Russia's ABM plans

Outside View: Russia's ABM plans -- Part 1

Published: May 20, 2008 at 11:15 AM

By YURY ZAITSEV
UPI Outside View Commentator
MOSCOW, May 20 (UPI) -- Thirty years ago, on May 15, 1978, a missile defense system was placed on combat duty to protect Moscow as the capital of the Soviet Union.

Russia has been developing missile defense systems since the early 1960s. On March 1, 1961, the Soviet Air-Defense Force conducted the first hit-to-kill test when a V-1000 missile interceptor developed by the Fakel (Torch) design bureau under the supervision of Pyotr Grushin, a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, successfully destroyed the warhead of an R-12 intercontinental ballistic missile launched from the Kapustin Yar space center in the Volga region.

Several R-5 medium-range ballistic missiles were destroyed during subsequent tests. The United States was able to conduct similar tests only 23 years later.

From 1961 to 1971, Soviet experts developed the experimental A-35 missile-defense system around Moscow. The system became operational in June 1971 and protected the Soviet capital and surrounding industrial areas.

At that time, the United States, which lacked similar systems, was compelled to negotiate with the Soviet Union. In 1972 Moscow and Washington signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which served as the main element of mutual nuclear parity for several decades.

Under the treaty both sides agreed that each could have only two Anti-Ballistic Missile deployment areas that were heavily regulated and placed so that they could not provide a nationwide ABM defense or become the basis for developing one.

The United States and the Soviet Union thus left unchallenged the penetrating capability of the other's retaliatory missile forces. Both parties agreed to limit the quantitative improvement of their ABM technology.

In 1974 the United States and the Soviet Union signed a protocol to the treaty that entered into force in 1976 and reduced the number of ABM deployment areas to one, either around either side's national capital area or as a single intercontinental ballistic missile deployment area.

The United States elected not to deploy an ABM system and in 1976 deactivated its ineffective site at Grand Forks, N.D., around a Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile launch area.

Although the 1971 Soviet ABM system became obsolete even before it was commissioned, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty allowed Moscow to upgrade it. On May 15, 1978, the more advanced A-35M system was placed on active duty around Moscow.

However, the United States subsequently embarked on an ambitious multiple independent re-entry vehicle program that nullified the Soviet system's capabilities.

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Next: The need to avoid a new ABM arms race

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(Yury Zaitsev is an academic adviser at the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)


© 2008 United Press International

Outside View: Russia's ABM plans -- Part 2

Published: May 21, 2008 at 11:39 AM

By YURY ZAITSEV
UPI Outside View Commentator
MOSCOW, May 21 (UPI) -- Russia's A-135 Anti-Ballistic Missile system, capable of coping with intercontinental ballistic missiles equipped with multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles, was developed and commissioned in 1995 and 1996, respectively.

The system hinged on the Don-2N multi-role radar and a command computer inside a truncated tetrahedral pyramid. Silo-based missile interceptors were deployed along the A-108 highway, also known as the Greater Moscow Belt Highway, in the Moscow, Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions.

The Anti-Ballistic Missile defense system around Moscow had to be constantly upgraded in order to deal with new threats. Unfortunately, federal allocations were not enough to ensure its combat readiness.

The situation became particularly serious in the late 1990s, when Anti-Ballistic Missile allocations accounted for just 1 percent of those made in the 1980s.

Moscow feared that it might lose the scientific and technical Anti-Ballistic Missile potential accumulated since the late 1950s. The situation improved only in recent years. Under the national rearmament program until 2010, approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, minimal research and development levels in this sphere will be reinstated.

The Russian rearmament program was adopted in response to new U.S. missile-defense plans stipulating the deployment of space-based attack weapons. Washington may decide to return to the Brilliant Pebbles project, a non-nuclear system of satellite-based, watermelon-sized mini-missiles designed to use a high-velocity kinetic warhead under the Strategic Defense Initiative program.

At any rate, the United States rejects all Russian and Chinese initiatives aimed at preventing the militarization of outer space.

It would be appropriate to recall that back in the 1980s, the Reagan administration spent $3.4 billion a year on Anti-Ballistic Missile defenses; such allocations totaled more than $5 billion under Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton. Current U.S. President George W. Bush persuaded the U.S. Congress to allocate $8 billion per year.

Many military analysts believe that both sides should agree on specific parameters for assessing the mutual strategic nuclear and missile-defense balance. Increases in one area will require reductions in others. However, the United States will never agree with this fair approach because it runs counter to its military doctrine aimed at ensuring undisputed U.S. military-technical superiority.

Nor should Russia become involved in another Anti-Ballistic Missile race, because it cannot afford to develop and deploy a national missile-defense system reliably protecting a huge territory of our country at present or in the foreseeable future.

Instead, Moscow should opt for an asymmetrical response and develop weapons capable of breaching missile defense systems.

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(Yury Zaitsev is an academic adviser at the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)


© 2008 United Press International.