This year, as part of a strong and confrontational Nuclear Posture Review against Russia and others, President Donald Trump requested new low-yield nuclear weapons—variants of the W76 nuclear warhead on Trident II missiles aboard America’s nuclear submarines and new sea-launched nuclear cruise missiles.
Low-yield nuclear weapons are relatively small to today’s standard, but are about the size of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed about 120,000 people.
In a SPIEGEL interview, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev discusses morals and politics in the nuclear age, the crisis in Russian-American relations and his fear that an atomic weapon will some day be used. (Read more...)
Further deployment of America’s global anti-ballistic missile defense poses a threat to the US and those European countries that agreed to host it, because it builds up a dangerous illusion of invincibility, Putin said in the state of the nation address.
The European Phased Adaptive Approach, centerpiece of the US missile defense shield in Europe, implies deployment of Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, all of which are fitted with the Aegis weapon and radar system, interceptor batteries in Poland and Romania, radar in Turkey, and a command center at Ramstein, Germany, a US Air Force base.
“This constitutes a threat not only to the security of Russia, but to the whole world, in view of the possible destabilization of the strategic balance of powers. I believe this is dangerous for the US itself, as it creates a dangerous illusion of invulnerability and reinforces the tendency of unilateral, often ill-considered decisions and additional risks,” Putin said.
America’s National Intelligence Council said in 1999 that China and Russia had devised numerous countermeasures to protect offensive missiles and were probably willing to sell the technology.
A statement in May by the office of the assistant secretary of defence for research and engineering noted that the proliferation of such advanced countermeasures was rendering America’s missile defences “no longer practical or cost-effective”.
Among nuclear powers, neither North Korea nor Pakistan is presently capable of building a ballistic-missile triggering system that is able to detonate a nuclear payload if an interceptor was drawing near. But with time and enough effort, this could change: At least one type of nuclear device detonated by North Korea “is not inconsistent” with efforts to build a bomb designed for an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. Effects of a EMP depend on factors including the altitude of the detonation, energy yield, gamma ray output, interactions with the Earth's magnetic field and electromagnetic shielding of targets, but in any case rapidly changing electric fields and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges. The threat grows as potential attackers continue to acquire “more complex, survivable, reliable and accurate” ICBMs equipped with countermeasures
Land- and Sea-Based Spears: ICBMs
The trajectory of an ICBM runs in three consecutive phases: Atmosphere-Space-Atmosphere. The first phase is the "easyest" one in order to incercept the ICBM, so it is neccesary to place interceptors close enough to reach the missile before it leaves the atmosphere... But it is not easy, indeed. Ronald Reagan hoped to put interception satellites into low orbit, but the “Star Wars” scheme, as it was known, presented three main handicaps:
It would have required a lot satellites costing billions of dollars.
Satellites could be shot up with missiles
Satellites could be blinded with lasers
Space-Based Spears: Satellites
In December 2012 North Korea launched a satellite on a southerly track. The launch reveals a vulnerability in missile defences which could be exploited for an EMP attack.
A nuclear device fitted into a subsequent southerly launched satellite would circumvent America’s defences against long-range weapons because these are positioned to hit warheads flying from over the North Pole, not those coming from the south.
A nuke concealed in a satellite in an orbit used by many civilian satellites could be detonated on a flyover above America. There is no point in having a missile-defence system that cannot prevent such an attack.
Air-Based Shields: Lasers and interceptors
MDA believes that aircraft-mounted anti-missile Solid-state lasers may “play a crucial role” in defeating ICBMs during the boost phase. Experiments have begun with General Atomics’ Reaper and Boeing’s Phantom Eye drones.
Dale Tietz, a former senior Star Wars official, says that North Korean missiles could be prevented from reaching space by just three interceptor-armed Global Hawk UAVs.
Sea-Based Shields: Aegis
30 of America’s warships carry Aegis anti-missile systems, but these were designed to strike shorter-range missiles.
With recent upgrades, Aegis is thought to be capable of intercepting warheads in space, in limited circumstances.
With additional radar near America’s east coast, Aegis destroyers in the Atlantic could theoretically intercept ICBMs coming from Europe and Asia.
Ground-Based Shields: GMD
The GMD system consists of an “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” with steering rockets and its own X-Band Radar system.
There are 30 GMD interceptors at Vandenberg AFB and Fort Greely in Alaska.
The MDA has begun work at Fort Greely to prepare for a field of silos that will contain an extra 14 interceptors by 2017.
Chinese military commentators said China may become the first foreign buyer of Russia's S-400 surface-to-air missile system, which could help the country integrate its air defense and anti-missile systems, reports Chinese national broadcaster CCTV.
Negotiations between China and Russia over the system have been difficult since China has different needs for its air defense, said military commentator Du Wenlong. The system's operational height and range, the range of its radar and the number of targets the radar tracks will all need to be adjusted. Du said the sale will not be simple weapons trade but a technology transfer that could enhance China's air defense and anti-missile capability as a whole in the future.
America's Asia Pivot policy would be severely impacted if China obtains the S-400 system, as it could cover the airspace over Taiwan and or even its eastern coasts and counter-attack US aircrafts coming from Guam and Okinawa: The system comes with powerful radar and has anti-jamming capabilities, becoming able to create a multi-layer air defense structure with three guided missiles of different ranges as well as tracking hundreds of targets and attacking up to 36 of them at once. "The S400 could affect regional security if China buys the system and decides to plant it within range of the disputed Diaoyutai island", said Paul Schwartz, a researcher for the Center for Strategic & International Studies' Russian and Eurasia Program.
Unlike the system's predecessor S-300, S-400 is compatible with weapons made by other countries and sports superior performance. The system can hit a target 10 m to 60 km above ground and intercept a ballistic missile from 30 km away. Its life span has also greatly improved to 20 years. With the S-400 system and the existing surface-to-air guided missiles Hongqi-9, S-300 and the advanced version of S-300, China will be able to build an air defense system covering long, medium and short distances, said Du. The country will also be able to integrate the system with anti- guided-missile systems. The chance of intercepting high-precision guided weapons such as guided missiles is likely to increase significantly in the future, also expanding the types of targets that China could intercept, said the commentator.
Beijing has voiced its concerns over THAAD plans, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang saying last month that “deploying missile defense on the Korean peninsula would not be in the interest of regional stability or strategic balance.”
The plans are justified by a growing missile threat from North Korea against America’s allies South Korea, Japan and military bases. The US military plans to deploy its Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense in South Korea and, according to some media reports, is pressuring Seoul to do so instead of developing a national missile defense system.
"There was consideration being taken in order to consider THAAD being deployed here in Korea. It is a US initiative, and in fact, I recommended it as the commander,"General Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of United States Forces Korea (USFK), said last month addressing a forum hosted by the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, in Seoul. Washington is looking for a region-wide, operational anti-missile defense system, with military experts believing that it would be actually aimed against China’s increasing military presence.
Washington so far has not officially proposed Seoul host its anti-missile system, with the plan being currently internally debated, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said. While previously South Korean officials maintained that they want to provide protection from possible missile attacks domestically, on Wednesday South Korean acting Defense Minister Kim said he would not object to Korea hosting the American system, as long as Seoul does not pay for it.
Intelligence reports are predicting that Iran and North Korea could develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States by 2015. Given the preceeding GMD test failures, the test will be watched closely as after all, just the GMD System -based at Fort Greely, Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California- stands between a long-range missile attack from North Korea or Iran on the U.S. homeland.
Over the last decade, the system has failed eight of 15 intercept tests, including the last three in a row, despite the fact that the tests were "highly scripted". ¿What means "highly scripted"? It means the GMD system operators knew ahead of time where and when the target would be launched, and exactly what it looked like. But in a a real war, the surprise factor is the key factor to the success, and the enemy knows it. This is why the GMD system test is so important to maintain the peace in the world. If America fall, Europe will be the next to fall. And then the rest of the world will fall.
While Syria has been upgrading its aging defense system in recent years, it will be severely tested if a barrage of American-made missiles are fired at the country.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a confident, if unnamed, "military diplomatic source" on Tuesday who predicted "no easy victory" if "the U.S. Army together with NATO launches an operation against Syria. Buk-M2E multirole air and missile complexes and other air defense systems are capable of making a fitting reply to aggressors."
Estimates by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Jane's and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) of Assad's pre-war defense capabilities included 365 to 550 combat aircraft (50% of which CSIS estimates may be left now with questions about pilot capability); 25 air defense brigades with some 120 to 150 surface-to-air missile batteries (most aging or obsolete); and an array of more modern short-range surface-to-air weapons, including thousands of shoulder-launched MANPADS.
Syria has purchased a highly advanced S-300 system from Russia, which can intercept targets at a much longer range and higher altitude than anything currently in Syria's arsenal. But it hasn't been delivered yet, and even if it arrived tomorrow, it would take months to set up and properly train Syrians to use. One of the Syrian military's most potent assets are its Bastion coastal defense missiles, which Assad bought from Russia in the last few years. They could strike ships in the Mediterranean and would effectively push back the distances from which foreign ships would launch missiles used in any attack. Part of the system are Yakhont anti-ship missiles, which were reportedly Israel's target when it bombed a Syrian depot in July.
