Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: la Russia si ritira dal trattato inf?

Certo la ripresa dello sviluppo di missili a medio raggio e a raggio
intermedio aprirebbe interessanti prospettive per le esportazioni in armi e
per controbilanciare il programma antimissile americano e sarebbe una
valida risposta al ritiro degli states dal trattato ABM
Russia said able to resume medium-range missiles production at short notice
Interfax
Moscow, 17 March: The Russian missile industry can quickly restore the
production of medium-range missiles if necessary, a source in the Russian
defence industry has told Interfax-AVN.
"All the necessary technical and production prerequisite are in place. For
instance, the achievements in research and technology gained in the
development of the Skorost missile system in the 1980s may become a basis
for manufacturing medium-range missiles," he told the agency.
Some foreign media reported earlier that Russia was considering withdrawal
from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the USSR
and the USA. However, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr
Yakovenko said Moscow continued to be committed to the treaty.
"The Skorost system was developed in response to the deployment of US
Pershing-2 missiles in Europe. In its characteristics, it was not inferior
to its foreign counterpart," the source said.
He said the Skorost system was developed in less than a year through
cooperation between several enterprises led by the Moscow Heat Engineering
Institute. Its development was, however, suspended soon after test launches
began because the USSR and the USA concluded the INF Treaty.
According to the agency's source, the Skorost system has a range of up to
2,500 km, a deployment time of two minutes from the combat ready position,
and nine minutes from the travelling position.
"The missile was capable of carrying a more powerful warhead than
Pershing-2," the source said.
According to him, intermediate-range missile groups could considerably
increase the potential of the Missile Forces in potentially dangerous
strategic areas. "It is especially important with the mass decommissioning
of the strategic missiles past the end of their service life. The cost of
intermediate-range missiles is many times lower than that of the Topol-M
missiles, with which the Russian Strategic Missile Forces are being
equipped," the source said.
He said the development of new missiles with a range of 500-600 km, based on
existing Iskander-E tactical missile systems, was also a possibility.
"This, however, will be more costly and may take up to five or six years,"
he said.
Under the its 1987 treaty with the USA on the reduction of
intermediate-range (1,000-5,500 km) and shorter-range (500-1,000 km)
missiles, the USSR (the Russian Federation) scrapped five types of
missiles, including three intermediate-range missile types (RSD-10, R-12,
and R-14), a considerable number of which were deployed in the Far East,
and two types of short-range missiles (OTR-22 and OTR-23). Altogether, the
USSR (the Russian Federation) scrapped 1,000 more missiles than the USA,
and 2.8 times as many nuclear warhead

sono convinto che la Russia faccia bene a fare cio'.
D'altra parte ha di fronte un governo americano che segue una linea
che a lungo andare potrebbe dimostrarsi suicida,
Butto li', Russia e armamenti di ultima generazione, Cina e soldi
tanti soldi, 2+2=4
E leggetevi questo articolo :
Rude awakening to missile-defense dream
By Scott Ritter 
DELMAR, N.Y. – On Christmas Eve 2004, the Russian Strategic Missile
Force test fired an advanced SS-27 Topol-M road-mobile
intercontinental ballistic Missile (ICBM). This test probably
invalidated the entire premise and technology used in the National
Missile Defense (NMD) system currently being developed and deployed by
the Bush administration, and at the same time called into question the
validity of the administration's entire approach to arms control and
disarmament.
From 1988 to 1990, I served as one of the American weapons inspectors
at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant in Russia, where the SS-27 and
its predecessor, the SS-25, were assembled. When I started my work in
Votkinsk, the SS-25 missile was viewed by many in the US intelligence
community as the primary ICBM threat facing the United States. A great
deal of effort was placed on learning as much as possible about this
missile and its capabilities.
 
Through the work of the inspectors at Votkinsk, as well as several
related inspections where US experts were able to view the SS-25
missile system in its operating bases in Siberia, a great deal of data
was collected that assisted the US intelligence community in refining
its understanding of how the SS-25 operated. This understanding was
translated into several countermissile strategies, including aerial
interdiction operations and missile-defense concepts.
The abysmal performance of American counter-SCUD operations during the
Gulf War in 1991 highlighted the deficiencies of the US military
regarding the aerial interdiction of road-mobile missiles. Iraqi
Al-Hussein mobile missiles were virtually impossible to detect and
interdict, even with total American air supremacy. Despite all the
effort put into counter-SCUD operations during that war, not a single
Iraqi mobile missile launcher was destroyed by hostile fire, a fact I
can certify not only as a participant in the counter-SCUD effort, but
also as a chief inspector in Iraq, where I led the United Nations
investigations into the Iraqi missile program.
The rapid collapse of the Soviet Union did not leave much time for
reflection on the American counter-mobile missile launcher
deficiencies. In mid-1993, the Department of Defense conducted a
comprehensive review to select the strategy and force structure for
the post-cold war era. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the
threat to the US from a deliberate or accidental ballistic missile
attack by former Soviet states or by China was judged highly unlikely.
In Votkinsk, US inspectors observed a Soviet-era defense industry in
decline. SS-25 missiles were produced at a greatly reduced rate, and
the next generation missile, a joint Russian-Ukrainian design, was
scrapped after a few prototypes were produced, but never launched.
After the resounding Republican victory in the midterm 1994
congressional elections, a new program for missile defense was
proposed covering three distinct "threat" capabilities ranging from
"unsophisticated threats" (an attack of five single-warhead missiles
with simple decoys), to highly sophisticated threats (an attack of 20
single-warhead SS-25 type missiles, each with decoys or other
defensive countermeasures). Funding for this program ran to some $10.8
billion from 1993 to 2000.
When President Bush came to power in 2001, there was a dramatic change
in posture regarding ballistic missile defense. The administration
announced it was withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,
clearing away development and operational constraints. At the same
time, the administration laid out a comprehensive plan that envisioned
a layered missile-defense system. After studying the SS-25 missile for
years, the US military believed it finally had a solution in the form
of a multitiered antiballistic missile system that focused on
boost-phase intercept (firing antimissile missiles that would home in
on an ICBM shortly after launch), space-based laser systems designed
to knock out a missile in flight, and terminal missile intercept
systems, which would destroy a missile as it reentered the earth's
atmosphere.
The NMD system being fielded to counter the SS-25, and any similar or
less sophisticated threats that may emerge from China, Iran, North
Korea, and elsewhere, will probably have cumulative costs between $800
billion and $1.2 trillion by the time it reaches completion in 2015.
However, the Bush administration's dream of a viable NMD has been
rendered fantasy by the Russian test of the SS-27 Topol-M. According
to the Russians, the Topol-M has high-speed solid-fuel boosters that
rapidly lift the missile into the atmosphere, making boost-phase
interception impossible unless one is located practically next door to
the launcher. The SS-27 has been hardened against laser weapons and
has a highly maneuverable post-boost vehicle that can defeat any
intercept capability as it dispenses up to three warheads and four
sophisticated decoys.
To counter the SS-27 threat, the US will need to start from scratch.
And even if a viable defense could be mustered, by that time the
Russians may have fielded an even more sophisticated missile,
remaining one step ahead of any US countermeasures. The US cannot
afford to spend billions of dollars on a missile-defense system that
will never achieve the level of defense envisioned. The Bush
administration's embrace of technology, and rejection of diplomacy,
when it comes to arms control has failed.
If America continues down the current path of trying to field a viable
missile-defense system, significant cuts will need to be made in other
areas of the defense budget, or funds reallocated from other
nonmilitary spending programs. With America already engaged in a
costly war in Iraq, and with the possibility of additional conflict
with Iran, Syria, or North Korea looming on the horizon, funding a
missile-defense system that not only does not work as designed, but
even if it did, would not be capable of defending America from threats
such as the Topol-M missile, makes no sense.
The Bush administration would do well to reconsider its commitment to
a national missile-defense system, and instead reengage in the kind of
treaty-based diplomacy that in the past produced arms control results
that were both real and lasting. This would not only save billions, it
would make America, and the world, a safer place.
• Scott Ritter is a former intelligence officer and weapons inspector
in the Soviet Union (1988-1990) and Iraq (1991-1998). He is author of
'Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of
America.