By 2022, the United States will have more than a thousand anti-missile defense systems at its disposal, which in the future will exceed the number of warheads deployed on Russian intercontinental missiles. This was stated by the representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense Alexander Yemelyanov at a Russian-Chinese briefing on missile defense on the sidelines of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly. "This amount of missile defense weapons poses a threat to Russia's deterrent potential, especially given the ongoing work to modernize missile defense systems," added the military politician, also concerned about the US's ability to shoot down low-orbit satellites and the development of hypersonic weapons. We are looking into how Russia will respond to this and how it may threaten.
Old song
The spokesman for the Ministry of Defense noted that the United States has more than 30 GBI (Ground-Based Interceptor) anti-aircraft missiles, 130 Standard-3 antimissiles and 150 missile defense systems, of which 60 are deployed in Europe, and about 90 are in the Asia-Pacific regional segment Missile defense.
At a Russian-Chinese missile defense briefing, Yemelyanov spoke about the promising reconnaissance assets of the American missile defense system, which, according to him, are capable of not only fixing the launch of Russian missiles, but also ensuring the interception of their warheads. In particular, in 2018, the American Standard-3 interceptor missiles, modification 2A, will be "capable of intercepting strategic ballistic missiles not only in the middle and final, but also in the ascending segment of the flight path, which allows them to hit ballistic missiles until the warheads are disengaged."
The representative of the military department was concerned that the United States could replace anti-missile missiles in Europe with cruise missiles. “The thesis that in the ground version the Mk-41 launchers allegedly lose the ability to launch cruise missiles is unconvincing. Replacing antimissiles at European ABM bases with cruise missiles … can be done covertly and in a short time. In this case, the entire European part of Russia will be targeted by cruise missiles,”Yemelyanov said.
Rocket launch Standard-3 (June 22, 2006)
All this is not surprising. The United States, like Russia and China, is consistently modernizing national missile defense systems, which, in general, are designed to deter a potential adversary, unless, of course, an attack follows the elimination of its missile defense systems.
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Of particular interest is the Russian military's assessment of the capabilities of the United States to destroy low-orbit satellites with ballistic missiles.
“The anti-satellite potential of the promising Standard-3 interceptor missiles of the 2A modification with an increased flight speed, as well as the GBI interceptor missiles, is much higher. Almost all low-orbit spacecraft located in the affected area of missile defense systems are under threat of destruction. Given the global nature of the missile defense ships' actions, the space activities of any state are under threat, Yemelyanov said.
He recalled the trials a decade ago, when the United States, using one of the early modifications of Standard-3, shot down its own satellite in low-earth orbit at an altitude of 250 kilometers.
Third plan
The military representative is also worried about the development in the United States of hypersonic weapons - products (military aircraft, drones and missiles) capable of moving over a significant part of the trajectory at speeds of more than five Mach numbers (more than six thousand kilometers per hour), and therefore it is extremely difficult to eliminate them with modern air defense and missile defense systems.
The development of new weapons is seen as part of the American "Third Compensation Strategy", which involves the use of the latest technology and control methods to gain an advantage over the enemy.
If the first two "compensatory strategies" were implemented in opposition to the USSR, the third was directed primarily against China. The development of hypersonic weapons is largely implemented within the framework of the PGS (Prompt Global Strike) initiative, the main goal of which is a guaranteed strike anywhere in the world within no more than an hour. It is planned to create a hypersonic missile or use a kinetic weapon (projectile launched from near-earth orbit), as well as deploy missile launch systems across the planet, for example, from submarines or aircraft carriers.
Although there is no clear plan for the implementation of PGS in the United States, it is possible that the main stages of the program will become reality.
Currently, according to Colonel Viktor Murakhovsky, editor-in-chief of Arsenal Otechestvo magazine, the PGS concept includes the Northrop Grumman X-47B aerospace vehicles (a drone moving at subsonic speed) and Boeing X-37 (a mini-orbital shuttle, about it wrote "Lenta.ru"), as well as the possibility of combining missile defense systems with strike systems. An important element of the rapid global strike system is low-orbit reconnaissance satellites, which issue target designation to strike weapons and act as target designation means for the missile defense system.
Sworn friends
Elements of PGS are already being deployed in certain regions of the planet geographically close to Russia and China. “A prime example is the Aegis Ashore missile defense system deployed in Romania. The second complex will be deployed in Poland. And now Japan, under the pretext of a threat from the DPRK, also agrees to place such a complex. They use universal Mk-41 launchers, from which both anti-missile defense systems and ground-based cruise missiles can be used,”Murakhovsky believes.
The Russian S-400 system and the S-300V4 tracked military complex are partially capable of dealing with American hypersonic weapons, but they have altitude and speed limits. Murakhovsky believes that the S-500 will be able to fully resist the American hypersonic weapons. “Probably everyone has heard about the promising universal air and missile defense system S-500. It will be able to successfully withstand the means of a rapid global strike,”said a military analyst.
Lieutenant General Evgeny Buzhinsky, former head of the international treaty department of the Russian Defense Ministry, agrees with him. “Our answer is: we are improving the complexes of means of overcoming missile defense,” the military said.
SAM S-400
According to him, a dialogue on missile defense between Russia and the United States is currently practically impossible. “What contracts can be - everything collapses. We have only a few of these contracts left. The INF Treaty (Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Short-Range Missiles - approx. "Lenta.ru") remained, START (Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms - approx. "Lenta.ru") remained. All. And then they will soon disappear, I think,”- said Buzhinsky.
Note that the US authorities did not give entry visas to the members of the delegation of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, headed by Advisor to the Chief of the General Staff Andrei Tretyak; Emelyanov represented the Russian military at the UN event in New York.
Priorities selected
Major military conflicts of the future will certainly not do without hypersonic weapons and space reconnaissance. First of all, funds are allocated for the corresponding developments in military science. Russia, like the United States and China, is no exception. Although the three countries are militarily comparable, there is a chasm separating Russia from the United States and China in the economy. In such a situation, the reduction of the military budget, planned in 2018, would seem appropriate, but in modern Russia the military is more important than teachers, doctors and scientists.
The latest version of the country's budget for 2018 provides for an increase in the share of military spending by 179.6 billion rubles, as a result of which the military budget will reach 3.05 trillion rubles. Funding growth is largely attributable to closed items, on the contrary, there was a slight decrease in open ones (by 2.2 billion rubles). For comparison, spending on all other areas, including social policy, education and health care, is proposed to be reduced by a total of 54 billion rubles. Thus, in 2018, the share of military spending may amount to 3.3 percent of the country's GDP.