Russia To Retain MIRV'd ICBMs Beyond START II Deadline (including SS-18s and SS-24s!)

So according to this article quoting the Russian Minister of Defense, this decision will leave the Russian Strategic Missile Forces with 154 ten warhead SS-18s, 360 SS-25s and 270 four warhead SS-17s, six warhead SS-19s including 36 ten warhead SS-24 rail-based missiles and unknown number of silo based missiles. The decision to retain the SS-18s was reported by the Chicago Tribune ten days ago, but was mistakenly translated as a Russian decision to retain its SS-20 missiles that were purportedly abolished under the IMF Treaty signed by the US and USSR in 1987. Funny, I seem to recall that this Russian announcement that they would keep the bulk of their MIRV'd missiles including SS-18s and SS-24s was predicted on FR before by one of the critics of the Treaty of Moscow signed by Bush and Putin. Here is the article that predicted this posted here back in May....

The Moscow Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty—Arms Control at its Worst

By David T. Pyne May 24, 2002

Note: This is a special follow-up to the three part series on the Bush-Putin Nuclear Reduction Treaty posted last week.

The soon to be signed Treaty of Moscow, which mandates that US and Russian deployed strategic nuclear warheads do not exceed 2200 warheads, is deeply flawed and will do little or nothing to reduce the threat posed by the Russian nuclear arsenal to the United States. One of reasons for this is the fact that the Bush Administration did not want to sign a formal treaty with Russia for the reduction of US and Russian deployed strategic warheads and only belatedly agreed to do so as a major concession by Mr. Bush to Russian President Putin. The Pentagon remained firmly opposed to this treaty long after Bush made the decision to sign it and repeatedly tried to change the treaty language in a veiled attempt to kill it.

Ultimately, the treaty as written is purposely designed by US negotiators to be as unenforceable as possible to preserve maximum flexibility for the US to keep a small hedge of deactivated nuclear weapons which could be re-deployed within a period of several months in the event of a crisis. However, for the same reason that the treaty provides maximum flexibility to the US to get around its restrictions, it also provides maximum flexibility for Russia to avoid any real reductions to its highly potent and dangerously threatening nuclear arsenal. Accordingly, the US will have no real ability to verify that Russian warheads are withdrawn from service as required by the treaty. Whatever happened to Ronald Reagan's motto of "trust but verify?" US negotiators deliberately excluded any effective verification procedures from the terms of the treaty precisely because they do not believe the Russians can afford to maintain their nuclear arsenal at present levels for very long. They believe that the Russians will reduce their arsenal to a level between 1500-2500 warheads within the next decade or so regardless of what the US does.

These longstanding, but faulty and outdated assumptions are based upon assumed strict Russian compliance with the never-ratified START II Treaty, which would have banned all MIRV’d ICBMs that serve as the backbone of the Russian nuclear missile fleet. This new treaty poses serious challenges to the validity of those assumptions because it does not limit the number of deployed missiles or “launchers”, nor does it forbid the Russian deployment of MIRV'd ICBMs. Accordingly, the Russians are allowed to pack as many miniaturized nuclear warheads in each missile as they desire and, in fact, have expressed their intention to do so. Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov confirmed earlier this week that the new treaty that the new nuclear disarmament treaty that will be signed Friday allows Russia "to load multiple warheads on its intercontinental ballistic missiles."

The Russians certainly have no shortage of MIRV’d missiles. Their SS-27 “Topol M”, nominally a single-warhead ICBM, has been said to have the capability to carry as many as seven to ten “miniaturized” warheads according to Russian scientists. The Russians have repeatedly threatened to MIRV these missiles if the US “broke out” of the ABM Treaty as Bush did last December. In addition, the SS-18 “Satan” ICBM, nominally a ten-warhead missile, was revealed to have the capability to carry up to thirty warheads as long ago as 1983, according to a book entitled, “How to Make Nuclear Warheads Obsolete” by Robert Jastrow. What this all means is that with the ineffective to non-existent verification provisions in the Treaty, even if Russia complies with the terms of the treaty, the US will be extremely hard-pressed to guess the actual number of strategic nuclear warheads deployed by the Russians. The US will also be virtually incapable of detecting Russian treaty violations. The US intelligence community is likely to continue to greatly underestimate the number of deployed Russian warheads because it will be unable to accurately determine whether Russian missiles remain MIRV’d and how many warheads are deployed in each individual missile.

This treaty does not require the destruction of even a single Russian missile or warhead although the Bush administration has signaled its intention to destroy the bulk of the thousands of strategic warheads to be withdrawn from service under the treaty. Furthermore, the treaty does not require any reductions in deployed warheads whatsoever until the treaty comes into force in 2012. Accordingly, 2011 could find Russia in possession of exactly the same arsenal of 6000 strategic nuclear warheads which she possesses today including its SS-18 and SS-24 rail mobile ten-warhead ‘monster’ missiles that she now has aimed against the US. Even when the treaty comes into force in 2012, Russia gets to keep these ‘monster’ missiles and still be in compliance. What’s worse, the terms of the treaty clearly state that the treaty expires in 2012, almost immediately after it comes into force, which means that any Russian warheads withdrawn from service that have not been destroyed may be redeployed at will back up to START I Treaty levels of approximately 6000 strategic warheads.

The Treaty of Moscow manages to retain all of the disadvantages of the unilateral nuclear disarmament measures originally proposed by President Bush and add yet another--the fact that these drastic cuts in the US nuclear arsenal will now be legally enforceable by the Russians. Considering the US historical record of meticulous compliance with past arms control treaties and the Russian record of violating every arms control treaty they have ever signed, US nuclear disarmament measures will be very difficult to reverse in a crisis once they are implemented and thousands of US strategic warheads are destroyed. Unlike the US, the Russians have expressed no intention to destroy the warheads they withdraw under the Treaty. In short, this treaty is arms control at its worst.

Copyright, David T. Pyne, 2002

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David T. Pyne, Esq. is a national security expert who works as an International Programs Manager in the Department of the Army responsible for the countries of the former Soviet Union and the Middle East among others. He is also a licensed attorney and former Army Reserve Officer. In addition, he holds an MA in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. Mr. Pyne currently serves as Executive Vice President of the Virginia Republican Assembly. He is also a member of the Center for Emerging National Security Affairs based in Washington, D.C. Mr. Pyne serves as a columnist for American-Partisan.com and OpinioNet.com and as a regular contributor for Patriotist.com. His articles have also appeared on Etherzone.com.

Here is the link to the above quoted article:

http://conservativetruth.org/opinionet/archives/davidpyne/05-24-02.shtml/

BUMP!

"Pootie-Tootie" prevaricated ??

Oh my goodness ! Everyone knows the Russians are always truthful !!!!!

NOT !!!

Any President who is naive enough to reportedly refer to the President of Russia, a former director of the post Soviet KGB, as "Pootie-poot" has got to be completely clueless about what is going on in Russia. This latest intel on Bush's failed disarmament treaty just goes to prove it.

Schwew ... you get to the point in this topsy turvy, up is down, black is white world where you don't think anything's ever going to be the same.

And then Russia saves the day with a little "former Soviet" style treaty action.

If only we had their constancy ...

That's fine .... Russia can keep them as they will make a wonderful deterrent .... against anybody but the U.S.

By the way, in, of all places, FAS, there is a little blurb about those SS-20s, at least some of them. Can't remember the URL but it's somewhere in an earlier post, I think the one from a few months back about the Chechnyan "rebel" who was "killed by the FSB." The SS-20s of note were seen in a military parade in Chechnya in 1994! I will not go into the various theories regarding to what extent the Chechnya "rebellion" is a bona fide insurgency verus the worlds largest, and, longest lasting, fully stage managed live fire exercise. But suffice it to say, the Russians cheated big time on the INF using various means, and, the SS-20s are still out there as part of the shell game.

Someday, I'll have to expound on their cousins, the TEL resident DF-15s in Kunming PRC, at the northern end of the new superhighway set to open within weaks, that leads down south into Thailand...

Any President who is naive enough to reportedly refer to the President of Russia, a former director of the post Soviet KGB, as "Pootie-poot" has got to be completely clueless about what is going on in Russia

It's his GRU stint that fascinates me ...

An official biography of Putin posted on the Russian National News Service web site in 1997 states that Putin began his career as a GRU military intelligence officer. That information was deleted from subsequent biographies.(6) Finally in 1984 he took a year-long course at the KGB Red Banner Institute of Intelligence (now the Andropov Institute) for training abroad, and was assigned the following year to East Germany, where he remained until 1990.
[switching out Soviets with "former Soviets" who walked in on a pile of rubble that was the Wall which fell into the West]

Vladimir Putin while working in the KGB's foreign intelligence service.

Speaking at an anniversary ceremony at the headquarters of Russia's military intelligence, the GRU, President Vladimir Putin announced that the role of the agency can be expected to "grow exponentially, not only as a tool of foreign policy but also as an element of military policy and defense," Russia's ORT television reported. In this context, according to Putin, the GRU is an important part of Russian military efforts in the Caucasus, and especially in Chechnya, where 421 officers of the agency have been killed over the past two years.
[Editor's Note: Putin's visit to the GRU has great symbolic significance -- although the intelligence organ can trace its roots back to 1810 and the rule of Aleksandr I, it continues to celebrate its founding on the date that Leo Trotsky established its Soviet directive in 1918.]
11/6/2001

Pootie-poot ping!

I will not go into the various theories regarding to what extent the Chechnya "rebellion" is a bona fide insurgency verus the worlds largest, and, longest lasting, fully stage managed live fire exercise

Bingo!

The Relevance of Chechnya ... The Kosovo Fiasco in Context ... (Mozdok's) Threat to the Whole Region

Lagniappe: Kosovo & Chechnya: Their Relationship in Perspective (+ Soviet Security Council, Military Doctrine)

Very interesting post! Funny, I had read that Putin was favoring the SVR, (from which he purportedly came over the GRU which has about five times as many case officers abroad then the SVR) over the GRU and essentially making the GRU subservient to the SVR. Your theory about Putin being former GRU throws a different light on this analysis. I am curious--whatever caught your eye about Putin as far back as 1997?

You're absolutely correct about the Russian SS-20s. The Russians still have a bunch of these fantastically potent 3 warhead IRBMs which turn into SS-25 ICBMs when you put a third stage on them even though they were purportedly abolished by the IMF Treaty signed in 1987. Funny, the Russians used to have to cheat on their bilateral nuclear disarmament treaties with the US. With the Treaty of Moscow, there is no need for them to cheat, because the treaty does not require them to destroy, let alone disarm, any of their strategic nuclear missiles. Rummy was right to oppose this insane and unverifiable treaty which will go far to increase the current Russian strategic nuclear superiority over the US due to the planned unilateral destruction of thousands of our strategic nukes.

I am curious--whatever caught your eye about Putin as far back as 1997?

You kidding? Look at him! He's ever so dreamy ...

I'm thinking of maybe starting a Pootie-Poot "Day in the Life" thread. What do you think?

(Don't worry ... he didn't catch my eye in '97. That's the beauty -- despite one's prowess in the martial arts or on the slopes -- of being a bureaucrat so cold fish cardboard that the West figures you're just some functionary Company Man to whom they can relate who's been tapped to put a sane face on the Yeltsin years while punching up Russia's military resolve. I don't think their collective works quite the same as our collective ... in between Cult of Personality figures, anyway.)

Your theory about Putin being former GRU throws a different light on this analysis.

I'll see what else I can find in the stacks to support this. GRU is far more interesting to me than KGB.

Askel5 - Both this and post #10 are very interesting. Thanks! This definitely warrants more research....

If I'm not mistaken, I still owe you and rightwing a post on something ... it will come to me around 3 in the morning, I'm sure.

I don't think it dealt strictly with terror or with drugs. The extant gulag perhaps?

"weaks" s/b "weeks"

Too bad you seem to have slept through this whole issue. We are the ones that will be deterred. The Russians are...and are announcing for the whole world to see....that they will STAY a nuclear super-power. We won't be a nuclear superpower very soon, thanks to GWB. The U.S., under GWB, has programmed over the next three years the dismantlement, more or less immediately, of ALL of our MX "Peace-keeper" missiles, and many of Trident D-5 SLBMs. These had taken HUGE political capital to deploy in the first instance by Ronald Reagan. And are absolutely vital to provide a credible nuclear 'fire-break' deterrence on the counter-force level against the first strike threat posed by these very Russian systems. Gee, ain't it grand to know we can 'Trust' and NOT verify either?????