| As the United States continues to slash military funding and President Obama advocates unilateral nuclear reductions, Russia is rapidly and substantially increasing both its strategic and conventional armed forces.
Over the past five years, the United States has cancelled or indefinitely postponed numerous key weapons systems, including those involving advanced missile defense, strategic bombers, strategic submarine programs, and others. The numbers of those existing systems have shrunk to levels not seen since before the Second World War, including a naval force reduced to World War One size. It’s not just the numbers that are worrisome-although at less than half their 1990 numbers that is significant enough-it’s the condition the remaining equipment is in that troubles observers. The existing U.S. arsenal is increasingly old to the point of being dangerous to use.
According to a Foundry review, “… the U.S. is the only state with nuclear weapons without a substantive nuclear weapons modernization program. Since New START entered into force, the Russians have announced the most massive nuclear weapons build-up since the end of the Cold War. Over time, if the U.S. does not change its policy or Russia adopts a fundamentally different strategic posture, Washington policymakers will be left with a qualitative and quantitative disadvantage vis-à-vis Moscow and potentially other nuclear-armed states.”
U.S. planning centers on the belief that the Cold War is over, but Russia does not concur. Indeed, Moscow has taken precisely the opposite course. As noted by NTI,
“Once Russia completes recapitalization and modernization of its strategic triad, the structure and composition will largely mirror the strategic triad the Soviet Union created during the Cold War, and that Russia attempted to maintain following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.”
While the terms of the New START treaty adopted in the first Obama term left the U.S. and Russia in rough numerical strategic nuclear parity, it overlooked a needed ban on Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicle warheads (MIRVs). As a result, Russia “out-MIRVS“the U.S. by one per each accountable deployed delivery system. Further, Moscow is rapidly gaining the advantage due to the diverse treatment of each nation’s arsenal. |
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America’s strategic weaponry is aged and increasingly unreliable. In contrast, Russia is diligently and rapidly modernizing its forces. As noted by the New Deterrent Working Group:
“As America refrains from modernizing its deterrent, Russia is demonstrably relying ever more heavily on its nuclear forces, which are being systematically built up…they are working hard on a range of nuclear improvements and also on consolidating their advantage in short range nuclear weapons in order to dominate their neighbors. The Kremlin is simultaneously engaging more and more direct nuclear threats against our allies, eroding confidence in the United States’ extended deterrent. An Moscow is irrefutably doing hydronuclear and hydrodynamic experiments at Novaya Zemlya, underground nuclear testing of a sort the United States claims is impermissible under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and that it has, as a signatory…forsworn.”
Russia has actually increased the danger of nuclear weapons use in recent years. The Congressional Research Services study released in January discusses Moscow’s growing emphasis on nonstrategic atomic arms:
“Russia has altered and adjusted the Soviet nuclear strategy to meet its new circumstances in a post-Cold War world. It explicitly rejected the Soviet Union’s no-first-use pledge in 1993, indicating that it viewed nuclear weapons as a central feature in its military and security strategies. However, Russia did not maintain the Soviet Union’s view of the need for nuclear weapons to conduct surprise attacks or preemptive attacks. Instead, it seems to view these weapons as more defensive in nature, as a deterrent to conventional or nuclear attack and as a means to retaliate and defend itself if an attack were to occur.
“Russia has revised its national security and military strategy several times in the past 20 years, with successive versions appearing to place a greater reliance on nuclear weapons. For example, the military doctrine issued in 1997 allowed for the use of nuclear weapons “in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation.” The doctrine published in 2000 expanded the circumstances when Russia might use nuclear weapons to include attacks using weapons of mass destruction against Russia or its allies “as well as in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.” In mid-2009, when discussing the revision of Russia’s defense strategy that was expected late in 2009 or early 2010, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Presidential Security Council, indicated that Russia would have the option to launch a “preemptive nuclear strike” against an aggressor “using conventional weapons in an all-out, regional, or even local war.”
Moscow is expected to increase military spending by $770 billion within the current decade, and that is just the public portion of the nation’s armed forces budget. Nuclear weapons expenditures will be hiked by 50% in the next two years.
As President Obama seeks to close down the only American plant manufacturing tanks, Russia plans to add 2,300 new tanks.
Putin’s air force will fly 1,200 new helicopters and planes, and his navy will float fifty new surface ships, including a new missile sub.
Within a year, PRAVDA notes, 40 new intercontinental missiles will be deployed. In 2013, Russia’s powerful new YARS mobile ICBMs were deployed. The Iskander tactical mobile nuclear missiles were positioned to threaten Europe.
More Missile defense radars wll be fielded and the Triumph missile defense will be implemented this year-an irony considering Moscow’s opposition to U.S. missile defense plans.
Russia’s emphasis on the need for tactical nuclear weapons in response to conventional threats appears unnecessary. According to the New York Times American forces in Europe have been sharply reduced, dropping from 400,000 to 67,000. The arsenal of weapons at the disposal of the U.S. military in Europe is said to be 85% smaller than in 1989.
Moscow is deploying its modernized military in areas immediately threatening to the United States. It is establishing a presence in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Putin has also ordered his forces to establish a significant presence in the Arctic.
President Obama’s belief that Russia is only a “regional power” is truly bizarre in light of these statistics, and his policy of unilateral arms reduction appears to be exceptionally imprudent.