Russian Cruise Missile, Deployed Secretly, Violates Treaty, Officials Say

[Deleted]

By MICHAEL R. GORDONFEB. 14, 2017

WASHINGTON — Russia has secretly deployed a new cruise missile despite complaints from American officials that it violates a landmark arms control treaty that helped seal the end of the Cold War, administration officials say.

The move presents a major challenge for President Trump, who has vowed to improve relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and to pursue future arms accords.

The new Russian missile deployment also comes as the Trump administration is struggling to fill key policy positions at the State Department and the Pentagon — and to settle on a permanent replacement for Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned late Monday. Mr. Flynn stepped down after it was revealed that he had misled the vice president and other officials over conversations with Moscow’s ambassador to Washington.

The ground-launched cruise missile at the center of American concerns is one that the Obama administration said in 2014 had been tested in violation of a 1987 treaty that bans American and Russian intermediate-range missiles based on land.

The Obama administration had sought to persuade the Russians to correct the violation while the missile was still in the test phase. Instead, the Russians have moved ahead with the system, deploying a fully operational unit.

Administration officials said the Russians now have two battalions of the prohibited cruise missile. One is still located at Russia’s missile test site at Kapustin Yar in the country’s southeast.

The other was shifted in December from that test site to an operational base elsewhere in the country, according to a senior official who did not provide further details and requested anonymity to discuss recent intelligence reports about the missile.

American officials had called the cruise missile the SSC-X-8. But the “X” has been removed from current intelligence reports, indicating that American intelligence officials consider the missile to be operational and no longer a system in development.

The Russia missile program has been a major concern for the Pentagon, which has developed options for how to respond, including deploying additional missile defenses in Europe or developing air-based or sea-based cruise missiles.

But it is politically significant, as well.

It is very unlikely that the Senate, which is already skeptical of Mr. Putin’s intentions, would agree to ratify a new strategic arms control accord unless the alleged violation of the intermediate-range treaty is corrected. Mr. Trump has said the United States should “strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.” But at the same time, he has talked of reaching a new arms agreement with Moscow that would reduce arms “very substantially.”

The deployment of the system could also increase the military threat to NATO nations, which potentially would be one of the principal targets. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is scheduled to meet with allied defense ministers in Brussels on Wednesday.

Before he left his post last year as the NATO commander and retired from the military, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove warned that deployment of the cruise missile would be a militarily significant development that “can’t go unanswered.”

Coming up with an arms control solution would not be easy.

Each missile battalion is believed to have four mobile launchers and a larger supply of missiles. The launcher for the cruise missile, however, closely resembles the launcher used for the Iskander, a nuclear-tipped short-range system that is permitted under treaties.

“This will make location and verification really tough,” General Breedlove said in an interview.

- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/w...orld&smtyp=cur



Trump is in a really tight spot now. Call me crazy but I think someone in Washington is trying to force Trumps hand about the INF violation. Reports of missile being deployment ready go pre-Crimea annexation. Obama did jack shit about it. But however he responds to the supposed Russian Cruisie Missile deployment, lose/lose situation.
1) He answers and deploys nuclear tipped Tomahawks to Europe - ''wah-wah bad''. 2) He does nothing - same as Obama - and he is ''a puppet''.

[Mad_Murdock]

1) He answers and deploys nuclear tipped Tomahawks to Europe - ''wah-wah bad''. 2) He does nothing - same as Obama - and he is ''a puppet''.

I vote #2. Europe is more than capable of handling this issue. They don't need the US interfering and getting in the way.

[Deleted]

I vote #2. Europe is more than capable of handling this issue. They don't need the US interfering and getting in the way.

Err, how? Europe doesn't have native cruise missiles with that range and MEADS is a rather limited defense system.

[Deleted]

30 years old treaty? Pretty much every other treaty that ended cold war has already been broken by NATO and USA. If NATO/USA don't abide by those old treaties, why should Russia?

[Deleted]

30 years old treaty? Pretty much every other treaty that ended cold war has already been broken by NATO and USA. If NATO/USA don't abide by those old treaties, why should Russia?

Russia is the only who has violated INF treaty.

[Skroe]

Been talking about the INF Violation on this forum, literally, for years.

To be fair, both the Bush and Obama Administration knew about this from the earliest stages, and both tried to coax Russia into compliance, because reintroducing American Intermediate Range Nuclear Weapons into Europe would be very destabilizing and costly. I would say Obama waited too long in my opinion, but Bush and for a while, Obama were proper for waiting.

The thing is, we all can kiss the idea of "Global Zero" - nuclear disarmament, goodbye. The dream is dead and it's never coming back. We just lived through the worst case scenario. Stop me if you've heard this one: "what happens if we get rid of all our nuclear weapons, and then 25 years later, a change of government happens and a single country decides to cheat?" Well that actual scenario just happened. If we ever reached zero with the Russians, whats to stop a future Russian government from deciding, 25 years later, to rearm, especially if they are convinced we wont retaliate, or can't quick enough? Not a damn thing.

The Ploughshares Fund might as well disband. Global nuclear disarmament can never happen because countries cannot be trusted, in perpetuity, not to re-arm. We have an actual case of that happening, right here.


So what should we do now? Introducing Intermediate Range nuclear weapons back into Europe on our end is no trivial matter. The quickest option would be to take W80 warheads out of the hedge stockpile and put them back on Tomahawks (where they were until 2013), and put them back in Destroyers off Europe's coast. Insofar as landbased weapons, the US hasn't had a land based tomahawk launcher and warhead system since the INF Treaty went into effect. It could likely re-constitute the technology fairly easily and cheaply, but that would involve marrying the older W80 warhead design with the modern Tomahawk (which is substantially different than the original one), and putting it in a new launcher. In other words, it will take years.

Another option is to maybe move AGM-86B air launched cruise missiles to be forward deployed to Germany.

A more long term option would be to put a nuclear warhead on top of a SM-3 and give it a seeker/ guidance software for ground-attack as was done last year for it's sister missile, the SM-6. This would be a major undertaking and it would probably be more worthwhile to design a whole new INF Treaty-shattering missile, which is a technology that could fairly easily be reconstituted. That's been kind of the dirty secret of US and Russian cruise missiles since INF went into effect - the missile ranges both countries were largely a function of treaty observance, rather than technology or expense. With the treaty dead, there is no need to observe those limits anyone.


Well, we learned once again: never trust Russia.

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I vote #2. Europe is more than capable of handling this issue. They don't need the US interfering and getting in the way.

Seeing as the US has nearly-ready to go missile technology and Europe largely does not even have missile forces because of INF (among other reasons), no, they are not "more than capable of handling this issue".

Why are you so intent on just handing Europe that our grandfathers bled for to Putin on a silver platter?

[Edge-]

Well, we learned once again: never trust Russia.

But I heard having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing!

I mean, Putin is about as honest as Trump is (in that neither seems to have the capacity for the truth), so we should get along swimmingly.

[TZucchini]

Trump probably gave Putin the green light on this.

[Deleted]

Okay. Well. Cruise missiles. Now. That doesn't feel very well thought out. The country is sufficiently busy with self made predicaments, but wants to add one on top of those existing. Wonderful, another nipple slip by the Real Housewifes of Yekaterinburg and everybody has to pay attention.

[Pengekaer]

Another option is to maybe move AGM-86B air launched cruise missiles to be forward deployed to Germany.

A more long term option would be to put a nuclear warhead on top of a SM-3 and give it a seeker/ guidance software for ground-attack as was done last year for it's sister missile, the SM-6. This would be a major undertaking and it would probably be more worthwhile to design a whole new INF Treaty-shattering missile, which is a technology that could fairly easily be reconstituted. That's been kind of the dirty secret of US and Russian cruise missiles since INF went into effect - the missile ranges both countries were largely a function of treaty observance, rather than technology or expense. With the treaty dead, there is no need to observe those limits anyone.


Well, we learned once again: never trust Russia.

Isn't it a possibility that this intermediate range missile is also, or perhaps quite specifically, meant to deter China? 2000km range seems just about right to reach a good half portion of China

- one who doesn't trust the Kreml one little bit ^^

[Skroe]

Isn't it a possibility that this intermediate range missile is also, or perhaps quite specifically, meant to deter China?

- one who doesn't trust the Kreml one little bit ^^

That's likely their primary purpose in fact, because a large part of China's nuclear arsenal is in fact, short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missile, aimed northward, towards Russia's military forces in the RFE. China is not bound by the INF Treaty (it being a US-Russian agreement), and it was long a Russian complaint it put them at a major disadvantage versus China.


From my reading on this issue over the years, I would characterize the advantage Russia gains versus NATO as secondary to achieving a kind of potential parity with China.

Does that mean we shouldn't care? Quite the contrary, it directly effects Europe and US forces there. It means for the first time since the 1980s, Russians can destroy European cities and militaries with extremely fast, hard to intercept nuclear weapons (as opposed to bombers and with nuclear bombs... ICBMs are only for striking the US, Europe is mostly too close). Their existence is a threat.

This is also, by the way, a lesson on how Geography in the end will screw Russia more than anything else. The US, surrounded by two massive oceans and two passive friendly countries, simply doesn't have this problem. Russia was forced to balance a regional security concern in Europe with the US, against a regional security concern in the Far East with China, and the two could not be resolved without Russia making a choice. Russia, sandwiched between China and Europe, straddling the Arc of Instability, with America all around it, will continued to be screwed by its neighbors.

[Mad_Murdock]

Seeing as the US has nearly-ready to go missile technology and Europe largely does not even have missile forces because of INF (among other reasons), no, they are not "more than capable of handling this issue".

Why are you so intent on just handing Europe that our grandfathers bled for to Putin on a silver platter?

Europe is more than capable of working out a diplomatic solution with Russia, they don't need the US galloping in to save them. I'm sure we can sell them some cool tech to help make their lives better. I'm confident the EU is already looking for ways to bolster up their military prowess.

[Ulmita]

Those missile if true target airports within 1000 miles radius (to render useless F-22s and F-35s) and UK in general.

[Skroe]

Europe is more than capable of working out a diplomatic solution with Russia, they don't need the US galloping in to save them. I'm sure we can sell them some cool tech to help make their lives better. I'm confident the EU is already looking for ways to bolster up their military prowess.

(1) There is no diplomatic solution to one side having intermediate range nuclear weapons and the other side... you know... not.

(2) Independent European nuclear programs are a non-starter. Period. The spread of nuclear weapons technology must be controlled.

(3) The US is Treaty bound to the defense of Europe. This is an American strategic, economic and political concern as much as any European country.

[Independent voter]

Why has Russia become such a rogue nation?

[Ulmita]

Why has Russia become such a rogue nation?

Rogue for defending itself from USA? Nah they are doing the right thing. I'd look at my country that bombs 7 other as we speak, and then think about that rogue expression again,

[Deleted]

(2) Independent European nuclear programs are a non-starter. Period. The spread of nuclear weapons technology must be controlled.

It's just a matter of time before technology goes mainstream. It's already 70 years old. It's getting cheaper and cheaper to produce nuclear-weapon grade Plutonium. I bet Poland and Turkey will go nuclear by the end of the century.

[Marcellus1986]

Those missile if true target airports within 1000 miles radius (to render useless F-22s and F-35s) and UK in general.

Yeah waste your nukes in airports, when the planes have enough warning to get off the ground and out of harms way.

Your knowledge, as usual, is impeccable.

/s

[Ulmita]

It's just a matter of time before technology goes mainstream. It's already 70 years old. It's getting cheaper and cheaper to produce nuclear-weapon grade Plutonium. I bet Poland and Turkey will go nuclear by the end of the century.

If Turkey goes nuclear then Iran, Syria, Saudis etc will go too.

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Yeah waste your nukes in airports, when the planes have enough warning to get off the ground and out of harms way.

Your knowledge, as usual, is impeccable.

/s

And land where? You render them completely useless.

Your knowledge, as usual, is impeccable.

[Marcellus1986]

Rogue for defending itself from USA? Nah they are doing the right thing. I'd look at my country that bombs 7 other as we speak, and then think about that rogue expression again,

Yeah, the nation constantly threatening people with nukes and seizing foreign territory isn't rogue at all.