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Russia threatens pre-emptive missile shield strike
04 May 2012Russia is prepared to launch a pre-emptive strike against NATO's proposed European missile shield to prevent it from intercepting Russian nuclear weapons, the country's Chief of the General Staff has warned.
General Nikola Makarov said that phases three and four of NATO's European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) missile shield plans for Eastern Europe create a "real" possibility that Russia's nuclear deterrent missiles could be intercepted.
Phase 3, in 2018, will see US SM-3 interceptor missiles deployed in Poland, while Phase 4 will see all of the shield's SM-3 sites updated with more advanced versions of the missiles.
"A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens," said Makarov.
"The deployment of new strike weapons in Russia's south and northwest – including of Iskander systems in Kaliningrad – is one of our possible options for destroying the system's European infrastructure," he said.
Makarov's warning is not the first from Russia regarding the EPAA missile shield, which was first outline by US President Barack Obama in 2009 and initially welcomed by Russia.
In November last year Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that the missile shield sites may be attacked if the US did not provide written assurances that the interceptors would not be targeting Russian missiles.
This week, Russia's Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said that talks on the missile shield were "close to a dead end", according to a report in The Washington Post.
US State Department special envoy Ellen Tauscher said the US had "heard it [the threat] before".
"We think that's off on the horizon," she said. "We think they were showing us what could happen. I think we're far from there, but we're aware of what they're saying."
NATO has insisted that the shield is not aimed at negating Russia's nuclear deterrent.
HAVE YOUR SAY
06 May 2012
More bullying tactics of the kind that we're already familiar with. Would the Russians launch a pre-emptive strike against NATO's missile shield? perhaps, in order to provide themselves with a premise for doing what they really want to do, which is to invade the Baltic States.
The solution? a credible threat of NATO retaliation on a massive scale.
J. Southworth - University of Hull
08 May 2012
I am confused, I thought the orientation of the Radars and Missile's was to defend against ICBM's launched from the Middle East, how would they stop a Russian Nuclear attack launched across the North Pole?
Rob - Telford
08 May 2012
Rob- Telford
The Patriot PAC-3 variant is stated to have a range of 15-45 km in the anti-missile role, so there is a mystery as to how the Russians can interpret this as a threat to their strategic deterrent forces. Clearly, the system is only useful as a point defence system and even then, probably only against short to medium range ballistic missile threats. I've already made it clear elsewhere that I think the whole hit-to-kill ABM concept is a crock of shit. No way will this technology ever provide a reliable defense against MRBMs and ICBMs equipped with manoeuvering warheads and/or decoys. The laws of physics and mathematics are staked too heavily in favour of the attacker. Nevertheless it's clear that there are some people in the US defence establishment who still nurture the stupid pipe dream of making the ICBM obsolete by this means. In practice all they would succeed in doing is wasting a lot of money and possibly starting world war III.
We've been through all this before, in the 60s and 70s. The merits and demerits of ABM systems were debated exhaustively in the US congress at that time. The Russians have deployed the A35 (now called A135) nuclear armed ABM system to defend Moscow since the early 1970s. They are in fact the leaders in the field of ABM technology, in my opinion. The attitude they seem to have is that's it's OK for them to undermine the effectiveness of the US nuclear deterrent, but not vice-versa. And that characterises their whole foreign policy to some extent. They think they're too cool for school, and that this enables them to gamble for high stakes with limited funds and get away with it.
Leaving the ABM issue aside for a moment, it's clear that the peoples of the Baltic States, Belarus, and the Ukraine have good reason to be wary of their powerful neighbour. History cannot be ignored, and is not likely to be forgotten. Of course, there are people in Russia who take a reciprocal view of Western Europe, that's understandable to some extent.
J. Southworth - University of Hull
08 May 2012
Don't Russia have any SSBNs? If they do, an attack could come from anywhere. Probably from space!
If they only have land-based ICBMs then they've dropped far behind us a long time ago.
AlMiles - Bristol, UK
09 May 2012
J. Southworth - University of Hull
Which is the point I'm trying to make, even the SM-3 missiles aboard AEGIS warships in the Black Sea would have difficulty in engaging targets that are moving at that speed and "across the range", ABM are shot into a cone shaped basket where there is higher chance of getting a hit, you only have to look at the US experience with PAC2 missiles on 1991 to see the issues they had engaging targets moving across them.
It is just bullying tactics and them trying to tell the Yanks to get out of "their" (the Russians) back yard.
Rob - Telford
10 May 2012
The SM-3 missile has a range of 500km/270 miles, still a very long way short of what would be required to intercept ICBMs launched from Russia. If there were any doubt, the Russians could relocate their missiles further East, out of range, and even if the US did acquire the ability to destroy Russia's land based ICBMs in flight, which as far as I can see is quite impossible, they would still have their SLBM force with which to devastate the continental United States.
J. Southworth - University of Hull
12 May 2012
Without going into a lengthy technical discussion, there are physical and practical factors which limit the accuracy with which it is possible to track a small, distant and fast moving object by radar or optical means, the speed with which it is possible for a computer to calculate the future position of a target on the basis of data, and the speed and accuracy with which the interceptor can make changes in it's course to intercept the target. Even if the interceptor has a nuclear warhead, detonation has to occur within a few meters of the target if this is an ICBM warhead that is designed to withstand the aerodynamic forces and thermal effects of re-entry into the atmosphere from space.
One simple way in which the attacker can make things more difficult for the defender is to fit a small spoiler to one side of the warhead, causing it to spin as it re-enters.
J. Southworth - University of Hull