President Vladimir Putin served notice that Russia intended to remain a major nuclear power by deploying a new weapon in the coming years that other states lack and are unlikely to develop in the near future.
"We have not only conducted tests of the latest nuclear rocket systems," Putin told a meeting of the Armed Forces' leadership. "I am sure that in the coming years we will deploy them.
"Moreover, these will be things which do not exist and are unlikely to exist in other nuclear powers," he added.
Putin failed to specify what type of complex he was referring to, but Russia has been seeking to upgrade its nuclear arsenal after the United States announced plans in 2001 to deploy a missile defense shield in abrogation of its 1972 ABM Treaty with Moscow.
Washington argues its shield would be capable of defending the United States only from attacks from so-called "rogue states" and could not stand up to Russia's massive Soviet-era nuclear arsenal.
However Putin has since mentioned plans for Russia to also develop a similar system along with new types of intercontinental missiles that Moscow claims could penetrate any space shield put up by the United States.
The ITAR-TASS news agency speculated that Putin was referring to the mobile Topol-M missile, which is analogous to the US Minuteman-3 missile and is meant to form the backbone of Russia's future strategic nuclear arsenal.
Russia this year also successfully test-fired a different new missile that its developers claim can penetrate any shield, since it flies in space on a ballistic trajectory and in the atmosphere as a cruise missile -- swerving away from interceptor rockets.
The Topol-M is the first intercontinental missile developed by Russia alone following the Soviet Union's collapse, but deployment of the land-based mobile unit -- initially set for the end of 2002 -- has been repeatedly delayed because of severe cash constraints.
The ITAR-TASS report quoted the missile's Moscow developer as saying that funding for mass production of the mobile Topol-M will be included in the military's 2005 procurement budget.
If that timetable is respected, the missiles could be issued to the armed forces in 2006. Topol-Ms have been deployed in silos since 1998.
The shift in attention to nuclear deterrence came unexpectedly because Putin has for months pointed to international terrorism as the chief threat to Russia's national security amid a wave of deadly suicide attacks from guerrillas in rebel Chechnya.
Putin said Wednesday that Russia still viewed terrorism as the greatest threat to its national security but should also not forget about nuclear dangers.
"We understand that the moment we turn our attention from such elements of our defenses as a nuclear missile shield, then we will be facing new threats," Putin said.
"That is why we will continue to persistently develop our armed forces on the whole, including its nuclear arsenal potential," Putin said.
Putin said that Russia should also build up its navy's nuclear capacity -- it had 10 successful sea-based test launches this year -- and generally work to modernize armed forces that remain bogged down in war-torn Chechnya for a sixth year.
However analysts point to Russia's financial struggles and question how the military intends to follow through on Putin's vow.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reported at the same meeting that the 2005 budget has only pencilled in the purchase of four intercontinental ballistic missiles.
"This proves that Russia is still working from a doctrine of nuclear dissuasion as was the case in the 1990s. This highlights the weakness of its conventional forces," said independent political analyst Alexander Golts.
"The West should not get too excited about this" because it reflects an outdated mentality, Golts said.
Now an older U.S. might have flipped its lid, made a train whistle sound out it's ears, and declared valiantly that we were going to "find out what they're up to and beat them to it!"
Anyone familiar with nuclear weapons research knows that our current arsenal is sufficiently powerful enough to destroy the entire planet several times over - literally. Every square inch. You should also be aware that there is no particular limitation as to the size of the explosion that one can make, right down to lighting this place up into a brand new star for a few minutes. Surely Putin knows this. Surely he knows that he could make a bomb big enough and strong enough to completely flatten the entire U.S. with a single, gargantuan warhead that would plunge the entire planet into nuclear winter for a hundred years and basically end all life as we know it on the planet..
For these reasons, today, I'm more curious than fearful as to what they're working on. I'm wondering if perhaps they're pursuing technology in the opposite direction: what is the absolute smallest possible nuclear explosion they can make? Mini-nukes! Mini-nukes would be the holy grail of nuclear technology right now, especially if they were something that could be doployed in mobile launching systems, perhaps even tanks, and destroy highly isolated targets with minimal radioactive fallout/contamination. Even a small bomb could completely level a building, for example, and leave none alive there - and from a ground attack rather than a conventional air-dropped laser-guided bomb.
From the article it sounds more like they're building something that can't be countered by the U.S. anti-missile system. Their efforts however fail to account for laser-based anti-missile systems just finishing up development after sucecssful testing. Cold War Arms Race round 2? Bush and Putin need to sit down and have tea and figure out some real nice mutual cooperation strategies before things get out of hand..
Posted a couple a days ago in the presidential 2004...mending alliances thread.
The bear has only been hibernating these past years.
Starting to wake up it appears. And boy will that bear be hungry!!
Condi Rice will be the best in the world to deal with them...
Great timing!!!
The White House reacted cautiously Wednesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement that his country is developing a nuclear missile "of the kind that other nuclear powers do not and will not have."
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said it wasn't news to the Bush administration, that President Bush and Putin had discussed the issue previously. He emphasized U.S.-Russia agreements in place to reduce the two countries' nuclear arsenals and Washington's view of Moscow as a crucial partner in the anti-terror battle.
"This is not something that we look at as new," he said. "We are very well aware of their long-standing modernization efforts for their military. ... We are allies now in the global war on terrorism."
McClellan suggested that close ties between Bush and Putin makes alarm unnecessary — but doesn't eliminate Washington's concern.
"We have a very different relationship than we did in the Cold War," he said. "The fact that we do have a good relationship enables us to speak very directly to our Russian friends."
Putin said earlier Wednesday that Russia is researching and successfully testing new nuclear missile systems, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
"I am sure that ... they will be put in service within the next few years and, what is more, they will be developments of the kind that other nuclear powers do not and will not have," Putin was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile ... If nukes are going out of style, the US will try approaching from a more "conventional" angle (time to MOP up):
Studying Massive 30,000-Pound Bomb - Bomb Would Be 40 Percent Bigger Than MOAB
The Air Force built a weapon so big it was nicknamed "Mother of All Bombs" on the eve of the war with Iraq, but MOAB would be dwarfed by a much larger munition now under study.
The proposed Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, would weigh 30,000 pounds, nearly 40 percent more than the 21,000 pound MOAB -- officially Massive Ordnance Air Blast -- that never saw combat.
"The reason it's heavier than MOAB is that it has to penetrate a target," said Fred Davis, technical director for assessment and demonstrations at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Munitions Directorate.
MOP would be designed to explode deep in the ground or inside a structure to destroy tunnels and bunkers or topple tall buildings.
MOAB, on the other hand, explodes just above the ground. It is a larger version of the BLU-84 "Daisy Cutter" that was used during the Vietnam War to blast out helicopter landing zones in jungle areas.
The 15,000-pound Daisy Cutter also was dropped during the 1991 Persian Gulf War to clear minefields and more recently to blast caves believed to be hiding terrorists in Afghanistan.
MOAB can be against similar targets and structures or vehicles susceptible to surface blast damage. Both also are seen as psychological weapons that can demoralize an enemy.
During the next 16 months the Munitions Directorate at this Florida Panhandle base will look at everything from MOP's shape to its guidance. The Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency is providing $500,000 in initial research money.
If the project gets beyond the initial research and development phase, MOP probably won't see its first armed drop until 2006 or later.
MOP would have inertial and satellite guidance, just like MOAB, but it would have a more slender shape so it could be dropped from high altitude by a B-52 or a B-2 stealth bomber.
The Daisy Cutter and MOAB are too bulky to be carried by sleek bombers and must be pushed out of the rear door of lower-flying and slower cargo planes.
We already have enough nukes to flame the planet. We also have mini nukes in place.
Russia and China could not completely prevent us from hitting them nor could we totally prevent them from hitting us.
"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those who say this are witless." ~Ayatollah Khomeini
The missiles have a certain service life. There haven't been a replace for ten years or so. Now the government buys new missiles.
An anonymous source in the Russian Ministry of Defense says that Putin probably means three missile systems (mobile variant of "Topol-M", sea-launched MIRV-capable "Bulava" and tactical missile system "Iskander").
Ten years service life my foot. Those missiles just SIT there and are probably well pampered. We beat the crap out of our Space Shuttles and have been flying the same obsolete hardware for 30 years - and that's a profitable operation!
11-17-2004 10:24 PM
