#4
Izvestia
August 15, 2002
MISSILES WILL FLY IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION
Change of plan for missile forces: the only problem is funding
Author: Dmitry Litovkin
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

THE U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM THE ABM TREATY OF 1972 AND THE SIGNING OF THE US-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT ON CUTS TO OFFENSIVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL ENABLE THE US TO CREATE A NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE; IT WILL ALSO ENABLE RUSSIA TO KEEP ITS R-36 SATAN MULTI-WARHEAD ICBMS AND UNIQUE RS-22 SCALPEL RAIL-BASED MISSILES.

Tomorrow, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov is scheduled to visit a Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) division based near the town of Kartaly (Chelyabinsk region). Here there are heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) - R-36 or SS-18; the Satan, according to the Western classification. It is believed the minister may reveal President Putin's decision on changing the concept of reforming the SMF to 2010- 15.

Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov, SMF Commander: "The new reform plan proposes to preserve an R-16 heavy ballistic missile grouping and one of the rail-based ICBM divisions (only 12 units of 36 will remain in the Kostroma SMF division). According to the previous plan, they were supposed to be destroyed."

The matter of SMF reform was raised as far back as last year. Its main ideologue was Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin, who stated that four nuclear missile divisions of Russia's 18 would be enough to ensure strategic security. Implementing that plan entailed reducing the SMF to a combat arm, so the Space Forces and air defense were withdrawn from then.

After the US pulled out from the ABM Treaty of 1972 and the US- Russian treaty on cuts to offensive nuclear weapons had been signed, Russian President Putin decided to reconsider Kvashnin's SMF reform plan. Experts say there were at least two reasons for that. First, the new treaty, unlike Duma-ratified START II, does not restrict numbers of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces (SNF). The main drawback of START II was the need to cut the arsenal of 154 R-36 missiles with 10 nuclear warheads per missile, which formed the basis of Russia's SNF land grouping. Besides "Satan", Russian SNF also had to part with RS- 22 (SS-24, "Scalpel"), unique rail-based ballistic weapons that were solely responsible for making the US multiply its number of spy satellites. In exchange, Russia was allowed to increase the number of missiles deployed at sea, which in current economic circumstances was practically impossible.

The second reason was the need to make some response to US national missile defense plans. According to professionals, the most efficient and least expensive way to create such a "counterbalance" is to retain the grouping of multi-warhead ballistic missiles. At the same time, it has been rumored in the corridors of the SMF headquarters that missiles, space forces, and air defense may be reunited into one structure, as it was under previous SMF Commander- in-Chief Vladimir Yakovlev.

There remains the question of what is to be done with heavy missiles whose intended lifetime was ten years, but which are now over 15 years old.

Nikolai Solovtsov: "Prolonging the operation of heavy missiles will be achieved by rearranging the missiles themselves and their combat infrastructure. As a result, the missile forces have got a real opportunity to reserve two R-36 bodies in the SMF structure. The issue of another R-36 division is being worked out (in all, Russia had four such divisions)."

"Of course, costs will be quite substantial," admits the commander. "Funding for this has been included in state arms procurement for 2003. But that will not be enough. Therefore, it could be decided to reduce the number of new Topol-M units to be purchased."

Representatives of the defense sector have a different view of the problem. They say state arms procurement will not solve all the problems of SNF development and maintenance. Funding priorities may change; so there has been no final decision as to how the heavy missile grouping will be preserved.

"Decisions are made and then changed depending on the situation. I think it will always be like that," emphasized Nikolai Solovtsov. It seems that the SMF have understood and submitted to the fact they will have to change horses in mid-stream. Perhaps more than once.

(Translated by P. Pikhnovsky )

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