The factories which make the Yars and Bulava are now probably running at extremely reduced speed. The upgrade from Topol to Yars is basically done. This means they are available for making an IRBM like Rubezh.
And two important things have changed, well three actually.
First the level of accuracy they are achieving with their missiles is amazing so conventional warheads actually become a viable alternative to nuclear payloads, which actually makes them more usable.
Second intermediate range missiles are smaller and lighter and cheaper, so can be made in huge numbers while remaining affordable.
And thirdly with scramjet technology enabling rocket speeds and altitudes with jet engine fuel efficiency and costs means they will get much smaller and lighter and presumably cheaper again.
IRCMs or intermediate range cruise missiles could be loaded onto train carriages and carried in enormous numbers and moved around very easily and quickly when needed.
Those two idiots of Gorbachev and Shevardnadze cancelled the RSD-10 Pioneer IRBM in exchange of empty promises, basically completely disregarding all military and scientific upper echelons in USSR.
To be fair at the time there was no way to stop such missiles and HATO locating such weapons in Turkey meant flight times to Moscow and St Petersberg would be mere minutes... it might take a minute to detect them which might give you 2 minutes to identify the threat and work out if it is an error or an attempted decapitation strike.
Imagine a threat detected a 3:20am middle of the week, no warning... do you launch a full strike in response or do you wait for Moscow or a major city to be destroyed before deciding?
It created a hair trigger and a very very stressful situation.
Ironically of course if anyone could shoot down such missiles it would be the Soviet Union... then and Russia now.
These weapons would still be destabilising, but now Russia has missiles to defend itself with.
HATO and EU... not so much.
A few thousand nukes pointed specially at them might be sobering for countries that have recently given up their neutrality like Sweden and Finland and of course Switzerland.
Now Russia will be able to put back in service a modern equivalent to the pioneer,
The SS-20 was an excellent missile with a 5,000km range and three nuclear warheads, but it was 52 tons, which is pretty heavy.
A scramjet powered cruise missile, perhaps weighing 5-7 tons that operates at 40-50km altitude moving at 3-4km/s with four of five small nuclear warheads that can be released in flight with a glide kit and inertial navigation system to hit point targets a good distance off the flight path of the missile would be rather interesting really.
And relatively small and cheap and easy to mass produce...
One of the few "good" things Trump did - without even knowing it!
And no complaints from the EU.
I think it was Ironsightsniper who suggested a naval version of the Iskander for their new ships with anti ship versions. I dismissed the idea at the time because of course the west would complain about ballistic naval missiles that could easily be fitted to ground launchers... which is ironic because it is the US that has AEGIS Ashore missile launch systems that are naval vertical launch systems designed for land attack cruise missiles as well as SAMs.
Having a missile that can fly 2,000km and hit point targets with accuracy would actually be very useful and now land based missiles are no longer banned they could make a unified missile with two or three stages for ship or sub or ground launch and a one or two stage missile for air launch that flys high and fast and can hit point targets great distances away with very good accuracy and a decent warhead along with a bit of kinetic punch.
Hold on, Russia 'benefited' too. The US nuclear cruise missiles and Pershings were removed.
Most such missiles are operated by the US Navy and Air Force. The US Army does not have much of a record of theatre or strategic missile use.
The missiles of the navy and air force were not banned, only army weapons.
US and European strategic institutions are entwined. Their hegemony is symbiotic. British MI6, French DGSE & German BND have worked in total unison since the start of the Ukraine war.
European elites only pretend to be under the US’s thumb because it excuses their actions.
Taxpayers in the EU can tell who gives the orders every time they get their power bill... To say the US threw the EU under the bus is not accurate... the US gave the order and the EU jumped under the bus themselves.
Muricans fooled Russkie. While they physically destroyed hundreds of missiles, Muricans just dismantled them and kept warheads with delivery buses.
You give them too much credit. The hair trigger situation was just too dangerous and could have led to war by accident.
Getting rid of a whole category of weapons was a good idea at the time even if it was a bit one sided.
Now we are 700k dead after.
But it is a win for the US because it is 700K mostly Russians. (Soviets = Russians).
Those had "poor accuracy" by a reason of being nuclear only from the beginning. 150m circular error was just good enough for the task. Soviets never considered this weapon other than nuclear deterrence having multiple dedicated anti ship missile submarine carriers.
The important point is HATO is the enemy, so precision strikes to minimise civilian casualties makes no sense... the goal is max destruction of civil and military targets to force the enemy to sue for peace.
The Soviets had land based, naval, and air force cruise missiles... each different models with different performances... They were very much spoiled for choice... and accuracy levels were relatively low because they didn't really use terminal guidance, but as they were armed with nuke warheads that wasn't really an issue.
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