Russia To Retain MIRV'd ICBMs Beyond START II Deadline (including SS-18s and SS-24s!)

Jane's Defence Weekly

August 28, 2002

Russia To Retain MIRVs Beyond START II Deadline

By Nikolai Novichkov, JDW Correspondent, Moscow

Russia will not destroy its arsenal of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in the timeline stipulated under the provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II), but will retain its MIRV capability until 2016, according to Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov.

Following the signing of the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty by US President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin on 28 May, Russia announced it would withdraw from the provisions of START II. The decision means that Russia will now retain some 154 liquid-fuelled RS-20V (NATO reporting name: SS-18 'Satan') heavy ICBMs and combat rail-mobile missile complexes (RMMCs) with 36 RS-22V (SS-24 'Scalpel') ICBMs, each carrying 10 MIRV warheads. All ICBMs of this type were to be phased out before 2003 and eliminated before 2007 under the provisions of START II.

During a 16 August visit to the Strategic Missile Forces' (SMF's) 35th South Urals Division, Ivanov said that Russia's decision to retain a group of RS-20V heavy ICBMs is not a response to the USA's withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (Jane's Defence Weekly 13 June 2002). "Even before the US announced its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty we had informed US officials that these missile systems would remain on alert," Ivanov said.

He added that essentially the decision implies that the heavy ICBMs with MIRVs will be phased out as their service lives expire. "This will enable [us to retain] the RS-20 missiles on alert until 2016," he said. According to SMF Commander Col Gen Nikolai Solovtsov, two out of four RS-20V divisions will remain in service. The possibility of retaining another division armed with such missiles is also being considered.

Extending the service lives of the missiles will require additional funding, and would include the cost of a reduction in procurement of new SS-27 Topol-M ICBMs. In addition, a decision was taken to retain in service with the SMF a Kostroma-based division equipped with four RMMCs with 12 RS-22V ICBMs. Two other divisions with such missiles will be transformed into missile depots.

Since 1989, the SMF has incorporated 12 RMMC regiments organised into three missile divisions (in all, 36 RS-22V ICBMs). Such a regiment comprises a train consisting of three diesel locomotives and 17 cars, including three rail-mobile missile launchers with the RS-22V missiles. During an alert, each of the 12 RMMCs can move continuously in various directions across Russia's territory.

The Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) had planned to begin disposal of RMMCs in Briansk where the company ASKOND in conjunction with Rosaviakosmos, the MoD and the SMF built a special plant. The Briansk plant was to eliminate only rail-mobile launchers used to transport, store and launch RS-22V missiles and not all RMMC components. The destruction of the missiles and their MIRV warheads was supposed to be carried out at other depots. Now the rail-based solid-propellant ICBMs being removed from alert status will be retained. According to the MoD's initial plans, the SMF was to field 270 new solid-propellant Topol-M ICBMs intended to replace the same number of silo-based missile systems with liquid-propellant RS-20V, RS-18 (SS-19 'Stiletto'), RS-16 (SS-17 'Spanker') and RS-22 ICBMs. In time, it was planned to phase out 360 Topol mobile missile systems and replace them with the improved Topol-M mobile version. To meet these targets, the SMF was to field 60 to 90 Topol-M systems annually. However, there are currently neither funds nor manufacturing facilities to achieve this.

Whereas, according to initial plans, the SMF was to adopt one Topol-M regiment (10 missiles) a year, funding difficulties have meant that this number has now been revised to six ICBMs.

Basically. I'm not sure to which link you're referring but because they're probably from either the Soviet Analyst or Arab-Asian Affairs, I'm certain it's some treatment of the progress of long-range leninist strategy for one region or another.

Russia is actually strong but is feigning weakness, correct?

Weakness has been quite the moneymaker for the State and their shattered economy is sufficient not only to excuse our throwing good money after bad, it serves to excuse their continued military sales to China and 'rogue' nations as well as the nuclear power plants they're building in places like Bushehr, Iran. Regardless the fact that -- as is their practice -- they often state the obvious for the Slow:

To: Hopalong LSJohn Sawdring
Hey ... speak of the devil...

That arms delivery coincided with the visit to Cuba in late December by China´s military chief of staff, Gen. Fu Quanyou. Gen. Fu signed a military cooperation agreement with Havana aimed at modernizing Cuba´s outdated Russian weapons.

With the Russian weapons China is using to modernize their own military?
Military Deals "Way of Influencing World Power Shifts", Says Putin

"Your missiles, our shield?"

AMERICA will try to win Russian support for abandoning the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by offering to buy its missiles and hold joint military exercises. ...

China secretly shipping Cuba arms Posted on 06/11/2001 22:39:01 PDT by Askel5

The bombing of Kosovo was setup by Moscow, correct?

I wouldn't go that far. I don't think you can look at the way the GOP preserved the "Mad Bomber of Sudan" through impeachment and cattle-prodded the Big Lewinsky with the Incredibly Shrinking Cox Report into launching the war well before the "good bombing weather" over which the Pentagon was crowing would come in June ... long after we were running out of things to hit.
Do you remember the Evil Clinton's ashen face in that first week? Didn't appear to me the face of a bold madman who was bombing the Cox Report off the front page. Rather, it was a President so shaken somehow that he dropped the "football" one day. Remember?
Rather, I look at the way some of the Bush administration admitted they really could have had the Bosnia thing wrapped up before handing the Balkan baton to Clinton ... who managed to ratchet our presence appreciably and cash some substantial check with Congress -- even committing us somehow to assisting in the prosecution of Milosevic as part of finishing the Moral War we started -- before handing it back.
I think indeed there are Western stakeholders who consider themselves Interested Parties to the continuing conflict in the Balkans. (See, George Soros, Trepka Mines, etc.)
This (as well as concerted infiltration of our "think tanks" and agencies for over 50 years) could be part of the reason that our leadership's thinking is a little deluded and -- just as they didn't comprehend the incongruity of NATO's acting offensively outside its charter -- they think nothing of putting a former Soviet at the right hand of every critical post (as in 1989, putting a former radical like Robertson at the head of the beast and -- with Russia's conditional membership that (like their and China's set-ups with the world economic collectives) amounts to simple, effective Veto Power contemporaneous with the wooing of a potential "full" or "most favored" member -- effecting precisely the security collective the former Soviets envisioned for Europe to match the Euro Economic Collective already in place.

The war in Chechnya is staged, correct?

Let's just say it continues to great effect. Unlike Yeltsin's standing atop a tank a la Lenin during his bombing of "The White House", I don't like to believe that such violence could be "staged" however. I think the war is genuine on several levels.
Unleashed, exacerbated ... controlled, perhaps.
I believe it's been perpetuated for many reasons ... not the least of which is that it goes a long way to explaining how in the world "terrorism" managed to strike at the heart of the Terror Internationale and thus put Russia on our side as "fellow victim" of terror at the hands of Islamic fundie dogs.
In this instance, I would not only look to the perpetuation of soviet-sponsored terror and violence in Israel that ebbs and flows as circumstances dictate but also the crystal clear maxims of those who "established" the Security Services, like Trotsky, who said: "The revolution does not make sense without terror."
I think the Soviets have done a bang-up job and abolished the image of the enemy just as they promised to do on the eve of perestroika. I couldn't help but notice in Red Square last summer that an icon of Christ now faces off with the tomb of Lenin ... but from the "holy gate" that is GUM department store.
I gave you some of my thoughts so you'd understand why the articles I linked not only resonate with me but make sense in that they reveal a certain consistency over time despite the dialectic yin yang by which Russia will saber rattle against NATO one moment and join it the next.
"OH please don't throw me in da briar patch!!"

The following confirmed this almost a week ago...




	MISSILE DEFENSE BRIEFING REPORT NO. 67, August 20, 2002 American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, DC Editor: Ilan Berman THE POLITICS OF ATTACKING IRAQ As momentum for a campaign against Iraq builds in Washington, the Bush administration is taking steps to reassure allies in the Middle East. Recently, a delegation of top American defense officials traveled to Ankara to discuss the possibility of a joint “Patriot shield” to protect parts of Turkey from Iraqi missiles. Now, the White House appears to be getting set to bolster Israeli missile defenses. Though not a step formally requested by Jerusalem, the August 15th Ha’aretz reports that the U.S. is planning to provide Israel with units of the American PAC-3 system ahead of any military action against Baghdad. In addition to supplementing Israel’s existing defenses, the PAC-3 deployment could also serve a significant political purpose, the paper reports; it would give the Bush administration a greater ability to restrain the Israeli government in the event of missile strikes from Iraq. COOPERATION ALONG THE “AXIS” Baghdad, meanwhile, could soon receive military assistance from an unexpected direction. Middle East Newsline (August 19) reports that Iran is examining a request for advanced arms made by its historic rival. The overture, aired recently in Tehran by Iraqi heir-apparent Qusay Hussein, is said to include inquiries about units of Iran’s “Shihab-3” medium range missiles. While not expecting Tehran to actively collaborate with Baghdad, Western intelligence sources have dubbed Iran’s consideration of the motion to be a “significant” indicator of warming ties between the two nations. A SAUDI MISSILE THREAT? A report by Israel’s Yediot Ahronot daily has detailed Saudi Arabia’s rapidly expanding missile capabilities. The expose, covered on August 12th by the Worldnetdaily website, reveals that Riyadh has acquired 120 long-range CSS-2 missiles from China over the past decade. The nuclear-capable rockets, the majority of which are based at a major missile complex in the southern Saudi oasis of El-Solayil, have a range of 3,500 kilometers and are capable of striking Israel, Turkey and parts of India. MOSCOW TALKS MISSILES... Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has gone public with new revelations about the Kremlin’s missile plans. Visiting a division of Russia’s Strategic Missile Troops in the Chelyabinsk region recently, Ivanov revealed that Moscow views the country’s arsenal of SS-18 “Satan” intercontinental ballistic missiles as the cornerstone of its future nuclear and missile force. The nuclear-capable ICBMs, which can overpower “the most modern anti-missile defense system,” will remain in combat service until 2016 as part of Russia’s revamped “nuclear missile shield,” Interfax (August 16) reports Ivanov as saying. The news constitutes an abandonment of Moscow’s commitments to the 1993 START II agreement, under which former Russian President Boris Yeltsin pledged to dismantle Russia’s arsenal of SS-18s by 2007. ...EYES KUWAITI MARKETS The Kremlin is also planning for an expanded – and lucrative – defense relationship with Kuwait, Itar-TASS (August 19) reports. According to defense industry sources cited by the news agency, Russia’s state-owned Rosoboroneksport defense conglomerate is planning to earn between $100-200 million on the Kuwaiti arms market over the next several years. Of particular interest to the Kuwaiti military are Russian air and missile defense systems like the “Tor-1,” which the Gulf state hopes will correct deficiencies in its short range air defenses. TOKYO INCHES TOWARD WASHINGTON Japan is poised to significantly expand its missile defense relationship with the United States, the Jiji Press Ticker Service (August 14) reports. According to defense officials in Tokyo, the Japanese Defense Agency is mulling the possibility of expanding cooperation with the Pentagon from its current research phase to the active development of ballistic missile defenses. If approved, the decision, which is expected by the end of this year, would pave the way for the deployment of cooperative sea-based missile defenses based on Japan’s fleet of Aegis destroyers by the year 2005. Copyright © 2002, American Foreign Policy Council. All Rights Reserved.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.