¿Por qué la OTAN teme a los Iskander?

Hoy vamos a tratar acerca del misil Iskander, que indudablemente se ha convertido en uno de los misiles más peligrosos para la OTAN. Este complejo misil tiene una barrera de uso no nuclear muy baja, y gracias a su gran capacidad para traspasar la defensa antimisiles de la OTAN, puede ocasionar daños enormes en aeródromos, depósitos de municiones y material y similares.

Alcance y capacidad destructiva

El misil Iskander-M tiene un alcance de 400 a 500 km (280 Km para los Iskander-E, destinados a la exportación) y puede puede usar una gran variedad de técnicas para destruir diferentes objetivos, entre las que destacan las siguientes:

Para destruir conjuntos de personas y equipos: Un cassette de ojivas de fragmentación con 54 elementos explosivos, detonadas en el aire.

Para destruir bunkers: Una ojiva perforadora para hormigón armado.

Para destruir objetivos puntuales: Una ojiva de fragmentación altamente explosiva.

Para destrucción masiva: Una ojiva nuclear con una capacidad de hasta 50 kilotones (Unas tres veces la capacidad de la bomba utilizada en Hiroshima)

Precisión

También es un arma bastante precisa, gracias a que cuenta con doble sistema de guiado: inercial y GLONASS para las partes inicial y media del vuelo, y óptico para la parte final. Esto garantiza una precisión de entre 5 y 7 metros de tolerancia. De nada sirve en cualquier caso que el objetivo trate de zafarse poniéndose en movimiento, pues los misiles en vuelo pueden recibir remotamente las nuevas coordenadas del objetivo; esto resulta particularmente útil para atacar buques.

¿Cuáles serían a día de hoy sus objetivos preferentes en caso de una Tercera Guerra Mundial? ¿Qué ciudades están en su punto de mira?

Dado que a día de hoy los Iskander-M se encuentran desplegados tanto en el territorio principal de Rusia como en Kaliningrado -un importante enclave ruso cerca de Polonia y el Mar Báltico- sus objetivos preferentes en caso de guerra serían en primer lugar las bases militares ubicadas en los países miembros de la OTAN dentro de su radio de alcance: Alemania, Estonia, Letonia, Lituania y Polonia. 

Russia to deploy Iskander missiles in Europe

According to the country's official and former Black Sea fleet chief Vladimir Komoyedov, Moscow is planning to send its nuclear capable Iskander missile systems to Kaliningrad. "Kaliningrad is our frontline in the west, the main base of the Baltic fleet, which is pressured by the NATO states from all sides. Our plans to deploy the Iskander systems there have been announced several times", Komoyedov said in an interview with Interfax, according to Deutsche Welle. These missile systems are capable of hitting targets located 500 kilometres away from the launch site. (Read more)

India: ¿Really ready to fight against China?

At a time when the ambitious IGMDP (Integrated Guided Missile Development Program) is yielding significant results, there are some key points the Hindu government should bear on mind, to fight with a hostile and mighty army in the Northeast in the very uncertain near future. Let us summarize some of them: 

Ground

1. While Chinese has built a well connected network of highways and railways over the last three decades, and have reportedly stationed their air defence units and mobile ballistic missile launchers in the entire Tibetan plateau, posing a direct threat to Indian forces, India has a lack of motorable roads which hamper its capability to deploy mechanised infantry units, self propelled artillery systems and truck mounted missile batteries.
2. Recent reports highlighted the fact that the Indian Army and special operations troops urgently require helmet mounted night vision goggles, Level 5 bullet proof Kevlar vests, thermal imagers, satellite navigation equipments (SatNavs) and hand held laser designators (for guiding laser guided artillery shells to targets).
3. Also, the outdated automatic assault rifles and the lack of shoulder mounted anti tank guided missiles hamper his capability to cause significant damage to intruding hostile forces in the Northeast. 

Sea

1. While Chinese has built a huge fleet of nuclear submarines posing a direct threat to military and civilian Indian ports in the event of an armed confrontation, the design of the proposed second indigenous aircraft carrier hasn’t yet been finalised and the Indian navy lacks a credible underwater based second strike capability.

Air

1. The outdated Russian made Igla MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defence Systems) hamper Indian capability to cause significant damage to intruding hostile forces in the Northeast.
2. India also lacks hypersonic Theatre Ranged Ballistic Missiles (TBMs) on the lines of the Russian Iskander systems to neutralise Chinese TEL BMD (Ballistic Missile Defence) and AAD (Advanced Air Defence) batteries installed in Tibet, as the Indo-Russian BrahMos 2 hypersonic cruise missile project is yet to see the light of the day.

Space

In the eventuality of a war with China, the country will need to blind the enemy`s reconnaissance satellite coverage over the Indian peninsula. But unfortunately, India lacks an effective surface launched/air launched capability to shoot down enemy satellites in the low earth/medium earth orbit.

The missile shield in Central Eastern Europe became a reality

On 28 October, work started at the former airbase at Deveselu in southern Romania on installing elements of the US missile defence system, specifically an Aegis system with SM-3 interceptors.

This means that the missile defence project is being implemented on schedule. From the Russian perspective, the start of work on the missile shield in Central Europe represents a failure of its policy of preventing the deployment of strategic US military facilities within the former Soviet sphere of influence.

However, it is unlikely that Moscow will soften its position and become more flexible with regard to the planned location of anti-missile launchers in Poland. 

The Shield in Central Europe

After a pause in implementing the original plan for the missile defence system during the presidency of George W Bush in 2009, which assumed the construction of a global system capable of capturing and neutralising all categories of ballistic missiles, the Obama administration has put forward a new plan for a shield for the region.

This provides for the suspension (at least until 2020) of the so-called fourth phase of the system, involving the deployment of missiles in Europe which could neutralise intercontinental ballistic missiles, while implementing the so-called third phase, based on installing Aegis anti-missile launchers in Poland and Romania, and on activating a radar station in Turkey (radar stations in the Czech Republic were also a proposed element of the Bush plan).

Negotiations are in progress on constructing a future missile defence system for NATO based on elements of the American shield in Europe, a plan which was approved at the NATO summit in Chicago in 2012.

Romania: ¿An aircraft carrier for the US?

The Deveselu base represents the second stage of the project to create a regional anti-missile shield (the first included the launch of the radar system in Turkey, and the deployment in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea of US Navy ships with Aegis systems).

The anti-missile launchers (3 SM-3 batteries, with a total of 24 missiles) is expected to be operational by the end of 2015. The third stage involves installing the same system in Poland by the end of 2018.

¿Failure of Russian security policy?

Russia has always contested the deployment of elements of a missile defence system within the former Soviet sphere of influence.

It has stated that the anti-missile programme poses a threat to its national security, although to a substantial degree its opposition actually derives from geopolitical causes. Russia made its cooperation with the United States and NATO on the missile defence system conditional on having the right of joint decision over what form the system takes (either by a joint decision-making process, or by imposing technical parameters that limit the system’s activity), as well as international legal guarantees that the system will not undermine Russia’s nuclear potential.

Russia has also put forward its own initiatives, including so-called sectoral missile defence, in which the Russian army would take responsibility for the defence of NATO’s eastern region. So far, Russia’s policy to prevent the deployment of the missile shield in Central Europe has been limited to diplomatic activity and periodic threats to take military measures (mainly by deploying Iskander missiles, which can destroy anti-missile installations, in the Kaliningrad region).  The military projects Russia has initiated over the last few months (such as the activation of the radar station in the Kaliningrad region, the deployment of Russian combat aircraft in Belarus, and the delivery of more S-300 missiles) are part of the accepted trend of modernising its armed forces, and have no direct connection with the American system.

Retaliatory measures by Russia (such as the deployment of Iskanders in the Kaliningrad region, possibly in Belarus, or least likely of all in Transnistria) will be postponed, and will ultimately depend on whether the US anti-missile systems are deployed in Poland. It must be regarded as doubtful that Moscow would treat the installation of the SM-3 rocket system in Romania as a signal to moderate its position (as NATO expects), or to show greater flexibility regarding NATO’s deployment of shield elements in Poland, especially as it regards a US military presence on its borders as one of the main threats to its security. An agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program, as was hoped for after the election of that country’s new president, would undoubtedly serve as an argument against the US deploying its anti-missile units in Poland.

(Read more)