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Walker's World: Remember Russia's Nukes
By Martin Walker
UPI Chief International Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Under the command of the Russia's General Staff, the Strategic Rocket Forces mounted last Saturday their most ambitious nuclear and missile exercise since the fall of the Soviet Union.

They tested all three legs of the strategic triad, simultaneously launching three intercontinental ballistic missiles from land and from submarine and also delivered a nuclear strike by four strategic bombers firing standoff missiles.

Two of the bombers were Tu-95s, the old Soviet equivalent, at least in age, of America's B-52s. Dating from the 1950s, and powered by turboprops, they were known to NATO as the "Bear." The other two were Tu-160 Blackjack bombers, the equivalent of the American B-1.

No nuclear warheads were involved in the test, only the missiles that would deliver them. This was a command exercise, testing the countdown and failsafe and launch and control procedures, as well as the 4,500-mile trajectories of the ICBMs. All went according to plan, as monitored by the radars of Russia's new "Space Force," and by the Titov test center of Spacecraft Command.

They did not test the nukes; there is a Test Ban Treaty, after all. But then, the Russians have no shortage of nuclear warheads. At last count, they admitted to more than 7,000.

There have been few better demonstrations of the degree to which Russia remains a serious nuclear power, with military capabilities that put the other main nuclear pretenders, China and Britain and France, Israel, India and Pakistan, into suitably modest perspective. This was the biggest exercise for Russia's Strategic Air Force since the sudden cancellation on Sept. 11 last year -- in deference to American concerns after the terrorist attacks -- of a three-day exercise with the navy's Pacific and Northern fleets, operations that might have come uncomfortably close to U.S. territory in Alaska at a hypersensitive time.

In its own commentary on the exercise, the Russian newspaper Vremya Novostei proposed various theories to explain the timing, and the scale, of this exercise, which the Russian General Staff said was a relatively routine test of command procedures to wind up the summer training cycle.

One of the newspaper's sources said it was a none-too-subtle reminder to the West of Russian capabilities, in the month before the NATO summit at Prague formally accepts the enlargement of the alliance, and as the American forces gather around Iraq. Another source suggested that it was a preemptive response to U.S. plans, picked up by Russian intelligence, to reactivate an American nuclear test site. Yet another source, said to be close to Russian counter-intelligence, claimed that the highly expensive exercise was carried out at the suggestion of the United States to test "its own means of deterrent to the declining, but still adequate, nuclear might of the Russian Federation."

This instinctive Russian assumption that they remain such a great power that the Americans watch their every move, or that every Russian initiative has its American response (or inspiration) is touching, although possibly na?ve. The U.S. military and intelligence, like their political masters, are spending less time and energy on Russia these days, and the Russian General Staff know it. The Americans also know how much expense and effort and staff time the Russians put into their exercises, and how seldom Moscow can afford to run them.

So it's tempting to think that if Russia was sending anyone a message with this reminder of its nuclear versatility, then the intended recipients were probably those to the south. The wretched performance of the Russian troops in Chechnya, along with Russian acquiescence in the installation of the U.S. military in Central Asia, has left Russia with an enfeebled image in the region.

And nukes matter. Just ask Saddam Hussein. Or consider the concern in Washington over Russia's construction of a nuclear power station for Iran at Bushehr. Periods of tension between India and Pakistan in the past attracted barely a fraction of the international alarm provoked over the last year by the tensions over Kashmir between the two new nuclear powers. So a reminder to Russia's Asian neighbors of Russia's full-spectrum nuclear capability could have its uses.

But the Russian nuclear exercise coincided with another important military test over the weekend, the fourth successful test in a row of the U.S. anti-missile defense program. A modified Minuteman ICBM target vehicle was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and the prototype interceptor was fired 22 minutes later and 4,800 miles away from Kwajalein atoll. Six minutes later, and 140 miles above the earth, the target was hit right on the nose.

As America's National Missile Defenses begin to look rather more credible, the real message of Russia's strategic exercise may have been to remind the United States, and to reassure itself, that even if the odd ICBM can now be shot down, an old and impoverished superpower that can still deliver nukes from land and sea and from the air must still be taken seriously.

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