Iskander-M/K (SS-26 Stone):

The photo shows that these are ballistic trajectories with possible maneuvers in the terminal phase, etc. So it is more of a quasiballistic than a maneuvering missile.

If you are going to make a missile cheaper by making it simpler then removing all the secret stuff that goes on the Russian missile would be an obvious start.

In addition to making it cheaper they likely also likely also took the opportunity to look at ways of extending range and one of those options would be a simple ballistic modification to the flight profile to further extend range. It is normal to add a ballistic flight path to a missile to maximise range... in long range AAM for example.

New fuels and enlarging the solid rocket motor and changing the shape... the long nose of the Iskander is because it normally flys through the atmosphere so it needs to be aerodynamic at a mach 6-7 speed and 50-60km altitude, but if you are going to use it ballistically leaving the atmosphere then aerodynamic shape is not so important... that tiny side thruster Mir keeps showing is not for manouvering to evade air defences it will be to tip over the nose so the missile is pointing down as it flys over its parabolic flight path in space where no control surface would do anything. If they didn't have a small gas thruster in the rear to roll the missile over it would come down sideways and rip itself apart as the air got thicker.

The photo shows that these are ballistic trajectories with possible maneuvers in the terminal phase, etc. So it is more of a quasiballistic than a maneuvering missile.

During that ballistic phase outside the atmosphere the missile would be horribly vulnerable to interception by any missile system designed to intercept targets outside the atmosphere... and that includes THAAD and Patriot PAC-3 AFAIK.

That out of atmosphere flight portion would only be used to extend flight range and would likely extend the flight range beyond 500km which would be illegal under the INF treaty.

On the contrary, I actually believe that with the end of the INF Treaty and due to the Iskander's success during the SMO, the export version will very soon be similar to the "M" - if not already!

The west has violated a lot of very strict international agreements on the export of missiles... especially ATGM and MANPADS... which of course serves western purposes by limiting the amount of such weapons in the hands of the third world countries they invade and bully.

I suspect, considering the extreme cost of effective SAMs (and the current lack of decent SAMs) in the west that Russia might sell a couple of types of Iskander... a more capable, but more expensive model to defeat enemy air defences and a cheaper model to exploit the defeat of those defences and to hammer enemy targets more affordably.

And why wouldn't they?

All those missiles you mentioned above - and also the long range SM-6 can only intercept incoming ballistic missiles in the terminal/re-entry phase.

Well the claims made about the PAC-3 and THAAD vs the S-400 regarding the Indian market was that the American systems were hit to kill weapons and could hit targets outside the atmosphere, which made them superior we were told at the time.

Claims of interception altitudes up to 185km height were made for some western systems... if it wasn't THAAD then it could have been Aster.

SM-6 is a two stage mid course interceptor isn't it?

Otherwise basing them in Poland would be rather pointless because they wont be defending Poland from Russia attack, they were intended to intercept missiles heading to parts of the US where the missiles would fly across Europe to get there.

The US AEGIS based ABM system uses missiles that can intercept targets outside the atmosphere....

According to this Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_anti-ballistic_missile_systems

The US has THAAD (150km altitude) and SM-3 (1060km+), India has the Prithvi ADV Phase I (180km), and of course the GBI mid course interception missile.

The SM-3 is supposed to be used on AEGIS ships operating in the arctic, so that would be midcourse interception too.

The acronym THAAD = Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. It used to be "Theater".

And was developed specifically to defeat improved Scuds and their Tochka and Iskander replacements... but didn't anticipate a manouvering threat with the sensor equipment on board to detect incoming ARH equipped interceptor missiles.

INF does not count.

It doesn't count now, but for most of the operational life of the missile it was a requirement they had to follow.

But yes the outer space flight envelope will enable the missile to reach it's maximum range.

The outer space phase is totally predictable and easy to calculate and would allow interceptors to intercept the weapon as it enters the atmosphere before it can get full flight control and be able to evade interceptors.

There is nothing saying that the missile cannot perform evasive maneuvers in the exoatmospheric phase of flight. The missile could infact have a slow burning sustainer that takes over after the high energy fuel if burnt up. This would allow it to perform reasonable maneuvers outside the atmosphere.