Russian strategic nuclear forces

Photos of Yuri Dolgorukiy

2009-11-02T07:27:00Z

Russian photographer Sergey Kuznetsov (pilot.strizhi.info) published an interesting set of photos of the Yuri Dolgorukiy submarine - some photos are taken by him, some are provided by Sevmash.

Among other things, one of the images (on the left) shows that the submarine has a set of 16 launch tubes - this is what Russia declared in a START MOU back in 2007. Russian media, however, still often report that the submarine will carry 12 missiles. (Well, technically it is possible to keep four launchers empty, but I cannot imagine why anybody would do that.)

Success eludes Bulava

2009-11-02T07:02:06Z

It is difficult to classify the outcome of the last attempt to launch the Bulava missile, but it definitely was not a success. The official version is that no actual launch was planned this time and the Dmitry Donskoy submarine, which went to sea with a missile on board on October 26th and returned to port two days later, still with the missile, was simply going through check-ups of launch-related procedures and equipment. However, this is probably not what happened.

The delay is far from the first for this test - we know with some certainty that it was originally planned for the week of October 12th. When the submarine finally went to sea, the plan was to conduct the launch on Monday, October 26th, but someone notices that President Medvedev was visiting the NPOmash design bureau that day - success of failure, nobody at MITT wanted to give a competitor an opportunity to discuss the status of the Bulava program with the president. The testing crew found a way to delay the launch until Tuesday.

A number of reports suggest that there was indeed an attempt to launch the missile on Tuesday. However, the missile did not respond to the launch command - the time the problem seemed to be with the launch control system. If this was indeed the case, one can argue that it was a failure - a missile is just a part of a larger system after all - but it wasn't a failed flight test of a missile if understood narrowly.

Today, a source in the Russian Navy reportedly said that the launch will take place on November 24th - a daring prediction given the history of delays.

It is understandable that the designers are having jitters about the upcoming launch - the missile failed in four of the last five tests. Moreover, it appears that there is no consistency in failures, so it is hard to know which system will be affected next. Sergey Ivanov, Vice Prime Minister responsible for the military industry, complained after the July 2009 failure that the large number or suppliers and subcontractors makes establishing good quality control difficult - seemingly unaware of the fact that the ability to deal with these problems is exactly what makes a large development program successful.

At this point it is hard to tell what the future holds for the Bulava program. Even if it ends the current string of failed tests, the confidence in the missile would probably never be particularly high. In the past, a system like that would be accepted for "experimental service" and its production would be limited to whatever had been produced already. This may still happen, although the program is already fairly large - at least three submarines are being built for the Bulava missile. Construction of the fourth one - Svyatitel Nikolay (St. Nicholas) - is scheduled to begin in December 2009. I wouldn't rule it out that if the Bulava program gets into a real trouble, this submarine could be cancelled. We'll find it out very soon.

Successful launch of a R-29RM missile

2009-11-01T04:01:45Z

On November 1, 2009 the K-117 Bryansk submarine of the Project 667BDRM class performed a successful launch of a R-29RM missile. The launch was conducted from a submerged submarine deployed in the Barents Sea. The Navy reported that warheads successfully reached the Kura test site in Kamchatka. According to press reports, the missiles are Sineva modification of the R-29RM missile.

The Bryansk submarine conducted a successful launch of a R-29RM missile on July 14, 2009.

Waiting for Bulava launch

2009-10-26T00:34:10Z

The Bulava test launch, which was expected two weeks ago, but then postponed, will most likely take place in the next few days.

New Russian doctrine and preventive nuclear strikes

2009-10-14T03:29:28Z

This is what you get when you ask KGB graduates to write a military doctrine - Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council, in an interview in Izvestia discussed some aspects of Russia's new doctrine, which is expected to be adopted later this year.

The new document apparently will have some interesting new provisions. Here are the paragraphs from the interview that are relevant to the issue of the possibility of preventive/preemptive nuclear strike - I tried to make the translation as close to the meaning of the original* as possible:

With regard to the provisions that regulate the possibility of using nuclear weapons, this section of the military doctrine is written in the spirit of the fact that Russian Federation is a nuclear power, which is capable of using nuclear deterrence to deter potential adversaries from aggression against Russia and its allies. It is the most important priority of our country in the foreseeable future.

We also adjusted the conditions of use of nuclear weapons to counter a conventional aggression – [now they apply] not only to full-scale wars, but also to regional and even to local wars.

In addition, the doctrine provides flexibility in the possibility of use of nuclear weapons depending on the situation and the intentions of the enemy. In situations critical for national security we do not rule out a possibility of using a preemptive (preventive) [sic!] nuclear strike against the aggressor.

If we are into serious hair-splitting, Partushev did not say anything radically new - he seemed to make sure that uprezhdayushchiy udar is understood as preventive strike, but it it can be preemptive as well. Then, since nuclear weapons are to be used against an aggressor, this at least implies that there is one, i.e. that Russia is under attack already. All this may be no more than just a reiteration of the current "first-use" posture. After all, this is not the first time the Russians are using words like "preemptive".

But maybe not. The final text of the doctrine may be more careful about making the distinction, but whatever the doctrine will actually say, it is clear that the idea of using nuclear weapons as an instrument of politics is very dear to the current Russian leadership. The fact that they are talking about considering a nuclear option in local wars (would the conflict in Georgia be an example?) is also deeply unsettling.

In my view, not only this love of nuclear weapons is dangerous, it is also seriously wrong for Russia's security. I can see where this idea of reliance on nuclear weapons is coming from, but it is a delusion to think that they would be able to deal with the security problems that Russia has to deal with today.

-----

* Here is the Russian original:

Что касается положений о возможности применения ядерного оружия, то этот раздел Военной доктрины сформулирован в духе сохранения за Российской Федерацией статуса ядерной державы, способной осуществить ядерное сдерживание потенциальных противников от развязывания агрессии против России и ее союзников. Это является в обозримой перспективе важнейшим приоритетом нашей страны.

Также скорректированы условия использования ядерного оружия при отражении агрессии с применением обычных средств поражения не только в крупномасштабной, но и в региональной и даже в локальной войне.

Кроме того, предусматривается вариантность возможности применения ядерного оружия в зависимости от условий обстановки и намерений вероятного противника. В критических для национальной безопасности ситуациях не исключается нанесение в том числе упреждающего (превентивного) ядерного удара по агрессору.

Will Russia's numbers decline without START follow-on?

2009-10-13T03:30:29Z

With the new START treaty negotiations moving forward - the treaty will be discussed during Hillary Clinton's visit to Moscow that begins today - the opposition to the treaty is also shaping up. A couple of weeks ago the Senate Republican Policy Committee circulated a memo START Follow-on Dos & Don’ts (via The Cable), which provided a good look at the arguments that will certainly be used during the ratification process in the Senate.

Here is what the memo has to say about Russia:

The United States should not pay for what is free. Russia’s nuclear numbers will decline dramatically in the coming years with or without an arms control treaty. The United States should not make important concessions in return for something that will happen in any event.

Russia needs this agreement far more than the U.S. does. It is desperately trying to lock the U.S. into lower nuclear levels, not the other way around.

This line of thinking is hardly new - "decline" always adds some drama to the description of the reductions of the Russian arsenals and it begs for some dramatic adjective ("dramatic"?). Moreover, there is some evidence that seems to support the notion of decline - the numbers of nuclear warheads and delivery systems are indeed down substantially from what it was five or ten years ago.

However, the key point of the statement - that the numbers "will decline dramatically" with or without the treaty - is wrong. Neither it is true that Russia is desperate to have the new agreement - there are plenty of people in Russia who would be quite happy without it.

Yes, the numbers do suggest that Russia is moving toward a force of about 400 launchers and 1500-1700 nuclear warheads in the next 10-15 years. These numbers, however, assumed that Russia will be under some pressure to keep the numbers around the level of 1500 warheads. There are many reasons why I think it was a reasonable assumption - mostly it is the inertia of long-term plans made in the late 1990s and a general political commitment to nuclear disarmament that exists in Russia at least on the rhetorical level. Certainly, the plans made in the 1990s had to accept the economic realities of the time, but even in the fatter years after 2000 the plans didn't change very much - there has always been a general understanding that it is natural for the number of nuclear warheads to go down, not up.

Should the START process fail, this understanding will certainly take a hit, changing the landscape of Russia's strategic modernization. Of course, we are not talking about going back to the Cold War levels, but the "dramatic decline" would probably stop at the number that is not much lower than about 2500 operationally deployed warheads that Russia has today.

Land-based missiles

One obvious way to keep the number of warheads up is to deploy multiple warheads on single-warhead missiles. As we know, Russia has been preparing to do just that - the RS-24 missile is a MIRVed version of Topol-M that would carry "no fewer than four" warheads. This, however, has already been taken into account in my projections, so it won't change the numbers very much. Even if Russia would retrofit all its 65 currently deployed single-warhead Topol-M missiles with MIRVs, it will increase the overall number of warheads by about 150 - not very much to reverse the "dramatic decline".

However, MIRVing of Topol-M is not the only option out there. With no pressure to reduce its forces, Russia could consider keeping its UR-100NUTTH/SS-19 missiles. The currently deployed missiles of this type are about 30 years old - and are being removed from service (even thought their service life was extended to 33 years recently). But Russia is believed to have about 30 dry UR-100NUTTH missiles, which it could deploy. In fact, everything seems to be ready for that - in November 2008 President Medvedev stopped liquidation of a missile division in Kozelsk, which is where these missiles could be based. Since each is carrying six warheads, this would add another 180 nuclear weapons to the Russian arsenal.

Furthermore, the industry would not mind resuming production of missiles of the UR-100NUTTH/SS-19 class. NPOmash, the design bureau that produced the missile in the 1970s, does not hide it that it would like to be back in business with a new MIRVed missile of the SS-19 class (it would have to be a new missile, for some components of UR-100NUTTH, namely the guidance, were produced in Ukraine). One can imagine that in a situation with no particular constrains on strategic forces, NPOmash might eventually get that contract.

The silos in Kozelsk are not the only ones that would be available for deployment of new MIRVed missiles - Russia has been keeping some of its SS-18 silos intact - there are 24 empty silos in Uzhur and 21 - in Dombarovsky. It is hard to tell what are the plans regarding these silos, but they certainly would give Russia an option to add some ICBMs to its force - a silo is one of the most expensive part of a missile system.

Overall, if the current plan (which includes MIRVing of some Topol-Ms) has the Russian ICBM force with about 500 warheads in 2015-2025, this could be relatively easily boosted to about 800 and, with some effort, quite a bit higher.

Strategic submarines

The strategic fleet modernization program is currently getting the biggest share of Russia's military spending. And while the attention is mostly on the problems of the Bulava missile test program, the Russian Navy has a few other things to show for all this money - four out of six submarines of the Project 667BRDM/Delta IV class have completed overhaul already and the two remaining ones are expected to return to the active force in 2009 and in 2010-2011. These submarines will carry R-29RM Sineva missiles - it is an old design, but the missiles are newly manufactured.

These submarines and missiles could probably stay in service for quite some time - I would guess that the 2015-2020 time horizon is not out of question. Their predecessors, Project 667BDR/Delta III submarines, built about 30 years ago, are still very much alive.

If Russia is constrained by an arms control treaty, one could assume that when the new Project 955 subs with Bulava missiles will start entering service they will be replacing old Project 667BDRM submarines. In this the scenario, which I used in my projections, the number of SLBM warheads would go up a bit - to about 740 from the current 670.

But without constraints of an arms control treaty, the Navy would probably try to keep the recently refurbished Project 667BDRM/Delta IV in force for as long as they can. For example, instead of keeping a total of eight submarines in service, retiring one Project 667BDRM submarine every time a new Project 955 sub enters service, the Navy could keep ten, adding 32 launchers and 128 warheads to the SLBM force. Admittedly, this is not much, but these things add up - the number of SLBM warheads would grow to just under 900.

Strategic bombers

Changes in this leg of the triad are quite unlikely, but not entirely impossible. The currently deployed bombers, Tu-160 and Tu-95MS, are relatively new - most were built in the mid- to late-1980s. They are undergoing overhaul and will probably stay in service for a long time. According to the START treaty rules, the bombers are capable of carrying 844 ALCMs. The actual number of weapons associated with the bomber force is probably smaller, but we could assume that if no arms control restrictions are in place, Russia could easily keep a bomber force equipped with about 800 nuclear weapons.

Given a chance, the military and the industry would definitely be pushing for expansion of the bomber force - the Air Force would not mind having a new Tu-160 aircraft every year or two, so it could bring the total to 30 by 2025-2030.

So, what do you get for free?

It is a good rule of thumb that generally you get what you pay for. What the United States will get "for free" is not a "dramatic decline of Russia's nuclear numbers", but something more like a Russia's force of about 2400-2500 warheads. The number might be adjusted somewhat to meet the Moscow treaty requirement - 2200 warheads by 2012, but it could easily go up after that. None of that would be transparent - Russia would be quite happy to part with all those START reporting and verification.

It is quite possible that this is the outcome that the authors of the Republican memo would like to see - I can easily see how, once the arms control process is broken, its authors will be complaining about "unconstrained growth" of the same Russia's nuclear numbers they say are in "dramatic decline" today. We've seen that before.

Some in the United States may still decide that the difference between a Russian strategic force of 1500 or 2500 nuclear warheads is not significant enough to be worth the price of a treaty that would constrain U.S. programs. There is half a point here - the numbers don't really matter. At this point the real benefit of the arms control process is in cooperation, trust- and confidence-building, and better communication that creates an environment that allows working on a much broader set of security issues than simple cold-war style bean-counting. We know that these things don't come for free - the Bush administration tried that.

Bulava launch expected this week

2009-10-12T00:29:20Z

It appears that the Dmitry Donskoy submarine will attempt to conduct a test launch of the Bulava missile later this week.

That would be the 12th full-scale flight test (14th if one counts pop-up tests). Previous attempt to launch the Bulava missile took place on July 15, 2009.

Two test launches of R-29R missiles

2009-10-09T06:45:26Z

The Russian Navy reported today that two Project 667BDR submarines of the Pacific Fleet conducted successful test launches of R-29R/SS-N-18 missiles. The first submarine, K-433 Sv. Georgiy Pobedonosets, launched its missile on October 6, 2009. K-44 Ryazan conducted the launch on October 7, 2009. Both launches were conducted from a submerged submarine deployed in the Sea of Okhotsk. Missile warheads reached their designated targets at the Chizha test range on the Kanin Peninsula.

Last START data exchange?

2009-10-09T05:59:50Z

Early this week the United States and Russia released the July 2009 START Memorandums of Understanding, which may well be the last START data exchange - the treaty will expire in December 2009. The data show that while Russia continued elimination of old strategic systems and deployment of some new ones, there were no dramatic changes in the Russian strategic forces in the first half of 2009.

As of July 1, 2009, Russia had 608 delivery vehicles that were capable of carrying 2683 nuclear warheads (26 launchers and 142 warheads fewer than in January). These numbers, of course, include launchers and warheads that are not, strictly speaking, "operationally deployed". For example, at least two submarines are in overhaul and some are being dismantled. Coming up with a number of "operationally deployed" warheads that would correspond to the number that the United States has been reporting in the Moscow treaty is not easy - operational status of some Russian delivery systems or the number of warheads they carry is not known. A simple estimate would give 2528 warheads, but this is most likely an overestimate, since it assumes for example that all Tu-95MS16 bombers have 16 ALCMs associated with them, which is unlikely.

Overall, the changes relative to January 2009 are not very significant. Russia continued to withdraw old R-36MUTTH/SS-18 and UR-100NUTTH/SS-19 missiles from service (nine and two respectively). These missiles account for most of the reduction in the number of warheads (102 our of 142).

Two data points in the MOU are worth mentioning. First, Russia reported 49 deployed silo-based Topol-M missiles - in January 2009 the number was 50. I consider it a quirk of the reporting requirement - it is likely that particular date the missile was not in its silo. I expect this number to return to 50 by the end of the year. Second, another Tu-160 bomber has been moved to the test bombers column, reducing the number of bombers that are listed as operationally deployed to 13.

Not all Topol-Ms want to be RS-24

2009-09-18T14:42:04Z

The Rocket Forces reported today that the Teykovo division prepares to complete deployment of the second regiment of Topol-M missiles there. This would bring the number of single-warhead Topol-Ms to 18 from the current 15. This, as it turns out, was reported earlier, so my projection of six RS-24 missiles by the end of the year was wrong. Three new missiles in Teykovo, however, are expected to be RS-24 (i.e. MIRVed Topol-M).

The right decision on missile defense

2009-09-17T07:45:23Z

As expected, the Obama administration abandoned the missile defense in Eastern Europe. This is the right decision, although the announcement included a nod to missile defense proponents:

this new ballistic missile defense program will best address the threat posed by Iran's ongoing ballistic missile defense program

Well, it won't. I am reasonably certain that at some point that simple fact will sink in, although I realize that this will not happen before some serious money is spent and some serious political controversies generated. We've seen this missile defense movie before.

Still, the Obama administration should be given credit for the right decision made at the right time.

The false promise of missile defense

2009-09-14T13:03:48Z

The Bulletin Online

By Pavel Podvig | 14 September 2009

Of the many security quagmires confronting President Barack Obama, perhaps the most challenging is how he navigates the Bush administration's decision to place missile defense installations in Eastern Europe. As a candidate, Obama didn't rule out keeping the Bush plan to put a missile defense radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland, but he did place the onus on the technology--i.e., it had to be viable. True to his campaign promise, upon taking office, he ordered a review of the program, which is about to be completed.

No matter how critical the report is--and most expect it to be highly skeptical of the Bush plan--it won't be easy for Obama to reverse course on European missile defense. Poland and the Czech Republic would hate to see their 15 minutes of fame end as key U.S. allies when it comes to missile defense, and other NATO allies would certainly wonder how seriously the United States takes its commitments. And if the change goes too far in accommodating Russian concerns, Republicans would be all-too-happy to accuse Obama of appeasement. As a result, Obama may make only minor modifications to the Bush plan--the radar, for example, might stay in the Czech Republic, but the interceptors could be moved offshore or to a less controversial location such as somewhere in the Balkans.

More largely, it will be tough for Obama to let go of missile defense because until now, the discussion has been framed in such a way that it's implicitly assumed that missile defense is a fundamentally useful thing--as long as it can be made efficient and built at reasonable cost without damaging the prospect for nuclear disarmament, of course. In short, the argument often is that the current missile defense system is flawed, but if those flaws could be solved, missile defense would be a great boon to international security. Missile defense proponents, of course, go much further, stating that missile defense provides a reliable (and some insist the only) way to counter emerging missile threats. The notion of missile defense as a good thing even entered the nuclear abolition debate earlier this year, with many experts ready to grant it a useful role at the final stages of disarmament, arguing that it might provide protection against those who cheat the system and attempt to build/use a nuclear weapon.

The fundamental problem with this argument is that missile defense will never live up to these expectations. Let me say that again: Missile defense will never make a shred of difference when it comes to its primary mission--protecting a country from the threat of a nuclear missile attack. That isn't to say that advanced sensors and interceptors someday won't be able to deal with sophisticated missiles and decoys. They probably will. But again, this won't overcome the fundamental challenge of keeping a nation safe against a nuclear threat, because it would take only a small probability of success to make such a threat credible while missile defense would need to offer absolute certainty of protection to truly be effective.

This was fairly easy to grasp during the Cold War. At that time, it was clear that no defense could realistically protect people against thousands of warheads. But now that the Cold War is over and the threat involves a handful of warheads (if that many), the goal of building a working missile defense system seems within reach. Indeed, how hard would it be to intercept a rudimentary missile launched by North Korea? The answer seems simple: Not easy, but definitely doable. But it's the wrong question to ask. Instead, we should ask: Would missile defense change Washington's strategic calculation in a potential conflict with North Korea or Iran? The answer to this question is a firm no.

In a real confrontation, missile defense would be irrelevant at best. For starters, the probability of a country such as North Korea successfully launching a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to U.S. territory is low. So when all of the uncertainties in missile and warhead performance are added up, the chance of success probably wouldn't be higher than a few percent (which, by the way, is considered a highly potent threat worthy of a multibillion dollar investment in missile defense). Missile defense eventually might be able to reduce that chance, maybe even considerably, but it will never reduce it to zero. In other words, the defending side would still face a threat that isn't much less credible than it was without missile defense. So the best missile defense can do is to replace one small probability with another. Yet, since nobody knows what exactly these probabilities are in the first place, it would just add one more level of uncertainty to an already uncertain situation without making a fundamental difference.

It's understandable that people often talk about European missile defense as one of the ways in which to deal with the missile threat posed by Iran. Or that someday missile defense could provide insurance for nuclear disarmament--this is the vision that Ronald Reagan had. When framed in this way, missile defense seems like a promising way out of difficult situations. But this promise is false. If a real confrontation ever comes about (and let's hope it never happens), we quickly would find out that missile defense offers no meaningful protection whatsoever.

No silo-based Topol-M in 2009

2009-09-05T13:30:00Z

All six Topol-M missiles that the Rocket Forces are planning to deploy in 2009 will be road-mobile missiles (they will be known as RS-24, of course [UPDATE: Apparently, only three missiles will be RS-24]). The sixth regiment of silo-based Topol-Ms in Tatishchevo will be completed by the end of 2010, according to the Rocket Forces.

Project 955 Saint Nicholas

2009-08-23T13:20:57Z

According to the general director of Sevmash, Nikolai Kalistratov, the new strategic ballistic missile submarine of the Project 955 Borey class will be named after one of the most revered saints in the Russian Orthodox Church - St. Nicholas (who is known as the model for Santa Claus, although this connection is almost nonexistent in the Russian Orthodox tradition). Kalistratov said this during a Patriarch Kirill's visit to Sevmash.

Construction of the new submarine is expected to start on December 22, 2009. The lead ship of this class, Yuri Dolgorukiy, began sea trials in June 2009. Two other submarines - Aleksandr Nevskiy and Vladimir Monomakh - are under construction.

Russian attack submarines do patrol sometimes

2009-08-04T22:22:24Z

Two Russian Project 971 submarines (known as Akula-class in the U.S.) spotted off the U.S. Eastern coast have people scratching their heads - Why would Russia send its submarines there?

U.S. submarines, of course, patrol close to Russian waters all the time[*], but at least they have a mission of sort - to shadow Russian ballistic missile subs as they go to their (infrequent) patrols or missile tests (which is, by the way, a rather dangerous practice that is hardly justified these days). Since Russian boomers rarely stray far from their bases (although they do occasionally), it makes certain sense for the U.S. attack submarines to spend their time somewhere near the Barents Sea.

But it doesn't really make sense for Russian submarines to go to the U.S. coast - there is no one there. The only reason to be there would be to show the flag, but with submarines you show the flag by not showing up on sonar screens - the point is to avoid detection. But I guess these mission could always be justified by crew training and things like that.

For some reason, "Defense Department officials declined to speculate on which weapons might be aboard the two submarines". As I understand, there should be no uncertainty there - START Treaty requires the United States and Russia to exchange declarations about nuclear SLCMs carried by their attack submarines (Note: one more reason to keep START in force). These are not released publicly, but the U.S. governments would probably know what's in them.

UPDATE 08/05/09: NORAD and the Northern Command issued a brief statement (emphasis added):

NORAD and US Northern Command are aware of Russian submarine activity off the East coast operating in international waters. We have been monitoring them during transit and recognize the right of all nations to exercise freedom of navigation in international waters according to international law.

Again, I'm not saying that Russia should not let its submarines to go on patrol or that U.S. submarine patrols are somehow more legitimate. The point is that there is no particularly useful mission in those patrols (whether U.S. or Russian).

UPDATE 08/06/09: As a reader correctly noted, the linked post at the FAS site describes patrols of strategic submarines, which do not go close to the Russian waters. U.S. attack submarines, however, do have a mission of shadowing Russian submarines. As far as I understands, they do come very close to the Russian waters (if only because Russian subs don't go very far very often).