Many people think that the most protected city in the world is Washington, DC. However, this is not the case, since the most protected city in the world is Moscow.
Although DC has legions of secret and national security services protecting it, the Russian capital is the only city in the world protected by nuclear-armed missiles. And this amazing fact is the result of an exemption in the arms control treaty for forty-four years.
The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was an arms control agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Unlike other treaties dealing with offensive weapons, the ABM Treaty focused on limiting defensive weapons, missiles designed to shoot down incoming nuclear warheads. The theory of the treaty was that an unrestricted deployment of missile defense missiles on both sides would lead to an ever-growing offensive missile arsenals as each side tried to overcome the increasing defenses of the others.
However, the ABM Treaty did not prohibit all missile defense: each side was allowed a single missile defense facility, defended by no more than 100 missiles. And each of the parties could choose this specially protected object at its will.
Ultimately, the United States decided to deploy Safeguard at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, hoping to protect its deadliest and most accurate missiles from surprise attacks. Safeguard was only briefly deployed before it was dismantled: the very expensive protection of just one location didn't make sense.
On the other hand, the Soviet Union was a centralized state centered in Moscow. The destruction of Moscow by a surprise nuclear strike could damage the USSR's ability to respond to an attack. The result was the A-35 system, a complete air defense system designed to ensure Moscow's survival in a nuclear war.
The A-35 system was first proposed in the 1950s, as American ICBMs began to pose a serious threat to Moscow, which had previously feared only bombers.
The initial defense concept for the capital included thirty-two missile defense sites that surrounded the city, along with eight early warning ballistic attack radars and one battle control center.
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During development, the number of missile sites was reduced to four sections of eight launchers each (sixty-four missiles in total), but the missiles themselves were armed with nuclear warheads, which significantly increased their effectiveness. Instead of destroying a bullet with a bullet, the Russian missile defense system destroyed bullets with well-timed hand grenades.
At first, the system was equipped with an A-350 missile. The A-350 was the size of an ICBM itself, a liquid propellant missile weighing seventy-two thousand pounds.
Armed with a warhead of two to three megatons, it was designed to intercept incoming warheads at altitudes of up to 120 kilometers so as not to damage the city below with a subsequent thermonuclear explosion. In addition to the A-350, Moscow was also surrounded by 48 SA-1 Golden Eagle air-to-air missiles, each with a range of 50 kilometers and carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads to intercept enemy bombers.
The A-35 system was designed to protect Moscow and the Kremlin from six to eight nuclear ICBMs. At that time, the United States was armed with Minuteman III ICBMs, each of which carried three warheads.
Despite these preparations, the rapidly expanding nuclear arsenals on both sides made the A-35 obsolete when it was built. By the time the construction of the A-35 was completed, it was opposed by 1,000 Minuteman IIIs, as well as another 600 Polaris missiles launched from nuclear submarines into the sea. In theory, no missile defense system could even try to stop such a global strike.
By 1968, the US plan for a nuclear attack on the USSR (Single Integrated Operating Procedure SIOP) envisaged the launch of 66 Minuteman missiles + two sea-based ICBMs exclusively for striking the A-35 network. The total attack involved eight warheads per second for each target with 65,200 kt of total firepower.
In response, the USSR modernized its missile defense system by the mid-1970s. The new A-135 system was designed not only to protect the capital from an all-out nuclear war, but also from limited attacks, such as an attack initiated by an out-of-control American general. The A-135 system began construction in 1968, entered service in 1989, but was not fully completed until 1995.
The A-135 has been significantly upgraded. The system added 68 new missile launchers to the original 32, providing Moscow with a full hundred anti-missile launchers permitted under the treaty. The A-135 used two missiles: the Novator 53T6 endoatmospheric interceptor (NATO codename Gazelle) and the OKB Fakel 51T6 exoatmospheric interceptor (NATO codename Gorgon). Both interceptors used a 10 kt warhead. This was much less than that of the thermonuclear A-350, which indicated Moscow's confidence in the high accuracy of the interceptor missiles.
Thirty-two Gorgon missiles reached the end of their operational life in 2002-03 and were decommissioned by 2006. Meanwhile, Gazelle missiles were allegedly replaced by new missiles, also called 53T6, with a range of 80 kilometers and a height of 30 kilometers.
Yet despite the new missiles, the future of Moscow's missile defense system is unclear. Much of the existing system is outdated and eventually needs to be replaced. It will be extremely expensive, and Russia's defense spending is already falling.
In addition, under the new START treaty, only 1,550 deployable nuclear warheads are allowed in the country, which raises the question: Are the warheads of the A-135 interceptor missiles more valuable than the warheads of offensive ballistic missiles?
So sooner or later Moscow will have to decide whether to support such a limited missile defense system or agree to nuclear deterrence.