Russia Nearing Deployment of New Intermediate-Range Naval Missile

[Ryan Ruck]

Russia Nearing Deployment of New Intermediate-Range Naval Missile

Carter calls Moscow ‘very serious threat’

August 21, 2015
By Bill Gertz

Russia is nearing deployment of a new missile capable of targeting all of Europe with nuclear or conventional warheads, according to defense officials.

Disclosure of the new SSN-30A missile threat comes as Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Thursday warned that Moscow under Vladmir Putin is reemerging as an existential security threat.

Russia “is a very, very significant threat,” Carter told reporters at the Pentagon. “And I think a point that they’ve made, but I would certainly make: Russia poses an existential threat to the United States by virtue simply of the size of the nuclear arsenal that it has.”

Regarding the SSN-30A, designated as the “Kalibr” missile, Pentagon officials said the new naval weapon can be equipped with both nuclear and conventional warheads and can reach most of Europe when fired from ships in the Black Sea.

The longer-range version of the Kalibr can reach between 620 and 923 miles. A shorter range version can hit targets at distances of up to 180 miles.

A cruise missile variant also is being developed that officials said appears to violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

A test of the Kalibr was conducted earlier this month, officials said.

The new supersonic missile is capable of being used to strike targets both at sea and on land.

“This system is about ready to be deployed,” said one official who voiced concerns for U.S. interests and those of allies in Europe. “It allows the Russians to cover most of Europe from the Black Sea on naval vessels.

“They can hold all of Europe at risk,” the official said. “This is like putting SS-20s in Europe again.”

SS-20 intermediate-range nuclear missiles were withdrawn under the INF treaty in the 1980s.

Additionally, naval vessels equipped with SSN-30s also could be deployed from the Black Sea to Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea bordering Poland and Lithuania.

Russian officials have threatened to deploy short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, in response to U.S. missile defense deployments in Europe.

Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon nuclear strategy expert, said the Kalibr is a capable, supersonic, very accurate nuclear and conventional missile.

The missile is expected to see “a very widespread deployment” on both submarines and surface ships, including the new type 885 Yasen class submarine, older submarines and cruisers, and newer models of destroyers.

“Thanks to 25 years of bad decisions on nuclear deterrence, we have no comparable capability,” Schneider said.

“The Obama administration in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review Report announced the elimination of the nuclear-armed version of the Tomahawk submarine launched cruise missile,” he added. “If Putin attacks one of the vulnerable NATO states, the Kalibr will likely be one of the main threat weapons used to try to deter a NATO counter attack. Granting Putin a monopoly on almost all types of tactical nuclear weapons is plain stupid.”

Carter said Russia under President Vladimir Putin has become a new “antagonist,” following the military takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea and continuing covert arming of pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

“Vladimir Putin’s Russia behaves, in some respects and in very important respects, as an antagonist. That is new. That is something, therefore, that we need to adjust to and counter,” the defense secretary said.

The Pentagon has adopted a policy called “strong and balanced,” Carter said.

“The strong part means we are adjusting our capabilities qualitatively and in terms of their deployments, to take account of this behavior of Russia,” he said, adding that the Pentagon has begun working with NATO states in new ways, such as deterring Russia and hardening borders near Russia.

Efforts also are being taken to counter Moscow’s use of “hybrid warfare,” the use of both military forces and information warfare.

The harder line approach is being balanced by continued cooperation with Moscow on counterterrorism, North Korea, and in some aspects Iran.

“So where Russia sees its interests as aligned with ours, we can work with them and will continue to do that,” Carter said.

He added that the United States “would hold open the door” to future cooperation with Russia, should its approach change.

In his remarks, Carter bolstered earlier expressions of concern from Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford, the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said during a Senate hearing last month that Russia “presents the greatest threat to our national security.”

NATO commander Gen. Philip Breedlove told PBS July 29 that Russia poses a greater danger than the Islamic State terrorist group.

Breedlove said the United States sought to make Russia a partner for the past 20 years. Instead, Moscow has “used force to change internationally recognized boundaries” by occupying Crimea and moving military forces in eastern Ukraine.

“And this is a nation that possesses a pretty vast nuclear inventory, and talks about the use of that inventory very openly in the past,” Breedlove said.

“And so what I think you see being reflected is that we see a revanchist Russia that has taken a new path towards what the security arrangements in Europe are like and how they are employed. And they talk about using, as a matter of course, nuclear weapons. For that reason, these senior leaders, I believe, see that as a major threat.”

Asked if U.S. support for NATO allies near Russia could trigger a war, Breedlove said: “Well, the best way not to have a war is to be prepared for war. So, we’re in there now, training their soldiers.”

[Ryan Ruck]

Cruz Calls on President to Release Pentagon Report on Russian Missile Violation

Congress needs risk assessment for foreign affairs role

August 24, 2015

The White House should immediately provide Congress with a Pentagon report assessing the risks to U.S. security posed by Russia’s violation of an intermediate-range missile treaty, according to Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas).

“I am deeply concerned that the Obama administration has been withholding information it is obligated to provide to Congress to protect what it considers to be the president’s ‘legacy achievements’—such as New START and the recent nuclear deal with Iran,” Cruz, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon.

The senator, a Republican presidential candidate, wrote to President Obama on Friday requesting that he release a classified report produced by the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey, on Moscow’s breach of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

“I request that you lift your embargo on this report immediately,” he stated, asking for a response no later than Sept. 1.

The Free Beacon first reported Aug. 11 that the White House is blocking the report that is said to outline possible U.S. responses to the INF treaty violation.

The State Department publicly confirmed the treaty violation last year in an annual compliance report. Details of the violation have not been made public although U.S. officials say that it involves testing of a cruise missile called the R-500.

A ground-launched cruise missile version of Russia’s new SSN-30A long-range anti-ship missile is also said to violate the INF treaty, according to defense officials.

The treaty prohibits deploying or testing ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges between 310 miles and 3,418 miles. Its passage led to the withdrawal of then-Soviet SS-20, SS-4, and SS-5 missiles from Europe and the elimination of U.S. Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, first disclosed in a speech in July that the White House was holding up the INF report.

Rogers said that the report was produced after Obama directed the Joint Chiefs chairman to develop options in response to the INF breach. He called the report necessary for legislation to support steps to counter the treaty violation.

The Pentagon’s proposed options were provided to the president in December, Rogers said.

Administration officials have provided no details on the options being considered but have said that they include bolstering missile defenses and deploying new nuclear-capable missiles.

White House spokesman Myles Caggins declined to comment on the Aug. 21 letter from Cruz.

Earlier this month, a senior White House official said the United States is considering diplomatic, economic, and military responses to the INF treaty violation.

Joint Chiefs spokesman Greg Hicks said the assessment is secret and will not be released to the public. The Pentagon’s proposed actions regarding the Russian breach of the treaty include “preserving military response options—but no decision has been made with regard to the type of response, if any,” Hicks said.

In his letter Cruz said that holding up the INF report is “withholding information from Congress pertinent to executing its constitutional statutory role in foreign affairs.”

Cruz also said that despite the State Department declaring Moscow to be in violation of the accord, there have been concerns about Russian treaty compliance since 2008 that appear not to have been shared with the Senate during debate on the 2010 New START arms treaty.

“Only in late 2011, long after Congress voted on the New START treaty, did your administration conclude that the R-500 was an official compliance concern,” Cruz stated.

The letter also noted that in 2011, then-Sen. John Kerry told a closed-door hearing that “we’re not going to pass another treaty in the U.S. Senate if our colleagues are sitting up here knowing somebody is cheating.”

Cruz concluded: “The Senate’s advice and consent power is a pivotal element of a constitutional and prudent foreign policy, but it cannot be exercised if your administration does not act in good faith.”

“Grave concerns of Russian compliance exist beyond the R-500 cruise missile, as Russia has potentially mislabeled intermediate missiles as intercontinental ballistic missiles, and fielded air defense systems that possess ground-to-ground ballistic capability,” he added.

“If true, these would not only constitute clear violations of the INF treaty, but present a material threat to the United States and our allies.”

Cruz said the risk assessment is needed in developing strategic responses by the United States.

In an email, Cruz noted that the administration similarly delayed release of the State Department’s annual report on Tehran’s human rights abuses in order to avoid upsetting negotiations with Iran on the nuclear deal.

That human rights report was only made public “once we threatened to cut [the State Department’s] budget,” he said.

“Now the Defense Department is withholding a report that details disturbing Russian violations of the INF Treaty that could undermine the very premise of New START,” Cruz said.

The administration was reluctant to admit that Moscow was not negotiating in good faith, “but the fact of the matter is the administration constrained America’s ability to deploy missile defense systems to protect our NATO allies and in return the Russians are blatantly testing the sorts of weapons that would threaten them,” he noted.

“Congress, and the American people, deserve to know the truth about what turns out to be yet another terrible Obama administration deal with a hostile regime that means us harm,” Cruz said of the Iranian nuclear accord, now under review by Congress.