Recently, articles have appeared in both foreign and domestic press about the possibility of excluding missile defense issues from the list of destabilizing factors in the strategic balance of Russia and the United States. In fact, this approach is consistent with the current American position: they say that the strategic missile defense (ABM) systems deployed by the United States do not pose any threat to Russia.
MOSCOW'S POSITION IS UNCHANGEABLE
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with Bloomberg on September 1, 2016, very clearly outlined the Russian position:
“We talked about the need to jointly resolve issues related to missile defense systems and maintain or modernize the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The United States unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty and launched an active construction of a strategic missile defense system, namely the strategic system as part of its strategic nuclear forces moved to the periphery, proceeded to the construction of positional areas in Romania and then in Poland.
Then, at the first stage, as you remember, they did it with reference to the Iranian nuclear threat, then they signed an agreement with Iran, including the United States, ratified it now, there is no threat, and the positional areas continue to be built.
The question is - against whom? We were then told: "We are not against you." And we answered: "But then we will improve our strike systems." And they answered us: "Do what you want, we will consider that it is not against us." This is what we do. Now we see that when something started to work out for us, our partners got worried, they say: “How is that? What's going on there? " Why was there such an answer in due time? Yes, because no one thought, probably, that we were able to do it.
In the early 2000s, against the background of the complete collapse of the military-industrial complex of Russia, against the background of, frankly, the low, to put it mildly, the combat capability of the Armed Forces, it never occurred to anyone that we were able to restore the combat potential of the Armed Forces and recreate the military-industrial complex. In our country, observers from the United States sat at our nuclear weapons factories, and that was the level of trust. And then these steps - one, second, third, fourth … We must somehow react to this. And they tell us all the time: "This is none of your business, this does not concern you, and this is not against you."
In this regard, it seems appropriate to recall the history of arms control negotiations in the field of missile defense. It is important to note that the problem of the relationship between offensive and defensive arms is fundamental, accompanying all negotiations on the reduction of strategic arms. And the first to raise the problem of missile defense at one time, surprisingly enough, were the Americans themselves."
BEGINNING OF NEGOTIATIONS ON THE LIMITATION OF STRATEGIC WEAPONS
According to Georgy Markovich Kornienko, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR in 1977-1986, who for a long time oversaw disarmament issues expressed in his book Cold War. Testimony of its participant ":" The impact of the Cuban missile crisis on further relations between the Soviet Union and the United States was controversial. To a certain extent, the crisis has spurred an arms race between them. As for the Soviet Union, the crisis has strengthened its leadership in an effort to achieve nuclear missile parity with the United States through an accelerated build-up of strategic arms. For it was clear that with the almost twentyfold advantage that the United States had in the field of strategic weapons at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, they were in control of the situation. And if not in this, then in some other case, under some other president, such a balance of forces could have more serious consequences for the Soviet Union than in the case of Cuba.
In this case, the Russian proverb "There is a silver lining" was confirmed. Faced with the nuclear threat, the leaders of both countries understood the need to take steps to reduce the likelihood of nuclear war.
It is clear that such changes in the mentality of the American and Soviet leaders, as well as their entourage, promised possible positive changes in policy and in its practical implementation. However, it was only by the end of 1966 that the US administration finally came to the conclusion that the time had come for serious negotiations with Moscow on the limitation of strategic arms. In December 1966, President Lyndon Johnson agreed to a proposal by his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, to ask Congress for funding for a missile defense system, but not spend it until "the idea of holding talks with Moscow has been sounded out."
McNamara's proposal concerned the Sentinel program, which he announced in 1963, which was supposed to provide protection against missile attacks on a large part of the continental United States. It was assumed that the missile defense system would be two-echelon, consisting of high-altitude, long-range interceptor missiles LIM-49A "Spartan" and interceptor missiles "Sprint", associated radars "PAR" and "MAR". Later, American leaders acknowledged a number of difficulties associated with this system.
It is also worth remembering here that work on missile defense in the USSR and the United States began at almost the same time - immediately after the Second World War. In 1945, the Anti-Fau project was launched in the USSR. To do this, at the VVA them. NOT. Zhukovsky, the Scientific Research Bureau of Special Equipment was created, headed by G. Mozharovsky, whose task was to study the possibility of countering ballistic missiles of the "V-2" type. Work in this direction did not stop and was carried out quite successfully, which subsequently made it possible to create a missile defense system around Moscow. The successes of the USSR in this area inspired Khrushchev to declare in 1961, in his usual manner, that "we have craftsmen who can get caught in a fly in space."
But back to the "source". US Ambassador to the USSR Lewellin Thompson was charged with conducting the probe. Johnson's letter of January 27, 1967, which Thompson brought to Moscow, did indeed contain a proposal to begin negotiations with a discussion of the ABM problem. Subsequently, due to the fact that the contents of the letter were made public in the American press, at a press conference on February 9, 1967, during Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin's visit to Great Britain, journalists began to bombard him with questions whether the USSR was ready to abandon the creation of a missile defense system in general or introduce any What are the restrictions on its deployment? Since the position in Moscow had not yet been formed, Kosygin gave evasive answers to journalists' questions, expressing the opinion that the main danger was offensive, not defensive weapons.
In the meantime, a more balanced formula was emerging in Moscow during the elaboration - to begin negotiations with the issue of missile defense. At the same time, a counter-proposal was put forward: to discuss simultaneously restrictions on both offensive and defensive systems of strategic weapons. And already on February 18, Thompson informed Kosygin about the readiness of the United States to conduct a dialogue. At the end of February, Kosygin's response to Johnson's letter confirmed the USSR government's agreement to begin negotiations on limiting offensive and defensive nuclear missiles.
The general precondition for the entry of the USSR and the United States into serious negotiations on the problem of limiting strategic arms was the realization by both sides of the danger of an uncontrolled race in such arms and its burdensomeness. At the same time, as noted by Kornienko, “each side had its own special incentive for such negotiations. The United States has a desire to prevent a situation when the Soviet Union, straining all its capabilities, would put pressure on the United States in some way, forcing them to adjust their programs beyond what they themselves planned. The USSR has fears of keeping up with the United States in the arms race because of its broader material and technological capabilities."
But even after the exchange of letters between Johnson and Kosygin, negotiations did not begin soon. The main reason for the delay was the unfavorable situation associated with the Vietnam War. One way or another, during the meeting between Kosygin and Johnson during the June session of the UN General Assembly, there was no serious discussion on strategic weapons. Johnson and McNamara, who was present at the conversation, again focused on missile defense. Kosygin said during the second conversation: "Apparently, first we need to set a specific task for the reduction of all armaments, including both defensive and offensive." After that, there was a long pause again - until 1968.
On June 28, 1968, in a report by Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, it was directly stated that the Soviet government was ready to discuss possible restrictions and subsequent reductions in strategic means of delivering nuclear weapons, both offensive and defensive, including anti-missiles. Following this, on July 1, a memorandum on this issue was handed over to the Americans. On the same day, President Johnson confirmed the willingness of the United States to enter into negotiations. As a result, in 1972, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Interim Agreement on Certain Measures in the Field of the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT-1) were signed.
The effectiveness of the Soviet-American negotiations on disarmament in the 1970s was facilitated by the fact that a special Politburo commission was created to monitor them and determine positions. It included D. F. Ustinov (at that time secretary of the Central Committee, chairman of the commission), A. A. Gromyko, A. A. Grechko, Yu. V. Andropov, L. V. Smirnov and M. V. Keldysh. Materials for consideration at the meetings of the commission were prepared by a working group made up of senior officials of the relevant departments.
The parties did not immediately realize the importance of signing the ABM Treaty. The understanding of the feasibility of actually abandoning missile defense, of course, was not easy for both sides to mature. In the United States, Defense Secretary McNamara and Secretary of State Rusk, and then President Johnson, came to understand the harmfulness of creating large-scale missile defense systems. This path was more thorny for us. According to Kornienko, expressed in the book "Through the Eyes of a Marshal and a Diplomat", only thanks to Academician M. V. Keldysh, to whose opinion L. I. Brezhnev and D. F. Ustinov, managed to convince the top political leadership of the promise of the idea of abandoning a wide missile defense system. As for Brezhnev, it seemed to him that he simply took on faith what Keldysh said, but never fully understood the essence of this problem.
The Treaty between the USSR and the United States on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems of May 26, 1972 took a special place among the Soviet-American arms control agreements - as a decisive factor in strategic stability.
SOY PROGRAM
The logic of the ABM Treaty seems to be simple - work on the creation, testing and deployment of a missile defense system is fraught with an endless nuclear arms race. According to it, each side refused to create a large-scale missile defense of its territory. The laws of logic are immutable. That is why the specified contract was concluded as an indefinite one.
With the coming to power of the Reagan administration, there was a departure from this understanding. In foreign policy, the principle of equality and equal security was excluded, and a course of power in relations with the Soviet Union was officially proclaimed. On March 23, 1983, US President Reagan announced the beginning of research work to study additional measures against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The implementation of these measures (placement of interceptors in space, etc.) was supposed to ensure the protection of the entire US territory. Thus, the Reagan administration, relying on American technological advantages, decided to achieve US military superiority over the USSR by placing weapons in space. "If we manage to create a system that makes Soviet weapons ineffective, we can return to the situation when the United States was the only country with nuclear weapons," - this is how US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger bluntly defined the goal of the American Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program …
But the ABM Treaty stood in the way of implementing the program, and the Americans began to shake it. Initially, Washington portrayed the case as if SDI was just a harmless research program that did not affect the ABM Treaty in any way. But for its practical implementation it was necessary to undertake another maneuver - and a "broad interpretation" of the ABM Treaty appeared.
The essence of this interpretation boiled down to the assertion that the prohibition provided by Article V of the treaty on the creation (development), testing and deployment of space and other types of mobile missile defense systems and components applies only to those missile defense components that existed at the time of the conclusion of the treaty and are listed in its article II (anti-missiles, launchers for them and certain types of radar). The missile defense systems and components created under the SDI program, being based on other physical principles, can, they say, be developed and tested without any restrictions, including in space, and only the question of the limits of their deployment would be subject to agreement between the parties. At the same time, references were made to one of the annexes to the Treaty, which mentions missile defense systems of this new type (Statement "D").
The legal inconsistency of this interpretation was based on an accurate reading of the text of the ABM Treaty. Its Article II has a clear definition: "For the purposes of this Treaty, a missile defense system is a system for combating strategic ballistic missiles or their elements on flight paths." Thus, this definition is functional in nature - we are talking about any system capable of hitting missiles.
This understanding was expounded by all US administrations, including Reagan's, in their annual reports to Congress until 1985 - until the mentioned "expansive interpretation" was invented in the dark corners of the Pentagon. As Kornienko points out, this interpretation was concocted at the Pentagon, in the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Richard Pearl, known for his pathological hatred of the Soviet Union. It was on his behalf that F. Kunsberg, a New York lawyer who until then had only dealt with the pornographic business and the mafia, having spent less than a week “studying” materials related to the ABM Treaty, made the “discovery” that was required to his customer. According to the Washington Post, when Kunsberg presented the results of his "research" to Pearl, the latter jumped for joy, so that he "nearly fell off his chair." This is the story of the illegitimate “broad interpretation” of the ABM Treaty.
Subsequently, the SDI program was curtailed due to technical and political difficulties, but it created fertile ground for further undermining the ABM Treaty.
LIQUIDATION OF THE KRASNOYARSK RADAR STATION
One cannot but give credit to the Americans for the fact that they always toughly defend their national interests. This also applied to the USSR's implementation of the ABM Treaty. In July-August 1983, US intelligence services discovered that a large radar station was being built in the Abalakovo area near Krasnoyarsk, about 800 kilometers from the USSR state border.
In 1987, the United States declared that the USSR had violated the ABM Treaty, according to which such stations could be located only along the perimeter of the national territory. Geographically, the station was not actually located on the perimeter, as could be interpreted under the Treaty, and this gave rise to thinking about using it as a radar for an on-site missile defense. In the Union, such a single object in accordance with the Treaty was Moscow.
In response to American claims, the Soviet Union stated that the OS-3 node was intended for space surveillance, not for early warning of a missile attack, and therefore compatible with the ABM Treaty. In addition, even earlier it was known about a serious violation of the Treaty by the United States, which deployed its radars in Greenland (Thule) and Great Britain (Faylingdales) - by and large, far beyond the national territory.
On September 4, 1987, the station was inspected by a group of American specialists. As of January 1, 1987, the construction of the technological premises of the radar station was completed, installation and commissioning work began; construction costs amounted to 203.6 million rubles, for the purchase of technological equipment - 131.3 million rubles.
The inspectors were shown the entire facility, answered all questions, and were even allowed to take photographs on two floors of the transmission center, where there was no technological equipment. As a result of the inspection, they reported to the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the US Congress that "the likelihood of using the Krasnoyarsk station as a missile defense radar is extremely low."
The Americans regarded this openness of ours as an "unprecedented" case, and their report provided trump cards for the Soviet negotiators on this topic.
However, at a meeting between USSR Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and US Secretary of State James Baker in Wyoming on September 22-23, 1989, it was announced that the Soviet leadership agreed to liquidate the Krasnoyarsk radar station without preconditions. Subsequently, in his speech to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on October 23, 1989, Shevardnadze, touching upon the issue of the Krasnoyarsk radar station, argued this as follows: “For four years we dealt with this station. We were accused of being a violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The whole truth was not immediately known to the country's leadership."
According to him, it turns out that the leadership of the USSR did not know about a possible violation before that. A refutation on this fact is given by Kornienko in his memoirs, claiming that “Shevardnadze simply told a lie. I myself reported to him the true story of the Krasnoyarsk radar station back in September 1985, before traveling to the United States, while giving the assistant minister the number of the official document for 1979 on this issue. He also reveals the true essence of the document. The decision to build a radar station - a missile attack warning system in the Krasnoyarsk region, and not much further north, in the Norilsk region (which would be consistent with the ABM Treaty), was made by the country's leadership for reasons of saving funds for its construction and operation. At the same time, the opinion of the General Staff leadership, recorded in the document, that the construction of this radar station in the Krasnoyarsk region would give the United States formal grounds to accuse the USSR of violating the ABM treaty, was ignored. An important argument of the supporters of such a decision was that the United States also acted in violation of the Treaty, deploying similar radars in Greenland and Great Britain, that is, outside of its national territory altogether.
In 1990, the dismantling of the radar began, the costs of which were estimated at over 50 million rubles. Only for the removal of the equipment 1600 wagons were required, several thousand machine trips were made to the loading station of Abalakovo.
Thus, the easiest decision was made, which did not require any efforts in upholding national interests - Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze simply sacrificed the Krasnoyarsk radar station and did not condition this on similar actions by the United States with respect to their radar stations in Greenland and Great Britain. In this regard, Kornienko emphasizes that a very apt assessment of Shevardnadze's line of conduct was given by the New York Times shortly after he left his post. "The American negotiators," the newspaper wrote, "admit that they were spoiled in the days when the very helpful Mr. Shevardnadze was foreign minister and every controversial issue seemed to be resolved in such a way that the Soviets were 80% behind and the Americans 20% behind." …
WITHDRAWAL FROM THE PROGRAM AGREEMENT
In 1985, for the first time, it was announced that the USSR was ready to go for a 50% mutual reduction in nuclear weapons. All subsequent Soviet-American negotiations on the development of the Treaty on the Limitation and Reduction of Strategic Offensive Arms (START-1) were conducted in conjunction with the ABM Treaty.
In the memoirs of the Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Fedorovich Akhromeev, it is indicated that "precisely on the basis of such a firm linkage of the forthcoming strategic offensive arms reductions with the fulfillment by both parties of the 1972 ABM Treaty, Defense Minister Sergei Leonidovich Sokolov and the Chief of the General Staff then agreed to such significant changes in our position." …
And here I found a scythe on a stone. As a result, the Soviet side hardly managed to fix in the START I Treaty the inviolability of preserving the ABM Treaty only in the form of a unilateral statement.
The mood of the Americans for an early breakdown of strategic parity intensified even more after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1992, the first year in office of President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, the START II Treaty was signed. This treaty provided for the elimination of all ICBMs with MIRVs, which in the USSR formed the basis of the strategic nuclear potential, and the subsequent ban on the creation, production and deployment of such missiles. The total number of nuclear warheads on all strategic delivery vehicles of both sides also decreased by three times. In response to the US withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty, Russia withdrew from START II, which was subsequently replaced by the SOR Treaty of May 24, 2002.
So, the Americans went step by step towards their intended goal. Moreover, the threat of the post-Soviet nuclear potential began to be perceived by the United States at a minimal level. Zbigniew Bzezhinski in his book Choice. World Dominance or Global Leadership”highlights that Russian missiles“have come to the attention of US weapons dismantling services as the US has begun providing money and techniques to secure the safe storage of the once dreaded Soviet nuclear warheads. The transformation of the Soviet nuclear potential into an object maintained by the American defense system testified to the extent to which the elimination of the Soviet threat had become a fait accompli.
The disappearance of the Soviet challenge, which coincided with an impressive demonstration of the capabilities of modern American military technology during the Gulf War, naturally led to the restoration of public confidence in America's unique power.” After the "victory" in the Cold War, America felt once again invulnerable and, moreover, possessing global political power. And in American society, an opinion about the exclusiveness of America has been formed, as the last US presidents have repeatedly stated. "A city on top of a mountain cannot hide."(The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5).
The previously concluded ABM Treaty and START agreements were a recognition of the fact that after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Americans realized overwhelmingly that America's security in the nuclear age is no longer solely in their hands. Therefore, in order to ensure equal security, it was necessary to negotiate with a dangerous adversary, who was also imbued with an understanding of mutual vulnerability.
The question of the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty accelerated after 9/11, when the Twin Towers in New York were attacked by air. On this wave of public opinion, first the Bill Clinton administration and then George W. Bush's administration began work on the creation of a national missile defense system to address concerns, mainly, as it was stated, the threat of attack from "rogue states" such as Iran or North Korea. In addition, the merits of missile defense have been championed by stakeholders in the aerospace industry. Technically innovative defensive systems designed to eliminate the harsh reality of mutual vulnerability looked by definition an attractive and timely solution.
In December 2001, US President George W. Bush announced his withdrawal (six months later) from the ABM Treaty, and thus the last obstacle was removed. Thus, America got out of the established order, creating a situation reminiscent of a "one-sided game", when the opposite gate, due to the strong defense and weakness of the enemy, which does not have an offensive potential, is completely impenetrable. But with this decision, the United States again unwound the flywheel of the strategic arms race.
In 2010, the START-3 Treaty was signed. Russia and the United States are cutting nuclear warheads by one third and strategic delivery vehicles by more than two times. At the same time, in the course of its conclusion and ratification, the United States took all measures to remove any obstacles standing in the way of creating an "impenetrable" global missile defense system.
Most of the traditional dilemmas of the 20th century have remained unchanged in the 21st century. The power factor is still one of the decisive factors in international politics. True, they are undergoing qualitative changes. After the end of the Cold War, a victorious paternalistic approach to relations with Russia prevailed in the United States and in the West as a whole. This approach meant inequality of the parties, and relations were built depending on the extent to which Russia is ready to follow in the wake of the United States in foreign affairs. The situation was aggravated by the fact that for many years such a line of the West did not meet with opposition from Moscow. But Russia got up from its knees and reasserted itself as a great world power, restored the defense industry complex and the power of the Armed Forces and, finally, spoke with its own voice in international affairs, insisting on maintaining military and political balance as a prerequisite for security in the world.
