AMERICA’S DECLINING NUCLEAR SUPERIORITY
The steady atrophy of America’s nuclear capabilities could lead to a dramatic reversal in the balance of power between the United States and Russia over the next two decades, a new article in the September/October issue of The National Interest has warned. “The United States faces major problems in the maintenance of its nuclear forces and infrastructure,” write the authors, Professor Bradley Thayer of Missouri State University and Thomas Skypek, a defense analyst with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. “It is the only nuclear country that cannot manufacture a new nuclear weapon because of a self-imposed moratorium, which has halted the modernization of warheads and delivery systems alike.”
Russia, meanwhile, is dramatically expanding the scope and sophistication of its strategic capabilities. According to Thayer and Skypek, “the Russian strategic hiatus of the 1990s ended when Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin.” Russia is now engaged in a major, multi-spectrum modernization of each leg of its strategic triad, is building new tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, and has adopted a new, forward posture on the use of such weapons.
“In the post-cold-war world,” Thayer and Skypek conclude, “the United States will continue to depend on its strategic nuclear forces to accomplish its grand-strategic goals. That will become increasingly difficult if the United States does not act now to redress the key vulnerabilities in its arsenal.” Already, “the relative strategic balance between the United States and its near-peer competitors has changed, and not in Washington’s favor.”
ARMING THE UAE
As part of its efforts to bolster regional defenses in the face of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Bush administration has announced a multi-billion dollar plan to sell missile defenses to at least one Persian Gulf state. Reuters (September 9) reports that the U.S. government plans to sell the United Arab Emirates the first units of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. The anti-missile technology, developed over the past decade by Lockheed Martin and valued at up to $7 billion, is intended to provide both endo- and exo-atmospheric defense against short- and medium-range missiles.
POLAND IN THE CROSSHAIRS
In the wake of Poland’s mid-August signing of a missile defense basing agreement with the United States, Russia has steadily increased diplomatic pressure on its former satellite. The latest salvo came during Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Warsaw in early September. “We cannot fail to see the risks emerging as a result of U.S. strategic forces coming closer to our borders," Lavrov told reporters following consultations with his Polish counterpart, Radoslaw Sikorski. “We are certain this system in Europe can have no other target for a long time to come but Russia's strategic forces."
In response, Russian officials are warning of dire consequences if Poland goes through with the planned deployment. "Our targeting of these countries [Poland and the Czech Republic, site of a corresponding early warning radar array] will happen as soon as these missiles are brought," Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned in comments carried by Reuters (September 11).
MORE MOVES TOWARD SPACE
In an attempt to obtain better situational awareness in space, the Pentagon has accelerated plans to acquire new space-based radar capabilities. According to Defense News (September 1), the Defense Department’s initiative is essentially two-fold: a quest for small, inexpensive radar satellites and supporting ground systems, and the concurrent acquisition of data from existing commercial radar satellites now in orbit. The effort, the trade paper reports, is driven by a conviction among Pentagon planners that technological advances have made it possible to now acquire cheap, agile space radars and data from them in the “near term.”
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