INF Treaty - coming to the end of its life

US Officials Say Russia Violating Missile Treaty – Report


WASHINGTON, July 1 (RIA Novosti) – US intelligence officials believe Russia is violating a Soviet-era arms-control treaty with the United States by building a new medium-range missile banned under the agreement, a conservative US website reported.

US intelligence officials believe the missile, which the Russian Defense Ministry describes as a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), is actually a medium-range missile that puts Russia in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) concluded between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

“The intelligence community believes it’s an intermediate-range missile that [the Russians] have classified as an ICBM because it would violate the INF treaty,” the conservative website cited one official as saying.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced earlier this month that it successfully tested a prototype of a new solid-fuel ICBM that is expected to replace the Topol-M and Yars missiles in the future.

The missile was fired from a mobile launcher at the Kapustin Yar testing range in the Astrakhan region and hit its designated target at the Sary Shagan testing range in Kazakhstan, the ministry said.

US intelligence officials said that according to internal assessments, the new missile that Russia tested earlier this month was an INF missile with a range of less than 3,418 miles (5,500 kilometers), the Free Beacon reported.

Victor Yesin, consultant to Russia’s chief of the general staff, told the website that the missile “is a Topol class ICBM, is not covered by the INF Treaty as its range is over 5,500 kilometers,” the website reported.

“Russia officially informed the US about that in August 2011,” Yesin, a former commander of Russia’s strategic forces, was quoted by the Free Beacon as saying.
The website noted an April 12 letter that two US Congressmen wrote to President Barack Obama in which they expressed concerns over “a massive Russian violation and circumvention of an arms control obligation to the United States of great significance to this nation and its NATO allies.”

The Republican authors, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon and Rep. Mike Rogers, did not specify the alleged violation in question but told Obama that Senate Intelligence Committee members had previously expressed their concern about “clear examples of Russia’s noncompliance with its arms control obligations.”
The Soviet Union and the United States signed the INF Treaty on December 8, 1987. The agreement came into force in June 1988 and does not have a specific duration.

The INF treaty banned nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles (500 to 5,500 kilometers). By the treaty's deadline of June 1, 1991, a total of 2,692 such weapons had been destroyed, 846 by the US and 1,846 by the Soviet Union.

LINK

and another Treaty Cheating

"The Washington Free Beacon" is that a joke, Izvestia is a more reliable source.  

Kinda seems to me like replacing an aging ICBM arsenal is a much more logical move for Russia than "maybe possibly" testing an IRBM.

Russia should pull out of MTCR as well.

Take the third stage of all of the US ICBMs and they are illegal IRBMs too... the sky is falling the sky is falling.

Besides I suspect the action Russia should take is hunt through its intel services and find out who might have been a whistle blower and arrest them and put them in jail for revealing this secret that is harmful to Russia...  

This is why US belives new ICBM is actually IRBM



LINK

On the other hand Dimi on his blog writes that this truck might be the new carrier of IRBM Frontier



LINK

8 x 8 wheels - ICBM (Topol/Topol-M)
6 x 6 wheels - IRBM (Frontier ??)
4 x 4 wheels - SRBM (Iskander)

8 x 8 wheels - ICBM (Topol/Topol-M)
6 x 6 wheels - IRBM (Frontier ??)
4 x 4 wheels - SRBM (Iskander)

Topol is 16 x 16.
The photo above shows the Frontier is at least 12 x X probably 12 x 12.

And Iskander is 8 x 8.

Note the number x number description of a vehicle says how many wheels the vehicle has (the first number) and how many of those wheels are powered (the second number).

So a normal car is generally a 4 x 2 with 4 wheels and the two front wheels or two back wheels powered. A 4 wheel drive car like a Jeep is a 4 x 4.

Should point out that the biggest factor regarding the US ABM system in Europe will be the Russian Naval introduction of the UKSK launchers on all their new vessels as the number and type of land attack cruise missiles the Russians will field will grow exponentially over the next decade or so.

................number and type of land attack cruise missiles the Russians will field will grow exponentially over the next decade or so.

No statement was more on the mark.


http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20130705/182076980/Russia-to-Field-30-Times-More-Cruise-Missiles-by-2020.html

And what is critical is that like the ABM system by 2020 the missiles being fitted to those tubes could be rather different from the missiles they could fit today... including hypersonic...

Europe is no longer a threat so that is not needed. The real threat is China where it could see use. Half the population is within range of this weapons class, so we could focus most ICBM on the US and IRBM on China.

Europe continues to act against Russia and treat Russia like an enemy... having weapons pointed at them will continue to be useful for Russia till that changes.

China is no more a threat than it ever was IMHO... a war against Russia would be a US wet dream and they would love to see it happen because it would remove two serious problems from their little problem book in one stroke... the amusing question is which horse would the US back in such a conflict?

There would be benefits to backing both sides... they traditionally back anyone against Russia including Afghans and Al Quada, but in this case China is probably the biggest economic threat to the US and backing Russia against China would be a good way to cancel all their debt owned by China and move western companies back to the US to get their economy going again.

Of course a snake might change its skin but it is still a snake and would naturally back anyone that is fighting Russia.

Very interesting text and point of vieew

Does Russia need medium-range missiles

President Putin ends Russia/NATO ABM cooperation

magnumcromagnon wrote:

GarryB wrote:They are looking at using trains because the problems for the US in finding specific trains on specific lines would be incredibly difficult as there will be tens of millions of train carriages they would have to examine to keep a track of them all and those train carriages will be moving constantly.

In comparison fixed silos, fixed strategic bomber air fields, and fixed submarine bases and fixed bases for truck based missiles would be much easier to monitor.

Later they should withdraw from the INF treaty and fit long range cruise missiles and theatre range ballistic missiles in standard shipping crates as carried in enormous numbers on ships, trucks and trains....

IMO this may sound controversial but Russia should withdraw from virtually all nuclear treaties due to the fact that NATO is an aggressive force that makes up not just 1 nuclear power (America), but 3 including Britain and France. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the INF treaty doesn't apply to France or Britain, and Russia's long term nuclear ally "India" has been passive in the ABM mess. If the INF treaties do not cover all of NATO than it's a waste of time to sign in to it, and the only nuclear ally of Russia that has stepped up to take the plate and voice concern and protest against NATO's expansion of ABM bases has been China.

Agreed, the INF treaty is pretty much useless for Russia and in some respects puts there national security at risk, i don't believe they should leave all nuclear treaties for relatively obvious reasons, but instead they should withdraw from those that are counter productive or irrelevant in todays world like the INF treaty.

Also the range restriction on exported missiles (~300km) isn't going to save any country from a US, UK, French or hell NATO led assault, if the US can't export missiles over 300km then they'll (the US) just let the UK or France export it instead, the treaty has already been bypassed and only serves to assist the west in there expansion, it would be in Russia's best interest and that of its allies/costumers to leave the INF treaty.

As  for the US global ABM shield we can only hope that this won't end up like the END WAR scenario as foreseen by the now late Tom Clancy.

AlfaT8 wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

GarryB wrote:They are looking at using trains because the problems for the US in finding specific trains on specific lines would be incredibly difficult as there will be tens of millions of train carriages they would have to examine to keep a track of them all and those train carriages will be moving constantly.

In comparison fixed silos, fixed strategic bomber air fields, and fixed submarine bases and fixed bases for truck based missiles would be much easier to monitor.

Later they should withdraw from the INF treaty and fit long range cruise missiles and theatre range ballistic missiles in standard shipping crates as carried in enormous numbers on ships, trucks and trains....

IMO this may sound controversial but Russia should withdraw from virtually all nuclear treaties due to the fact that NATO is an aggressive force that makes up not just 1 nuclear power (America), but 3 including Britain and France. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the INF treaty doesn't apply to France or Britain, and Russia's long term nuclear ally "India" has been passive in the ABM mess. If the INF treaties do not cover all of NATO than it's a waste of time to sign in to it, and the only nuclear ally of Russia that has stepped up to take the plate and voice concern and protest against NATO's expansion of ABM bases has been China.

Agreed, the INF treaty is pretty much useless for Russia and in some respects puts there national security at risk, i don't believe they should leave all nuclear treaties for relatively obvious reasons, but instead they should withdraw from those that are counter productive or irrelevant in todays world like the INF treaty.

Also the range restriction on exported missiles (~300km) isn't going to save any country from a US, UK, French or hell NATO led assault, if the US can't export missiles over 300km then they'll (the US) just let the UK or France export it instead, the treaty has already been bypassed and only serves to assist the west in there expansion, it would be in Russia's best interest and that of its allies/costumers to leave the INF treaty.

As  for the US global ABM shield we can only hope that this won't end up like the END WAR scenario as foreseen by the now late Tom Clancy.

May'be Russia should stay in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, but then pull out of all INF treaties due to the fact the only NATO nuclear member affected by it is America, while Britain and France will not be affected at all.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

May'be Russia should stay in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, but then pull out of all INF treaties due to the fact the only NATO nuclear member affected by it is America, while Britain and France will not be affected at all.

Russia shouldnt retreat at all ,and should try to keep as many as possible old agreements , quit INF will hurt Russia most.
USA is seperated by oceans ,medium range missiles wont hurt it , but partialy landlocked Russia it will ,poland, baltic countries and other need just a 1000-2000km missile and boom there goes Moscow or Sankt Petersburg.

Those agreements were signed when Russia had much more power (as USSR) , and its USA interest to whitdraw or rewrite them in its favour.

As for the train ICBM its a poore idea ,and it actualy shows how little confidence Russia has into 2 of its forces of nuclear triade for a secondary capability .

Its naval and airforce second strike forces are weak and vulnerable.

So its why it needs army to carry secondary nuclear strike capability on its shoulders ,or the army is pushing it as its the case with new heavy ICBM project.

But its a wrong move and blown money , putting that money into new submarine and bomber forces would be much more productive then a cold war relict icbm train.
Better dolgoruky-2 subs  in greater numbers with working missiles , and new pak-da bomber (if its supersonic , if its subsonic then more pak-da and more tu-160) ,would be the right move.

navyfield wrote:
Russia shouldnt retreat at all ,and should try to keep as many as possible old agreements , quit INF will hurt Russia most.
USA is seperated by oceans ,medium range missiles wont hurt it , but partialy landlocked Russia it will ,poland, baltic countries and other need just a 1000-2000km missile and boom there goes Moscow or Sankt Petersburg.

haha, they should actually retreat asap, as it stands they can only use icbms for murica, eurp and chi. if they withdraw, the latter 2 would be covered by irbms and the first with all icmbs.

navyfield wrote:
As for the train ICBM its a poore idea ,and it actualy shows how little confidence Russia has into 2 of its forces of nuclear triade for a secondary capability .

Its naval and airforce second strike forces are weak and vulnerable.

So its why it needs army to carry secondary nuclear strike capability on its shoulders ,or the army is pushing it as its the case with new heavy ICBM project.

But its a wrong move and blown money , putting that money into new submarine and bomber forces would be much more productive then a cold war relict icbm train.
Better dolgoruky-2 subs  in greater numbers with working missiles , and new pak-da bomber (if its supersonic , if its subsonic then more pak-da and more tu-160) ,would be the right move.

wrong, its naval and airforce second strike capabilities are nowhere near as vulnerable as muricas. They might even be the best, considering the boomers are becoming more and more state of the art and the aircraft with nukes dont have to enter the enemies airspace to launch their payloads.
Also, putting some of these nukes in trains would make for delicious irony. eur and chi would actually be paying part of the infrastructure for these trains and if war ever happens they would be playing wack a mole with their own cargoes.  

Navyfield apparently does not get Russia does not care about the US using shorter range missiles.

The concern is China.

So yes, useless treaties should absolutely be withdrawn from.

navyfield wrote:USA is seperated by oceans ,medium range missiles wont hurt it .....

 

   

Last time a similar situation arisen - the famous "IRBM crysis" of '80 years- NATO was literally trapped in the most dark of the strategic corners possible and was grossly attempting ,with almost improvised as militarily inconsistent strategic counter-moves (to the edge of the comical) to bring URSS to the negotiating table.

At the time only the totally unexplicable unilateral aid offered by the initiative of M. Gorbachev (someone ,today, could even say to the limits of the betrayal.....) saved NATO from fall in an horrible spiral of immensely costly countermeasure to attempt to exit from that near-checkmate situation.

Just for your information by 1987 , of the 650 mobile systems deployed, more than 160 Пионер/Пионер-УТТХ ,each with 3 150 Kt MIRV payload, was positioned in the Far East Region and directly aimed at US continental soil and easily capable to obliterate in a matter of less than 40 minutes the bulk of US industrial and military infrastructures from Alaska up to Chicago (main ports, C4 bases, main airfields , radar installations, strategic commands etc...).

NATO was ,in the field, not only technically at prehistoric level ,in comparison, and incapable to deploy anything of even only by far in the same league, but was also light years behind in the design of air defense systems capable to effectively deal with similar menaces.



"USA is seperated by oceans ,medium range missiles wont hurt it".....oh yes, yes sure     

Russia shouldnt retreat at all ,and should try to keep as many as possible old agreements , quit INF will hurt Russia most.
USA is seperated by oceans ,medium range missiles wont hurt it , but partialy landlocked Russia it will ,poland, baltic countries and other need just a 1000-2000km missile and boom there goes Moscow or Sankt Petersburg.

You keep thinking about Russia vs the US, but Russia has rather more targets than just the US.

IRBMs would be very useful for Russia to target China, Japan, the EU, the Middle East etc... right now they have to use ICBMs which is very inefficient and expensive and more importantly there are limits to how many ICBMs they can have and where they can have them.

There is nothing to stop EU countries developing and deploying IRBMs if they want to.

IRBMs would be able to be stopped by S-400 and Vityaz and S-300V4. Only S-500 will be able to deal with longer ranged weapons.

Those agreements were signed when Russia had much more power (as USSR) , and its USA interest to whitdraw or rewrite them in its favour.

Rubbish. The INF treaty cost the Soviets thousands of very good missiles... SS-21, SS-20, SS-23, were all lost.

As for the train ICBM its a poore idea ,and it actualy shows how little confidence Russia has into 2 of its forces of nuclear triade for a secondary capability .

Excellent logic there... I guess that means the UK has the best strategic forces as it only has SSBNs, while the US can't rely on its ICBMs or SLBMs and has to have a strategic bomber fleet too.

So its why it needs army to carry secondary nuclear strike capability on its shoulders ,or the army is pushing it as its the case with new heavy ICBM project.

What has the Russian Army to do with this?

The Iskander is a Tactical weapon.

Strategic nuclear forces are not handled by the Russian Army.

But its a wrong move and blown money , putting that money into new submarine and bomber forces would be much more productive then a cold war relict icbm train.

I would actually say the opposite... new materials and designs means new rail launched ICBMs or IRBMs could be made to be very cheap and very mobile... compare Iskander to Scud.

The problem of tracking all the rail traffic in Russia will be an excellent conundrum for the US to solve... I am sure their solution will be gold plated and very expensive...   

Better dolgoruky-2 subs in greater numbers with working missiles , and new pak-da bomber (if its supersonic , if its subsonic then more pak-da and more tu-160) ,would be the right move.

There wont be more Tu-160s... SSBNs are limited by treaty in platform numbers and cost rather more than any train.

TR1 wrote:Navyfield apparently does not get Russia does not care about the US using shorter range missiles.

The concern is China.

So yes, useless treaties should absolutely be withdrawn from.

The concern is not China at all, but in fact NATO. Don't allow yourself to be a pawn in a greater game, the people who are advocating "Evil Red China" as a threat to Russia is not even the Russian MOD itself but in fact "Mr. Afghan War" himself Zbigniew Brzezinski, Andrew "Yoda" Marshall, the Rand Corporation, NATO, the British Foreign Office, and the Pentagon.

Andrew "Yoda" Marshall of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment has a front group called the "Defense Science Board" which was created in response to China's anti-satellite missile test in 2007. The Defense Science Board authored a study called "The Great Siberian War of 2030":

http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/International_security_affairs/china/09-F-0759theGreatSiberianWarOf2030.pdf

...In actuality since the 1960's the Pentagon's main goal in Asia was to foster,foment, and instigate war between Russia and China. Hell the late Tom Clancy who would get interviews with top Neo-Con think thanks, Pentagon study groups, and officials for inspiration for his books, wrote one book in particular called "The Bear and the Dragon" which sounds similar to the Great Siberian War of 2030:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bear_and_the_Dragon

...Now time to answer the question at hand, since when did the Pentagon all of sudden care for the well-being of the Russian diaspora? Obviously that's a sick joke, the Pentagon doesn't care about the Russian diaspora at all! The guy who runs the Office of Net Assessment is not Yoda, the so called "Futurologist" is actually a guy who loves creating self-fulfilling prophecies; he should go by the new moniker: Andrew "Senator Palpatine" Marshall...




If China was really the threat than why would the Russian MOD work with the PRC on missile defense? According to Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov "Our dialogue with China on missile defense is very important, our colleagues from the People’s Republic of China have the same concerns on US global missile defense plans."

http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/709553


It's not just America that want's to spread it's nuclear influence in Europe, but France a non-signator of the INF treaty wants in on all the nuclear sharing action. In September 2007 the French president Nicolas Sarkozy offered Germany to participate in the control over the French nuclear arsenal. Chancellor Merkel and foreign minister Steinmeier declined the offer however, stating that Germany "had no interest in possessing nuclear weapons":

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/ueberraschender-vorstoss-sarkozy-bot-deutschland-atomwaffen-an-a-505887.html


...So the issue isn't China at all, but the NATO aggressor force.

magnumcromagnon wrote:The concern is not China at all, but in fact NATO.

Well , both of you are right , so to speak. The problem is when it comes to military it`s not intention what counts but capabilities. If Chinese develop their IRBM force and Russian cannot because of INF , than that is an issue. While you`re right , that NATO is primary adversary for Russian Federation.

zg18 wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:The concern is not China at all, but in fact NATO.

Well , both of you are right , so to speak. The problem is when it comes to military it`s not intention what counts but capabilities. If Chinese develop their IRBM force and Russian cannot because of INF , than that is an issue. While you`re right , that NATO is primary adversary for Russian Federation.

...Of course the mission of your armed forces is to be prepared to fight anyone, at any time even China, however the people who advocating war between Russia and China, are not Russian nor are they Chinese, they're Pentagonese and NATOnese.

magnumcromagnon wrote:...Of course the mission of your armed forces is to be prepared to fight anyone, at any time even China, however the people who advocating war between Russia and China, are not Russian nor are they Chinese, they're Pentagonese and NATOnese.

Because this people are mostly stupid , Siberia and Russian Far East have larger population than Canada. And that there is a tiny belt where people can live in greater numbers (like in Canada).

For China , if it can buy all energy and resources , great , it`s cheaper than risk utter devastation. And secondly , Russia isn`t only buffer for Europe when it comes to China , but also vice versa. Russia is the reason why China will never get fully encircled and cut off from supplies and commodities.

Hahaha the word is out in the opet for lunatic mass media to pick it up   

U.S. Says Russia Tested Missile, Despite Treaty