The Peculiarities of the National Missile Defense

The  view  of  both  Moscow and Washington on ballistic missile defense (BMD) for a long time rested on the principle, formulated in the late 1960s, which held that anti-missile systems for defense of the territories were destabilizing, therefore limiting them would strengthen strategic stability. Since that time the USSR and then Russia always adhered to this principle, while the US at times rejected it (i.e. the SDI program of the 1980s) and by now has finally given it up altogether.

Meanwhile , the majority of the independent leading experts assess the chances of the existing US missile defense to tangibly affect Russia’s nuclear strike capability as extremely  low.  However, the  US  unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002 seriously undermined  political trust between Moscow and  Washington.  The unwillingness of the US to provide Russia with a legally binding commitment  not to direct its BMD system against it (including technical constraints) contributes to the problem. In addition, the US missile defense system is being built as an open-ended system with no future restrictions on its expansion and improvement.

Russia has responded to the creation of the US national missile defense system with the modernization of its strategic nuclear forces and initiation of its own Air-Space Defense (ASD) system.

The difference of the concepts of the BMD system development in the United States and the ASD system in Russia lies in that the US system is intended to defend against limited attacks of intercontinental ballistic missiles against the North American continent or of medium-range missiles against the US allies in Europe and the Pacific region. The Russian ASD is a multilayered system designed to protect against a protracted air-space of-fensive by the US/NATO involving high-precision conventional weapons (including future hypersonic and  space-based systems) and limited use of nuclear weapons. Although there has been a long break in a meaning ful US-Russian dialogue on missile defense, it is still possible to reach some positive agreements. If the US and Russia resume negotiations on limitation  and reduction of strategic offensive arms, it might open a window for a compromise on missile defense.

Such a compromise can be based on  an agreed threshold  separating,  on  the  one hand, missile defense systems that can significantly  affect  strategic stability  by  in-tercepting a large number  of US or Russian ICBMs and SLBMs and, on the other hand – systems that will allow the US and

Russia to protect their territories against at-tacks by third states or rogue regimes and would thus strengthen their mutual security. The first class of BMD systems would be subject to restrictions, while the second one would be given a green light. Moreover, in the second case there would reemerge an opportunity of the development of a joint defense systems of the two powers, which was declared in 2002 but never came true.

1. Acton J. (2013) Silver Bullet? Asking the Right Questions about Conventional Prompt Global Strike, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

2. Аktual’nye zadachi razvitiya Vooruzhennykh Sil Rossijskoj Federatsii [The Priority Tasks of the Development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation] (2003), Moscow: Agency Voeninform, Ministry of the Defense.

3. Demin А., Ashurbejli I., Bogdanov O., Tret’yakov Yu., Gareev M., Falichev O. (2012) Sereznoj ugroze - adekvatnyj otvet. Osnovnoj sferoj vooruzhennoj bor’by stanet vozdushno-kosmicheskoe prostranstvo [An Adequate Response to Serious Danger. Air-Space Domain Will Be the Main Battlespace]. Vozdushno-Kosmicheskaya Oborona, no 4, pp. 6-15.

4. McNamara R. (1968) The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office, New York: Harper and Row.

5. Nuclear Posture Review (2018), Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of De-fense.

6. Podvig P. (2013) The Development of Soviet and Russian Ballistic Missile Defense in the 20th Century. Missile Defense: Confrontation and Cooperation (eds. Arbatov A., Dvorkin V., Bubnova N.), Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, pp. 33-50.

7. Pyrev V., Dvorkin V. (2012) Programma SShA/NATO i strategicheskaya stabil’nost’ [The U.S./NATO Program and Strategic Stability]. Protivoraketnaya oborona: protivostoyanie ili sotrudnichestvo? [Missile Defense: Confrontation and Cooperation?] (eds. Arbatov A., Dvorkin V.), Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, pp. 173-191.

8. Sukhanov S. (2010) VKO - eto zadacha, a ne sistema [VKO: not a System, but a Task]. Vozdushno-Kosmicheskaya Oborona, no 2, pp. 6-13.

9. Voennaya doktrina Rossijskoj Federatsii. Utverzhdena ukazom Prezidenta Rossii ot 25.12.2014 № Pr-2976 [The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation Presidential Decree No 2976] (2014). Available at: http://docs.cntd.ru/document/420246589, accessed 30.11.2018.

10. Wilkening D. (2012) Poetapnyj adaptivnyj plan SShA/NATO [The U.S./NATO Phased Adaptive Approach]. Protivoraketnaya oborona: protivostoyanie ili sotrudnichestvo? [Missile Defense: Confrontation and Cooperation?] (eds. Arbatov A., Dvorkin V.), Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, pp. 102-116.

11. Yury Solomonov: «Strategicheskie yadernye sily yavlyayutsya naivazhnejshej sostavlyayushhej natsional’noj bezopasnosti gosudarstva» [Yury Solomonov: “Strategic Nuclear Forces are the Most Important Component of the National Se-curity”] (2011). Natsionalnaya oborona, no 6(63), pp. 82-88.