs to fulfilling new Defense Department efforts for global rapid strike capabilities, opponents say such a move would significantly impact existing arms control treaties signed by the United States, and could increase international efforts to acquire ballistic missiles.

I don't think so. And where are our next two generations of ICBMs, anyway?

Just wondering.

[flamefront]

Ping

[Poohbah]

Perhaps the Ruskies are just celebrating the news that the Pentagon is about to denuclearize its ICBMs.

Perhaps you could actually provide proof of this idea. Or perhaps you're just talking out your dorsal vent.

[flamefront]

See above.

Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Director Stephen Younger aired the possibility that the Pentagon could shortly re-equip its intercontinental ballistic missiles, now tipped with nuclear warheads, with advanced conventional weapons

[Poohbah]

What you wrote:

Perhaps the Ruskies are just celebrating the news that the Pentagon is about to denuclearize its ICBMs.

Your post plainly states that this is a completed policy decision, merely awaiting execution.

What you posted as "proof:"

Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Director Stephen Younger aired the possibility that the Pentagon could shortly re-equip its intercontinental ballistic missiles, now tipped with nuclear warheads, with advanced conventional weapons

Do you support making English the official language of the United States? If so, please do your fellow Americans a big favor and learn how to read and write it.

[flamefront]

Correct, I sould have said "may be about to ..."

Thanks for keeping an eye on the english language.

[GOP_1900AD]

Something few like to talk about is the utter lack of road mobile ICBMs (or even IRBMs for that matter) which the US has. The closest we came was the Pershing - 2 IRBMs, threatened but never built by Reagan, for deployment in Europe to counter SS-20s. Today, not only do the Russians have road mobile ICBMs (and still, some quantity of IRBMs, perhaps secretly in quantities not in accordance with the INF Treaty, imagine that) but so too do the PRC. During the 1990s, the PRC used their deployments of Solid Fueled cold launched DF-15 and DF-21 IRBMs to roll out the mobility, now they are rolling out DF-41 as a mobile system. Counterforce plans are complicated by the mistmatch.

[GOP_1900AD]

I might add, that where as the Soviets rolled the SS-20s into E. Europe where they implied a short flight time threat to Western European cities and US military installations there, when the PRC moved their latest generation IRBMs into Yunnan Province, where they similarly shadow Bangkok, KL and Jakarta, neither was there mention of the obvious analog to the earlier SS-20 situation by the US nor had there been any plan to do anything remotely similar to Reagan's response to the SS-20s; no ground launched cruise missiles, and no "Pershing 3" on the CAD system. Oh, and by the way, subsequently kowtowing to Beijing, ASEAN declared itself a "nuclear free zone" precluding any counterforce deployments there. Naturally, their level of paying tribute to Beijing has since increased dramatically. Still, we say or do nothing about it, gotta keep gettin' all the cheap garbage into Walmart and increasing strings of Christmas lights every year!

[JudgemAll]

Tipping icbms with conventional tips is an active and very serious project that is underway. It has been fairly well documented, including Aviation Week and Space Technology.

[JudgemAll]

This is a very costly exercise. Russian military is not in disaray. It takes 2 years to make a general and build up strategic forces, 2 weeks to build up the NCOs and tactical units.

Russia has mainly generals. You do the math, Russia only needs 2 weeks to become a force popping out of the blue.

[GOP_1900AD]

Note the similarities of this strategy with Germany, 1919 - 1936.

[dominic housatonic62]

On December 19, 1986, the White House announced President Reagan's approval to develop a rail garrison system for basing part of the Peacekeeper Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) force. To increase survivability of this force, 50 Peacekeepers would be deployed in existing Minuteman silos and 50 more would be mounted on 25 USAF trains, two per train. Each train would consist of two locomotives, two security cars, two missile launch cars housing the missiles, one launch control car, one fuel car, and one maintenance car. Each launch car carried one Peacekeeper ICBM, in a launch tube which could be elevated to fire the missile from the bed of the car. The trains would be parked in shelters located on USAF Strategic Air Command bases throughout the continental U.S., with the missiles on continuous alert. When necessary, the trains could be dispersed onto the nation's rail network, making it extremely difficult for an enemy to target and destroy them. Development of the rail garrison deployment system was terminated in 1991 as Cold War tensions eased.


Copied this from USAF museum website. We would have had them, but I guess they figured it was not that important since the cold war was over and all. Ya right. Search 'peacekeeper railroad garrison car'. It has a nice picture of one

[Poohbah]

This is a very costly exercise. Russian military is not in disaray. It takes 2 years to make a general and build up strategic forces, 2 weeks to build up the NCOs and tactical units.

Armchair commandos' biggest mistake: assume that it only takes two weeks to make an NCO.

[Truth666]

Keep in mind : Russia has clearly stated - not just using the red line but also IN THE MEDIA - that the only solution is for NATO to step back from the new positions at its borders (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizia).
WWIII - Prologue Because Russia follows the US

[GOP_1900AD]

Another shameful one is the whole Midgetman fiasco. In fairness, the whole scheme was a joke - we'd have done better with a really kick butt TEL design, but conceptually, it boggles my mind that we could not muster the will to do at least something in that regard. At the first opportunity to use yet another pie crust treaty as an excuse to decommit, the usual suspects did exactly that!