#1 - RW 11-19-04 - RW Home
Moscow Times
November 18, 2004
President Promises Better Nukes
By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer

Russia's defense industry is developing a new nuclear missile system that will be second to none in the world, and the armed forces will have it in their arsenal in the near future, President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of the military top brass Wednesday.

"We are not just carrying out research and missile tests of new nuclear missile systems. I am confident that they will be commissioned in the next few years. And no other nuclear power will have such developed systems in the next few years," Putin said at the annual Defense Ministry meeting, attended by hundreds of officers.

Even though one of the gravest threats Russia faces is international terrorism, the president said, the development of nuclear weapons should still remain a priority for the Defense Ministry. Strategic nuclear weapons can be of little use in fighting terrorist networks.

"We understand that other threats will arise if we pay less attention to such components of our defense as the nuclear missile shield," he said, apparently referring to threats from the United States and other nuclear powers.

Putin did not specify which of the new nuclear systems under development he was referring to.

The Russian defense industry is developing a mobile version of the Topol-M ICBM; the Bulava, a sea-launched ballistic missile that will also have a land-based version; and a re-entry vehicle that will become a component of a new nuclear missile system, according to reports in the Russian press.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Russia might also be developing a new heavy multiple-warhead ICBM, but it did not attribute this information to any specific sources.

The Bulava and the re-entry vehicle have already been test-fired, while the mobile Topol-M is to be tested by the end of the year, the reports in the Russian press said. All three are reportedly designed to be able to penetrate the National Missile Defense system under development in the United States.

Given that completion of the Bulava and development of its land variant is still years away, Putin was probably referring to the Topol-M or re-entry vehicle, said Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information.

Putin's hint that other nuclear powers could pose a real threat if Russia's nuclear triad is weakened reflects the views of those Russian military planners who believe that nuclear parity with the United States should be a priority, Safranchuk said, but such a threat is not realistic.

Directly prior to Putin's speech, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov addressed the commanders and proposed establishing a single procurement body under the auspices of the ministry. It would place orders on behalf of all of Russia's nearly a dozen government agencies that have their own troops -- commonly referred to as the power agencies.

The president was quick to endorse his close friend's proposal. "It is the absolutely right direction. I ask you to continue to proceed along this path. This will lead to the optimization of expenditures of the defense agency ... and other power agencies."

Ivanov's predecessors had for years pushed for consolidating the procurement programs of all the power agencies under the auspices of the Defense Ministry, arguing that this would help avoid duplication of research and development, and cut overall procurement costs. Other power agencies had resisted the idea, being reluctant to give up control over their procurement funds.

Now, however, given Ivanov's closeness to Putin and his political clout, there should be little doubt that a single procurement agency will eventually be established. During his tenure, the Defense Ministry has engulfed the railway and special construction corps, and has established control over arms exports and the military sector of the nuclear industry. Ivanov has also established a separate arm in his ministry to procure conventional arms for all branches of the armed forces.

Ivanov said the ministry will commission four strategic missiles, nine spacecraft and five launch vehicles in 2005.

The establishment of a single agency would indeed improve cost-efficiency of procurement, but only if the new agency drafts detailed and transparent budgets for each weapons system requested by the armed forces or other troops, and sticks with it to avoid corruption, said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, or CAST.

Pukhov noted that according to CAST estimates, the defense industry is to receive a roughly equal amount of money from domestic clients, led by the Defense Ministry, and from foreign clients. However, while the industry is exporting dozens of warplanes and other defense systems annually, the Russian armed forces have commissioned only a handful of new armored vehicles and modernized fewer than two dozen fighters this year. Such a disproportion indicates that the existing procurement system, which allows every power agency to place orders independently with little transparency, is inefficient and prone to corruption, Pukhov said.