Ever since the Bush administration proposed deploying elements of an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system in Europe, Russian officials claimed it represented a threat to Russia. The Russian complaint is either very revealing or rather stupid.

The Russian government is well aware that the system currently deployed in Alaska and in Vandenberg AFB on the West Coast is not effective against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and has very limited capability against a salvo of more than a few tens of Intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs).

Russia possesses many hundreds of ICBMs, and according to an Intermediate Nuclear Forces INF Treaty signed in 1987, should have no IRBMs. However, in 2014, the US claimed that the Russians were developing IRBMs in 2014 in contravention of the 1987 INF Treaty.

The elements of the defensive system that were proposed by the Bush administration in 2008 for the Czech Republic and Poland similarly had no capacity to intercept ICBMs overflying Europe en route to America. Since then, the Obama administration has modified the offer to European nations. The systems now being deployed similarly have too limited a capability to adversely affect any Russian offensive plan, unless their concern really centers on IRBMs. 

Despite the inability of the American ABM defenses to degrade a Russian ICBM attack, the Putin-led administration announced in November that Russia will counter NATO’s US-led missile defense program by deploying new strike weapons capable of piercing the shield (Associated Press, 11/11/2015). Putin claimed that by developing defenses against ballistic missiles, BMs Washington aimed to neutralize Russia’s nuclear deterrent and gain a decisive military superiority. As outlined above, this is untrue with respect to ICBMs.

It is not clear at this stage whether the Russians intend to reintroduce a new IRBM contravening the INF Treaty, or modify their ICBM force to enhance penetrability. If it is the latter, the scenario is reminiscent of the reverse situation of the late 1960s when the Soviets deployed a nuclear-tipped missile defense system designed to protect Moscow and surrounding areas from American, British and French offensive systems. 

At the time, the ABM Treaty restricted each side (Soviets and America) to 100 interceptors. America responded by developing offensive systems incorporating multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), so that one missile could deploy up to 14 warheads, thus overwhelming the defense.

Britain and France were almost forced out of their own nuclear deterrent posture because of their limited number of offensive systems, but Britain countered by investing $2 billion and 13 thirteen years of effort to produce an effective system incorporating multiple decoys that could exhaust the limited number of defenses the Soviets were allowed to deploy under the ABM Treaty.

The Soviet ABM system at the time relied on ground-based radars to track incoming warheads and attempt to discriminate between real warheads and decoys disguised to resemble warheads. By monitoring the radar systems during Soviet trials, the British were able to design the decoys to be effective against the wavelengths of the defensive radars. Nonetheless it took significant time, money and considerable US support to field a system capable of defeating the Soviet system.

Incidentally, too few recognize that the nuclear-tipped ABM defense deployed by the Soviets is still maintained by Russia and continues to provide them with a rudimentary defense against attacking ICBMs.

Now, it is possible that the cycle will begin again as the Russians announce their intention to develop a system to defeat the American/European ABM defenses. If the Russians intend to modify their ICBM systems, they are likely to go the MIRV route because the decoy concept would face a more complex multiple sensor problem than that met by the Western nations over four decades earlier.

This is because the current American ABM defenses use multiple frequency sensors in their battle management system in addition to the ground-based radars of the Soviet defense. The design of decoys to defeat multiple frequency sensors would be technically far more difficult and even if achievable, would likely add so much weight to the decoys to make the concept unrealistic.

Going the MIRV route would again risk contravening the international Start Treaty that limited the number of warheads carried by ICBMs. It is under the terms of this treaty that America has reduced the number of warheads carried by each Trident missile.

Alternatively, the Russians may be considering the emerging hypersonic missiles as carriers for their warheads, but the accuracy and reliability of these new systems is still well in the future. Thus, it seems their most likely plan is to increase the number of warheads carried by each ICBM, or to re-equip their inventory with IRBMs.

Both routes carry the penalty of breaking international treaties, even though as we have seen the current US/European defenses do not present an inhibitor to the present Russian ICBM inventory. Despite this, the recent Russian statements indicate a willingness to restart the cycle of offense/defense superiority that they initiated in the 1960s with their deployment of an ABM defense.

Eugene Fox is vice president and Stanley Orman chief executive of Orman Associates, a defense and international consultancy, Rockville, Maryland.

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