#9
Parlamentskaya Gazeta
No. 122
July 2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF NMD DEPLOYMENT IN THE USA

Major-General Viktor KOLTUNOV, a professor at the Academy of Military Sciences, is a respected specialist on strategic stability and arms control. In the past ten years he has been Russia's permanent representative in the Standing Consultative Commission on the ABM Treaty, which ceased to exist on June 13, 2002 because of the termination of the 1972 ABM treaty. He talks with Yelena ALEXANDROVA.

Question: By withdrawing from the ABM treaty the USA ignored all arguments of the inadmissibility of terminating it advanced by its NATO allies and many other countries, above all Russia.

How can you explain this stubborn US intention to create an NMD system?

Answer: Officially, the USA refers to the risk of an ICBM strike by Third World countries. In fact, this is a hypothetical risk because none of these countries has or plans to acquire ICBMs. They only have or are creating, producing and deploying tactical or operational-tactical ballistic missiles.

It would be expedient to cite US data here. According to them, 33 countries (in addition to the five nuclear states) have ballistic missiles or technologies for their creation. Of them, 27 countries have missiles with the range of up to 1,000 km and 22 countries have Scud-class or similar missiles with the range of 300 and less kilometres. Only six countries have missiles with the range of slightly over 1,000 km and only four states have plans of creating missiles with the range of roughly 3,000 km.

But the USA is creating an ABM system designed for protection against ICBMs, which none of the Third World countries have or may have in the near future. But Russia, China, Britain and France have such missiles. This is why many specialists believe that the deployment of the NMD system in the USA, which entails multibillion spending, would be reasonable only if designed to combat the ICBMs of such states as Russia or China, provided the USA is pondering the possibility of using the NMD system as an effective instrument of policy from positions of strength.

Question: Will you comment on the statement to the effect that the US withdrawal from the ABM treaty does not threaten the national interests of Russia? What should we fear despite the recent thaw in relations with the USA?

Answer: It is true that Russia's nuclear deterrence potential will not be undermined by the US withdrawal from the ABM treaty in the next few years. This is probably why the statement was made.

But today we cannot reliably predict what will be the ultimate result of the NMD deployment in the USA. And who can guarantee that the USA would deploy not just a system capable of intercepting a score of charges, as the Americans claim, but a system that would intercept many more charges? The danger lies not in the balance of warheads of the sides. It is possible that even despite a low ceiling of strategic offensive weapons in the country that has an ABM system there may appear hot heads in the said country who would think the other side incapable of delivering a reply strike in case of conflict. And they would advocate the use of the advantages of a first strike.

Neither can we exclude the possibility that the USA would resume nuclear testing and thus bury the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Today the USA is creating non-nuclear systems for the interception of ICBM warheads. This means that these warheads are to be liquidated in a direct impact of the anti- missile's warhead with the target. This is an extremely complicated task. One cannot expect the ABM system to be effective in live conditions, when the attacking warheads move amidst a cloud of ABM-avoiding decoys.

Consequently, the USA will have to work also on nuclear- tipped interceptor systems, which presupposes the creation and testing of nuclear charges. This would boost the proliferation of missiles and missile technologies and weapons of mass destruction. The inevitable result of this will be arms race, with the sides trying to improve their ABM systems and creating novel weapons. I would say that the placement of weapons in space will be the unavoidable result.

Question: Does the USA plan space tests?

Answer: According to available information, the USA plans to resume the Brilliant Pebbles project of space-based interceptors.

It intends to hold an orbital experiment with space-based laser weapons in 2012 and tests involving the interception of ballistic missiles a year later.

Question: What should Russia do to minimise the potential negative consequences of the termination of the ABM treaty?

Answer: I believe that we should start with settling the issue of limitations on ABM systems. It should be clearly said that no agreements on strategic offensive reductions will be effective and viable without the settlement of the problem of strategic defensive systems. One way to resolve the ABM problem can be the introduction of a limit on the overall number of strategic ballistic missile warheads intercepted by the ABM system. In other words, the sides could agree that the ABM system should be able to intercept no more than 20, 50 or any other coordinated number of ICBM warheads.

Question: But will the USA sign any other agreements now that it has withdrawn from the ABM treaty?

Answer: The idea I mention is fully in line with the numerous statements made by US officials on the limited nature of the NMD system. If these statements reflect their true intentions, there are no reasons for the USA to refuse to formalise them. The more so that this idea allows the sides to choose the ABM architecture and mode of basing. It can be ground-, sea- or air-based or combine all these elements. The main thing is for such ABM system not to have the abilities over and above the coordinated limits.

Question: If we are partners, Russia can expect to develop close cooperation with the USA in the ABM area. But do we have a reliable foundation for such cooperation?

Answer: We do, but will such cooperation help to remove our concerns created by the US withdrawal from the ABM treaty? Joint creation of a collective information system could be a vital sphere of cooperation with the USA. The thing is that the SBIRS space-based infrared reconnaissance and information system, which consists of a low and a high echelon, is the key and most labour-intensive element of the US NMD system, which engenders our greatest concerns. If the USA says that its NMD system is not designed to intercept Russian ballistic missiles, why not pool efforts in the creation of this vital element? Russia and subsequently (and on certain conditions) some other countries would use information provided by this system, which could be also employed for tackling non-strategic ABM problems.

I believe that the new nature of Russia-US relations makes possible and highly attractive the idea of joint creation and use of a space-based information system. In addition to current cooperation (the creation of the Joint Centre for Exchange of Data from Early Warning Systems and Notification of Missile Launches, and the holding of command-staff exercises involving non-strategic ABM systems), this new sphere of joint efforts would largely lift concerns created by the US NMD plans.

It should be also remembered that Russia has advanced the idea of creating a European non-strategic ABM system. It is based on the idea of creating joint multinational units that would have different correlated systems of several states. Such units would be trained and act as rapid deployment forces within the framework of one design and plan under a joint command. In this case such non-strategic ABM system would be not targeted against any countries but designed exclusively for reacting to arising practical threats.

Question: How do you evaluate the recent US test of a sea-based anti-missile?

Answer: It was the first test of a sea-based ABM element using the Standard Missile SM-3 anti-missile, which the USA termed as successful. However, it is difficult to say how successful it really was, as much depends on the goals of the test and the conditions in which it was held. It is an accepted fact that all previous US tests were held in "simplified" conditions. Anti-missiles were launched in daytime, only one or two (inflatable) decoys were used to camouflage the warheads of the "attacking" missiles, "beacons" were mounted on the warheads for the targeting of anti-missiles, and so on.

In fact, it is extremely difficult to ensure a high effectiveness of interception of ICBM warheads in real-life conditions, when warheads fly amidst a cloud of numerous and varied ABM suppression decoys.

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