The MiG-31B / BM of the Air Defense Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan will become a very important air component of the Unified Regional Air Defense of Russia and Kazakhstan, and in the future, the Unified ABM of the SCO on the Central Asian air force. Now heavy long-range interceptors are being upgraded to the modification of the "BM", thanks to which one air regiment of 32 "Foxhounds" will be able to simultaneously destroy from 120 to 180 enemy cruise missiles
Just like the European Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a very complex, dynamic and contradictory organization in many political and economic issues. Its structure is based both on close foreign policy, economic and military-strategic interaction between the countries of the "Shanghai Five", most of which, in addition to the PRC, are members of the CSTO, and on the presence of "problematic" participants who "with open arms" accept NATO strategies and concepts of confrontation with other states that the United States and the alliance dislike. Such a difficult situation is observed today in the intraorganizational relations of India with Pakistan and China, where the former even manages to conduct the Malabar naval exercises with the American fleet, directed against the theoretically partnering Celestial Empire. The same picture is observed in the EU / NATO on the example of the strained relations between Greece and Turkey due to the Aegean dispute, as well as on the converging positions of Greece and Russia on many important geopolitical issues. But if the CSTO, the EU and NATO are more or less established and "mature" organizations, then the SCO, due to the presence of poorly predictable Pakistan and India, has a rather "raw" background that should be taken into account in any forecasting work regarding the development prospects of this organization.
Today, taking into account all of the above, we will try to analyze the statements of Russian experts regarding the formation by the main SCO participants (Russia and China) of a single missile defense system of the organization's member states. A discussion on this difficult issue took place on July 18 at the international media center of the MIA "Russia Today", where the main topic of discussion was the US-South Korean agreement on the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile defense complex in the Republic of Korea. For several years, the American side has tried to convince the Russian Federation and the PRC that the complex is designed to protect Seoul from a missile threat from North Korea. But the appearance of the largest American base in the Far East in Pyeongtaek, as well as the increase in the presence of unmanned strategic intelligence agents "Global Hawk" at Japanese airbases indicates that the version with only North Korea is ruled out. In fact, along all the eastern maritime borders of China and Russia in the Pacific air direction from Japan to the Philippines, a powerful anti-missile barrier is being erected in the form of several THAAD complexes, several dozen more long-range and high-altitude Aegis systems based on Japanese and American Arley-type EMs. Burke "," Congo "and" Atago ", as well as the Patriot PAC-3 territorial missile defense system, which will provide cover for American naval and air forces in Kazakhstan, Japan, the Philippines and Guam.
The same destroyers, equipped with the Mk41 UVPU, are carriers of hundreds of Tomahawk and SM-6 ERAM missiles with the possibility of hitting surface targets along a ballistic trajectory, which creates great risks for the Russian Pacific Fleet and the Chinese Navy in the event of an aggravation of the situation in the Asia-Pacific region. This prompted thinking about endowing the SCO with the features of a military-political alliance aimed at containing the US Armed Forces in the main strategic directions. But a full-fledged missile defense system within the SCO is highly dependent on the differing foreign policy preferences of its members. In the Pacific area, the formation of the missile defense "umbrella" will be carried out by the Russian Aerospace Forces, as well as the Chinese Navy and Air Force, which have the best missile defense systems in the SCO, in other areas the situation will be different.
INDIA AND PAKISTAN OUT OF THE "GAME"
The promising projects of the 5th generation FGFA (Project 79L) fighter, the BrahMos multipurpose supersonic missile, as well as the Su-30MKI modernization program to the Super Sukhoi modification (envisaging equipping the radar with AFAR) are not an indicator that the Indian Ministry of Defense will ever or it will use its army's air defenses to deter US air attack weapons in favor of the SCO. The contract for the supply of the S-400 Triumph to the Indians will not help either, because who, if not the Americans, help Delhi to maintain military parity with the PRC in the Indian Ocean. And for this reason, the inclusion of this growing superpower in a single SCO missile defense system is out of the question. India will remain an excellent strategic partner for us exclusively in terms of purchasing new technologies for the military-technical and aerospace sectors.
With Pakistan, things are similar, but also with complications. For several decades, the territory and airspace of Pakistan has been used by American reconnaissance and fighter aircraft: first for conducting high-altitude reconnaissance flights over strategic military installations of the USSR, now to fight the Taliban and other terrorist organizations. In a similar way, Pakistani airspace can be used to conduct electronic reconnaissance of Russian military facilities in the southern states of the CSTO (Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan). Also, due to the impossibility of forming a SCO missile defense position area in Pakistan, the number of launch points for American strategic cruise missiles of the AGM-86B ALCM type in the CSTO states, including the Russian Federation, will increase. This is despite the fact that Islamabad has close and stable military-technical cooperation with China, based on similar anti-Indian sentiments. Pakistan and India are a clear example of Asian states that are economically and even politically oriented towards the West, but do not isolate themselves from the desire to master as many modern Russian military technologies as possible.
"OBSERVER" WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT TO THE PARTICIPANTS
As mentioned above, it is absolutely pointless to count on India and Pakistan as participants in the joint missile defense system of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which cannot be said about such an observer state as the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is the only regional superpower in Western Asia, which is the main geostrategic counterbalance to the "Arabian coalition", the United States and Israel, and without much hesitation can be ranked among the countries-allies of Russia in the issues of curbing the likely aggression of the West against our state. Despite the fact that Iran is not a member of either the CSTO or the SCO, the anti-American rhetoric of the country's top officials and the real military-tactical actions of its Armed Forces show further steps in setting priorities for interaction.
Now the 48N6E2 SAM is being supplied for 5 divisions of the S-300PMU-2 air defense system of the Iranian Air Force. The deployment of these complexes around the strategic nuclear energy and military industry facilities of Iran will not only protect the defense capability of the developing country, but also form an additional VKO line with a length of about 1200 - 1500 km, covering a large section of the southern air route of Russia, which previously represented a huge uncontrollable gap with a difficult aircraft A-50U mountainous terrain. In addition, thanks to Chinese and Russian specialists, Iran is almost the only country in the region (except Israel and Saudi Arabia) with a modern highly computerized air defense headquarters of a network-centric model, where information about all air objects detected by surveyors is collected, analyzed and systematized. and multifunctional air defense system radars, RTR radar systems and radar systems for missile attack warning systems of the "Gadir" type, the first prototype of which took up combat duty in the province of Khuzestan, near the Iranian-Iraqi border.
With almost a 100% certainty, we can say that if the US Navy ever gives an order to "break through" our air force from the southern air direction, the first line of information warning and confrontation with their air force will be precisely the perfectly prepared air defense -PRO Iran.
In the photo, the F-14A "Tomcat" of the Iranian Air Force is escorting a Russian strategic bomber-missile carrier in its own and Syrian airspace at the time of the MRAU on the military infrastructure of ISIS. Despite 40 years of service in Iran, "Tomkats" are being updated, receiving "air" versions of the MIM-23B missiles. The AN / AWG-9 radar provides good AWACS capabilities, but no more than 200-300 km. For effective operations of the S-300PMU-2 divisions in mountainous terrain, Iran needs at least 3 A-50U boards
In the Central Asian part of the southern air route, the air defense systems of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, which are part of the CSTO structure, should be responsible for a single SCO missile defense system. But at the moment, only Kazakhstan has a decent air defense-missile defense system in the region: about 20 operational divisions of the S-300PS air defense missile systems and several early S-300Ps are in service with the Air Defense Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan. These complexes are quite enough to protect the entire length of the southern borders of the state from various air attack weapons approaching from the southern direction. But here not everything is as smooth as we would like. Now, in the 21st century, the S-300PS no longer fully corresponds to the level of modern threats from aerospace: the maximum speed of targets hit is only 4,700 km / h, and the cruising speeds of promising US hypersonic aircraft are already exceeding 5-7 thousand km / h And the minimum RCS of an intercepted target for the S-300PS is 0.05 m2, which is more than that of modern stealth combat equipment. All Kazakh "PSs" urgently must be brought to the level of "PM1", and no one even started talking about such plans. The Republic of Kazakhstan has long been in need of such systems as the S-300VM Antey-2500 and S-400, otherwise we will observe the "weakened place" of the southern VN for several more years.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are even more in dire need of modern air defense systems. These states are the front line of defense of the CSTO. Tajikistan shares a border with Afghanistan, and Kyrgyzstan has a border close to Afghanistan and Pakistan, near which the US Air Force has long been at home. The air defense of these republics is replete with obsolete and ineffective anti-aircraft missile systems such as "Pechora", "Volga" and "Cube", which can simply be "crushed" by a full-fledged squadron of F-16C multipurpose fighters with 48 HARM missiles on board and consolidate the result with a couple of dozen JASSM- ER, and we are still talking about a single missile defense system. And what can be said in general, when the strategically important optical-electronic node "Nurek" and the 201st Russian military base are located on the territory of Tajikistan, which need at least two cover by two brigades S-300PM2 and S-300V4 with attached "Pantsir- C1 ". Our overseas "colleagues" defend each of their military facilities in Europe and Asia with the help of "Patriot PAC-2/3" or SLAMRAAM, and our intra-bloc countries are armed with air defense systems that met the requirements in the 70s and 80s … On the other hand, Azerbaijan, staring at allied Armenia with the devil, is getting brand new S-300PMU-2 - somehow it doesn’t work out very well. All the “south” of the CSTO urgently need to receive modern missile defense systems, and then one can think about missile defense within the SCO.
But it should be given its due, the first progress in this direction is already being observed. According to the statements of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of Kyrgyzstan, Marat Kenzhisariev, made back in March 2015, the republic's air defense system will be gradually updated under the guidance of specialists from the Almaz-Antey Concern East Kazakhstan region. True, these works are moving very slowly. So, even the issues of creating a full-fledged air defense system within the framework of the CSTO have not yet been resolved, not to mention the multifaceted work on the anti-missile defense system of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
An even more unpleasant situation is observed around the former CSTO member state Uzbekistan, as well as the eternally neutral Turkmenistan. Over the past 7 years, Ashgabat, except for the signing in 2009 of the interstate Agreement on strategic cooperation in the fields of energy and mechanical engineering, has not concluded any agreements in the military-strategic area with the Russian Federation and the CSTO. Turkmenistan absolutely did not respond to the calls of the CSTO Secretariat and the Organization's Council of Ministers. Even the sore point for Central Asia was ignored concerning the need for interaction of all countries in the region with the CSTO in the face of the threat of undermining their statehood by the terrorist organization ISIS, the Taliban and other extremist groups operating throughout the south-west of the Eurasian continent, as reported by the Secretary General of the organization Nikolai Bordyuzha on March 17, 2015. Everything indicates only that such a model of cooperation is beneficial for Turkmenistan, which provides only for the transfer of military and industrial technologies aimed exclusively at observing its own economic and defense interests.
It is already a no brainer that IS has its own information and training structure for a long time in Turkmenistan, which is fenced off from the CSTO and the SCO, and, as it often seems, Ashgabat has a certain financial benefit. The tie in the multibillion-dollar Central Asian drug trafficking does not allow the highest cell of the state to even admit the idea of joining the structure of a regional military-political bloc, since immediately coordination of actions with other members of the organization, including the Russian Federation, will be required, and all profitable activities will have to be immediately curtailed. One should not expect any enlightenment in interaction with Turkmenistan: Ashgabat will continue to quietly abstraction, limiting itself to very profitable, non-binding contracts with the Russian Federation, periodically looking at the external vector of Azerbaijan, Turkey and other regional servants of the United States. The air defense forces of Turkmenistan, in terms of technology, are at a level lower than the air defense of Libya before the air operation "Odyssey. Dawn". In service there are several divisions of the S-75 "Dvina", S-125 "Neva" and one of the modifications of the S-200 air defense system. That is, even if we theoretically estimate that various TFRs and a hypersonic WTO of the US Navy / Air Force launched from the Persian Gulf will fly through the airspace of Turkmenistan towards Kazakhstan and Russia, the Turkmen air defense, even with all the desire, could not weaken this blow with its available means …
Uzbekistan has an even more "mysterious" history of relations with the CSTO and Russia. Unlike Ashgabat, which does not stake on military-technical cooperation, Tashkent also wants to fully maintain the entire level of military-technical cooperation with Russia, while absolutely not participating in the anti-terrorist activities of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. For more than one year, Uzbekistan has been demonstrating a complete unwillingness to interact with the countries of the organization in the field of creating a Central Asian unified air defense system, in which Tashkent would be assigned the role of a command and staff center based on the Soviet 12th air defense system. For several years Uzbekistan led the governing bodies of the CSTO by the nose, either leaving the organization or re-entering its structure.
The so-called "special" position of Tashkent was constantly changing, which was influenced by any even insignificant features in the compiled model of the Central Asian air defense. For example, in 2007, the Uzbek leadership did not agree with the creation of a common air defense system in Central Asia, together with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The Uzbeks wanted to get only a single air defense system with the Russian Federation, which is even theoretically impossible, since it is even geographically clear that without the participation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, there can be no question of any common air defense network. But Uzbekistan abstracted itself from the formation of a unified air defense system in Central Asia, which forced Russia to focus its efforts on the three remaining states of Central Asia, which is what is happening today.
Several times Uzbekistan caused criticism and bewilderment from the CSTO Secretariat, from 1999 to 2006, interrupting its membership in the organization, and then again sharply integrating into it after the suppression of the Akramit rebellion in Andijan in 2005, when the West suddenly caused fright in ranks of the Uzbek leadership with typical accusations of "violation of human rights and disregard for democratic standards." Hiding again under the "umbrella" of the CSTO on August 16, 2006, Uzbekistan for almost 6 years (until June 28, 2012) was in the organization on a very tricky "light" -base, not integrating into the legal clauses of the agreement. This did not require Ashgabat to participate in intra-bloc operations to resolve possible local conflicts in the countries of the organization (riots, color revolutions, seizures of power by illegal military formations, etc.), but it opened the way for closer bilateral military cooperation with the Russian Federation and joint military exercises. But this did not suit Uzbekistan either.
Focusing the attention of Russia and other member states of the organization on dissatisfaction with the structure and concept of actions of the CSTO, Uzbekistan, leaving the bloc, did not officially declare the problems of the joint use of water resources of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Tashkent was not satisfied with the water monopoly of these states, while Uzbekistan had an underdeveloped system of distribution of water resources, which were not enough. Tashkent was even more infuriated by the plans for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to build powerful hydroelectric power plants, which would finally leave Uzbekistan out of business with its unwillingness to develop its own water supply systems. Moscow, on quite adequate grounds, never supported Uzbekistan in putting pressure on the development programs of its neighboring states, which also became one of the reasons for leaving the organization.
But there were also statements that testify to a complete change in the foreign policy vector of the Uzbek leadership to the United States, the EU and NATO. This was stated by the Tajik deputy Sh. Shabdolov. Tajikistan notes that Tashkent is already counting on Western states to support the initiative to put pressure on Dushanbe and Bishkek to stop programs for the construction of hydroelectric power plants. It looks ridiculous, of course, but the United States may well promise in vain such support in exchange for the deployment of its own radio intelligence units and other equipment on the territory of Uzbekistan to open the CSTO operations on the southern ON. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan really need an eye and an eye today, and it is good that to the south this direction is very densely covered by the air force and air defense of Iran, which is more friendly to the CSTO.
ABOUT THE SCO IN THE FAR EASTERN AIR DIRECTION: FROM RUSSIAN-CHINESE KSHU COMPUTERS TO THE PRESENT IMPLEMENTATION. IS THIS WAY EASY?
From May 26 to May 28, 2016, Moscow hosted the first in the history of Russian-Chinese military-strategic interaction, the Aerospace Security-2016 computerized command and staff exercise, which worked out anti-missile defense tactics against enemy cruise and ballistic missiles at the same time. The main goal was to determine the methods of systematic coordination between the operationally deployed divisions of Russian and Chinese air defense systems. But the simulation of a missile defense system in a modern virtual theater of operations, although it bears similarities with real combat interceptions, imitation of the integration of Russian and Chinese air defense systems into a single missile defense system, with all the features of data exchange and general target designation in it, requires exclusively field tests that require lengthy training, which consists of installing the necessary integration of radio-electronic equipment (single data bus) in the PBU of the air defense missile system on both sides, and then further installation and refinement of the new software. In this, the Chinese and I have both a ready-made base and a "raw" one, over which serious measures are required.
Anti-aircraft missile systems of the S-300PMU family, supplied by the Celestial Empire from 1993 to 2010, act as a ready-made base. According to the cinodefence.com resource, the Chinese air defense received: 8 S-300PMU divisions, 16 S-300PMU-1 air defense missiles and the same number of batteries of the latest S-300PMU-2 modification. The total value of the contract was about $ 1.6 billion. As part of divisional kits: 160 PU 5P85T / CE / DE with a total number of 5V55R / 48N6E / E2 missiles - more than 1000 units, RPN 30N6 / E / E2 and command and control points of 5N63S and 83M6E / E2 types. The "Almazovskaya" element base of the PBU purchased by the Chinese, as well as the common with our communication equipment of the OLTC and PU, make it very easy and quick to form full-fledged air defense systems from 6 missiles, regardless of the presence of our complexes in the system, or vice versa. In other words, at the level of the elemental component, both ours and the Chinese "Three Hundreds" are practically interchangeable to the smallest detail. There will be a similar similarity with the S-400 Triumph complexes purchased under a 3-billion-dollar contract.
The 2 S-400 battalions that have entered combat duty near Nakhodka (Primorsky Krai) can be integrated into a single SCO anti-missile defense system in the Far East ON with the Chinese S-400 battalions deployed in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, due to which the Chinese calculations of Triumph Will be able to quickly and with less risk confront a Japanese or American air force approaching from the Sea of Japan. The first line of defense will be formed precisely by the Russian S-400s, covering the Pacific Fleet facilities in Vladivostok, and they, theoretically, will weaken the first MRAU both in the Pacific Fleet and in the strategically important provinces of the PRC.
Heilongjiang is the most important energy “forge” of the People's Republic of China with more than 200 power plants of various types with a total capacity of more than 12-15 million kW. Without these facilities, a huge number of enterprises in the heavy industry, electronics and shipbuilding yards would not be able to fully function. An equally important economic facility is the Harbin-Daqing-Qiqihar Industrial Corridor, which connects the 3 main industrial cities of the province, producing petrochemical, pharmaceutical and high-tech products. Joint confrontation with the American threat in the Pacific determines the importance of defending this strategically important Chinese region.
Combining into a common system can be performed due to the ability of PBU 55K6 to support the exchange of tactical data with other PBUs at a distance of 100 km, using repeaters. In addition, the unification of such automated control systems as "Polyana-D4M1" and 73N6ME "Baikal-1ME" implements the connection to the general structure of missile defense of all modifications of the S-300P and even highly specialized versions of the S-300V / VM / V4. All these complexes can already work tomorrow in a single air defense system with the Chinese "Favorites" and "Triumphs".
The automated control system ACS 73N6ME "Baikal-1ME" is a key network-centric link in the integration of mixed anti-aircraft missile divisions, brigades and regiments into a single missile defense system. It is this system that can become the basis for building a future SCO missile defense system. All the principles of operation of "Baikal" are presented on 2 images. Its high anti-missile potential is indicated by an instrumental range of 1200 km and a ceiling of 102 km.
China, on the other hand, may temporarily provide our Pacific Fleet with strengthening the anti-missile defense of the naval strike group in the near and far sea zones until the air defense frigates of project 22350 "Admiral Gorshkov" and other NKs with powerful missile defense systems appear in the fleet's arsenal. The Chinese naval forces can use several Lanzhou and Kunming class URO destroyers (Type 052C and Type 052D) for naval air defense purposes, equipped with combat information and control systems and ship HQ-9 air defense systems with a range of up to 200 km. It is true that one cannot avoid the issue of a comprehensive modernization of the hardware and software parts of the PBU and OMS of the S-300F "Fort-M" complex, which is now absolutely not adapted to joint actions with the Chinese ship-based CIBS of the "ZJK-5" type. The first thing that will be required is a complete digitization of all the "Fort" subsystems, and then the installation of a bus for exchanging tactical information with Chinese destroyers. This will require additional time, which is why the program to accelerate the renewal of the Pacific Fleet with new corvettes of the project 20380 with Redoubts on board looks more rosy. In addition to the excellent anti-missile qualities of this KZRK, the ships of the project also have a complete digitization of the operator's points of the strike and defense complexes, built around the BIUS "Sigma" with an open software architecture.
Sigma has several data transmission buses (MIL STD-1553B, Ethernet and RS-232/422/485), allowing synchronization with other submarine, surface and air combat units, including AWACS aircraft and helicopters, anti-submarine patrol aircraft and helicopters, as well as ships with similar interfaces on board. High-speed tactical communication (950 kbit / s) in the centimeter X-band makes it possible to organize anti-jamming network-centric interfacing between the KUG ships.
Another "raw" part of Russian-Chinese cooperation in the field of SCO missile defense should be attributed to the absence of multifaceted work in the field of creating a single center for the aerospace defense, the sources of information for which would be not only the Russian missile attack warning systems "Don-2NR", "Daryal-U ", As well as" Voronezh-M / DM ", but also the Chinese early warning radar, capable of notifying the organization's unified missile defense command of ICBM launches from NATO SSBNs operating in the southern parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
With regard to the AWACS and the PRC Air Force in service, AWACS aircraft can be noted an acute shortage of A-50 (15 vehicles), A-50U (3 units), KJ-2000 (4 units), KJ-500 (2 units) and KJ-200 (4 units). For the total area of the Russian Federation and the PRC (26,722,151 km2), the official number of 26 RLDN aircraft is negligible, given that massive missile and air strikes by low-altitude TFRs may follow from several VNs at once. There should be more than 100 - 150 such cars. And we also neglected the areas of other allied states of the CSTO and SCO, the picture would look even dimmer.
The unified SCO missile defense system should be so flexible, multifaceted and aggregated so that the failure of one or even several network-centric elements does not lead to the collapse of an entire operational air sector. We have already described good prerequisites for this in our review, but a whole range of issues and tasks postpones the implementation of an ambitious plan for a period that depends solely on the desire of the parties to coordinate efforts as soon as possible to contain the global Western expansion.
