November 13, 2015

Russia Revives Long-Dead Nuclear Torpedo - Reestablishes Deterrence

Russia has a big problem with the "missile defense" shield the U.S. wants to install in Europe. Such a "defense" would give the U.S. the ability to launch a first strike nuclear attack on Russia while defeating a retaliatory strike Russia would launch in response. Alternatively the "missile defense missiles" stationed in east Europe could be used to launch a direct attack against ground targets in Russia leaving it with a insufficient warning time of only a few minutes.

This is comparable to the situation in the 1960s when Nike-Hercules air defense missile were stationed in the U.S. and in Europe. That system could kill Soviet strategic nuclear bombers and thereby endangered Soviet second strike capabilities towards the U.S. and others. (The Nike-Hercules also had a secondary ground attack capability.)

The Russian, then Soviets, problem with the Nike-Hercules was overcome by Soviet development of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) which could not be targeted by that Nike-Hercules system. The balance of deterrence was reestablished and held for the next fifty years.

Then came the new U.S. missile defense in Europe. All Russian protests and warnings against stationing such capabilities have not been able to deter the U.S. for proceeding with it. Should the missile defense project go forward Russia will have to invent new means to reintroduce a significant second strike capability. Both sides, Russia says, would be better off by not introducing these new capabilities.

To strongly send that message the Russian military scientists went back into the archives to find some old crappy idea that could overcome missile defense and be horrible enough in its effects to recreate some deterrence.

The scientists came back with an odd idea the "human rights activist" Andrej Sakharov once promoted:

At the height of the Cold War, August 12, 1953 have been produced successfully tested the new Soviet weapons of terrible destructive force - a thermonuclear bomb. One of the creators of the bomb, the newly elected member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the 32-year-old Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov suggested as a "means of delivery" to use the developed nuclear submarines of project 627, equipping each of them a giant torpedo under the 100-megaton thermonuclear charge (approximately 6000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima). As conceived by the young academician exploding the U.S. coast ocean, these torpedoes were to cause a tsunami of unprecedented power, the height of 300 meters, which would be simply washed off American cities, causing irreparable damage to the United States.

The planned U.S. "missile defense" systems would have some difficulties hitting such a torpedo.

Thus the Kremlin decided to reuse this old Sakharov idea to scare the U.S. off from its current "missile defense" course:

On November 10, 2015 President Putin held a regular meeting with his generals in Sochi to discuss development of the Russian strategic forces. The president used the occasion to complain again about U.S. missile defense plans and to warn that Russia will do whatever it takes to preserve the strategic balance.

The meeting was filmed (vid) by a major Russian TV station and "just by chance" the cameraman caught a power point page (also at 1:46 min in the video) one of the attending Generals was reading:

Russian television cameras caught a page in a briefing book describing the development of a new nuclear weapons system called Status-6. It’s nothing less than an underwater drone designed to carry a thermonuclear weapon into foreign ports. If detonated, Status-6 would be capable of dousing cities like New York in massive amounts of radioactive fallout.

"Massive amounts of radioactive fallout" or, in the old version, a 300 meter high tsunami - choose whatever you like better but you will probably be hit with both.

A "underwater drone" is by the way what we used to call a "torpedo". But the "drone" moniker might sound scarier so the author chose to use that one.

The U.S. analyst just quoted does not like the old and new Russian idea:

At the risk of understating things, this project is bat-shit crazy. It harkens back to the most absurd moments of the Cold War, when nuclear strategists followed the logic of deterrence over the cliff and into the abyss. For his part, Putin seems positively nostalgic.

But what is really "bat-shit crazy"?

Destroy the nuclear deterrence between world powers that had worked well for some 50 years by installing a "missile defense" shield in Europe? Or reestablish deterrence by introducing a new weapon category that the U.S. "missile defense" shield can not defend against?

You decide.

I for one think that the idea of striving for a realistic first strike capability by eliminating the possibility of a meaningful retaliation, which is what the "missile shield" is trying to achieve, is indeed "over the cliff and into the abyss." I rather prefer to be "positively nostalgic" and reestablish a stable deterrence.

If the Russian second strike capability no longer lies with ICBMs but with the threat of permanent destruction of all major U.S. ports and port cities through long range nuclear torpedoes the planned "missile defense" shield will be a completely useless investment.

Since at least 2010 the Russian President Putin has repeatedly said in many public fora that the planned U.S. "missile defense" is a dangerous way forward. The U.S. did not listen. Now Russia is putting some muscle behind Putin's words. It "leaks" the "secret" (not so much) plans to counter "missile defense" and it will make sure that everyone understands that it has the means and the will to develop such capabilities if needed.

This "unintended leak" is an offer to Obama to talk. A deal could be made that would end the U.S. "missile defense" nonsense while Russia would promise to abstain from the development of countermeasures like the harbor killer torpedo. All would spend less money on crazy new weapons and the world would be better off.

The industrial lobby that wants to make loads of money money from missile defense has so far found open ears in the U.S. Congress. But if those weapons can no longer deliver the strategic advantage they once promised Congress may be willing to stop shuffling money towards them.

Russia just made an offer to the U.S. government. It would be better for all if that offer would be accepted.

Posted by b on November 13, 2015 at 17:50 UTC | Permalink

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