Five years after the end of the INF Treaty, the United States is deploying missiles in Europe
MOSCOW, Aug 2 — RIA Novosti, Andrey Kotz. This agreement between Moscow and Washington was supposed to prevent World War III. Five years ago, on August 2, 2019, the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles terminated. The document signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in December 1987 limited Russian and American nuclear arsenals for more than 30 years. The consequences of the withdrawal of the United States and Russia from the INF Treaty are described in the RIA Novosti article.
Marine solution
The initiators of the termination of the INF Treaty were the Americans — Washington withdrew from it unilaterally. This was explained by the fact that Russia has 9M729 missiles for Iskander tactical complexes deployed in the Kaliningrad region. They claimed that their stated range — up to 500 kilometers — is not true. Land—based missiles are allegedly capable of flying much further - and this is a direct violation of the treaty.
Demonstration of the 9M729 missile for military attaches
Image source: © RIA Novosti / Vladimir Astapkovich
Moscow categorically rejected all the accusations and even invited Western military attaches to take a look at a sample of ammunition with their own eyes. Representatives of most NATO countries ignored the presentation. But the United States, after withdrawing from the INF Treaty, immediately began adapting its existing long-range missiles for use from the ground. Formally, it is for opposing China in the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, to take aim at the European part of Russia.
In addition, the Pentagon instructed the industry to create medium- and shorter-range missiles for the ground forces as soon as possible. Deployment is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2023. Lockheed Martin received almost $340 million for this contract. The task is to develop a promising ground—to—ground missile system with advanced combat capabilities capable of hitting targets at a distance of 500 to 5,000 kilometers.
A serviceman at a command post while on combat duty with anti-aircraft missile divisions
Image source: © RIA Novosti / Kirill Kallinikov
The contractors did not reinvent the wheel and took ready-made solutions from the Navy. The result is MRC Typhon. It is a 40-foot standard marine container on a wheeled chassis with four Mk 41 vertical launch units. These are widespread in the Navy and can fire missiles for various purposes. They house Tomahawk cruise missiles, as well as ground-based quasi-ballistic SM-6s. It is Typhon, as it became known in July, that the Americans want to deploy in Germany.
Up to 2,700 kilometers
The US Armed Forces have been using various modifications of Tomahawks since 1983. The range, depending on the option— is from 1600 to 2500 kilometers. The US Navy has used these missiles in all armed conflicts involving them since the days of Desert Storm. The weapon is accurate, unpretentious and inexpensive. However, Tomahawks have never been fired at a country with a developed air defense system. Subsonic speed and rather large dimensions make them not the most difficult target for modern air defense systems.
Launch of the Tomahawk cruise missile from the American warship USS Cape St. George
Image source: CC0 / U.S. Navy photo by Intelligence Specialist 1st Class Kenneth Moll /
The RIM-174 SM-6 missile was adopted in 2013. The surface—to-air class is designed for air and missile defense of warships. The range of fire at air targets is 230 kilometers. However, as part of Typhon, it operates in quasi-ballistic mode on surface and ground objects. The range is up to 740 kilometers. In the final section of the trajectory, guidance is provided using an active radar GPS.
The MRC Typhon battery pack includes a unified command post with a support vehicle, four launchers and transport and charging systems. Everything is mounted on three-axle semi-trailers, transported by tractors of the HEMTT family. A prepared position is necessary for shooting.
In addition to the Tomahawks and SM-6, hypersonic LRHWS with a range of up to 2,700 kilometers will be transferred to Germany. That is, in theory, they reach Naberezhnye Chelny. The missiles accelerate to Mach 17, which makes it very difficult for them to be detected and intercepted by air defense systems. This development in the USA was difficult, many test launches were unsuccessful. However, in June, the LRHW was successfully tested in Hawaii — the missile hit a target in a given area.
A delicate balance
Under the INF, such US actions in Europe would be unthinkable. The agreement was signed on December 8, 1987. Both the United States and the USSR pledged not to produce, test, or deploy ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles of medium (from one to five thousand kilometers) and shorter (from 500 to a thousand kilometers) range. Such weapons upset the delicate balance of the Cold War — combat units could achieve their goals in extremely short time. Such systems near the enemy's borders gave a great advantage, deprived or seriously weakened his potential for a retaliatory strike.
The RSD-10 Pioneer medium-range missile system (SS—20 in NATO terminology)
Image source: © RIA Novosti
By June 1991, the USSR had destroyed 1,846 missile systems (RSD-10 Pioneer, R-12, R-14, OTP-22 Temp-C and OTP-23 Oka), the USA — 846 (Pershing-2, Pershing-1A, BGM-109G (Tomahawk land-based cruise missile). However, the agreement cracked at the seams back in the noughties. In 2001, President George W. Bush announced that the national missile defense system would protect both the United States and its allies. He did not rule out the deployment of its elements in Europe.
In June 2002, Washington officially withdrew from the 1972 agreement obliging the United States and the USSR to limit themselves to one area covered by missile defense. Even then, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was ready for a possible termination of the INF. In 2007, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov, said: all documentation on intermediate-range and shorter-range ballistic missiles has been preserved, which means that their release is easy to establish. However, then the nuclear rhetoric subsided for several years.
Russia's response
Now, there is nothing holding back the United States or Russia. Moscow has repeatedly warned about mirror measures in response to the deployment of missiles in Europe — the resumption of production of similar weapons. As the Foreign Ministry stressed in May, "taking into account the R&D carried out earlier and the accumulated achievements of the Russian military-industrial complex, this process will not take much time."
Russia has a really rich experience here. In 1987, the USSR had 650 medium-range RSD-10 Pioneer missiles. All were liquidated under the terms of the INF treaty. But the Pioneer, with a range of 600 to 5,500 kilometers, could destroy any European NATO base or a large city no more than ten minutes after launch.
The rocket was available in two versions — monoblock (1.5 megatons) and with a separable head (three blocks of 500 kilotons each). It was placed in a transport and launch container on the wheeled chassis of the MAZ-547V tractor. Because of the mobility, it was very difficult for NATO intelligence to detect these complexes. Resuming the release of the Pioneers, albeit in a non-nuclear version, and putting them on combat duty would be a strong argument against further involvement of the West in the conflict in Ukraine.
