If the tasks are unrealistic it’s little wonder that there are no results

Michael Khodarenok

A meeting of Russia-NATO Council took place on the 23^rd of October, 2013 in Brussels. As usual, Moscow actively opposed the construction of the antiballistic missile defense elements in Poland and Romania with the U.S. assistance. The NATO Secretary General declared at the meeting that neither NATO nor Russia had been agreed yet on some parameters of possible cooperation in this area.

"But we all agree that the further consultations is a way forward", Rasmussen said. "We don’t succeed in working together. The antiballistic missile defense programs in Europe continue developing, our concerns are not taken into account", the Russian side noted.

Someday this period in the history of our country (among many others, of course) will be called "The age of total incompetence". It was the time when gynecologists controlled foreign politics, cardiologists were responsible for agriculture and the critical issues of the military construction were discussed by women from St. Petersburg tax office headed by St. Petersburg Main Furniture Trade Management.

The consequences for any of the areas where such "effective managers" interloped were as a rule the most disastrous. Sometimes it was just horrific and catastrophic. The antiballistic missile defense didn’t escape this pestilence as well.

"In the ABM defense system A-35/35M there was the check command that blocked all the system switches during the combat cycle in order to eliminate any human intervention in the combat mode"

In this regard, I will tell a short story. In the late 90s I was sent by the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff to the meeting of the working group on the ABM defense which was held in the building of the Foreign Ministry situated at 32 Smolensko-Sennaya street. The people in the working group frankly surprised me. They were, as the saying goes, career diplomats. Nobody except for me had ever and under any circumstances anything to do with the planning, combat employment to say nothing about the exploitation of the ABM defense systems.

The item on the agenda of the working group’s meeting was the prolongation of the ABM Treaty of 1972. Only by inadvertence (and perhaps through a piece of stupidity) I asked softly during the first minutes of the meeting: "What are you going to develop if, I'm sorry, nobody of you has any idea about the ABM defense problems?"

The reaction was prompt! The head of the group said that if I did not immediately shut up, then my insolent behavior would be immediately reported to the Chief of the General Staff. And my name would be just now crossed off the list of the working group.

One diplomat told me aggrievedly: "Why, I came through the eleven rounds of the talks on the ABM defense in Geneva!" The look on his face showed that for the diplomat to commit to attack eleven times and to push a pen in Geneva were the things of the same kind.

I thought within myself: "Let you ​​try, sonny, to withstand at least one "round" of the talks on the ABM defense in winter in Sary-Shagan. It was when the antimissile range was in its fifth year and there was no central heating. Any fool can stand even 110 rounds In Geneva". But I didn’t articulate this idea at the meeting of such a high level, of course. And I didn’t open my mouth until the end of the working group’s meeting. I thought: first of all, it’s safer, and secondly, the diplomats don’t absolutely need any opinions and comments of experts. Anyway, they won’t hear me, I decided.

But even at that time, during the meeting of the working group, it was perfectly clear what could be the outcome of the negotiations on the ABM Treaty with the United States. The Russian diplomats had the idée fixe: "The ABM Treaty of 1972 is the cornerstone of the global stability and the global security".

But as you know, treaties can be signed and kept under the equal opportunities (parity) of the parties. Nobody will sign any treaty with political and military corpses (and it was Russia in the late 90's). Much less nobody will adhere to it.

Meanwhile there was a possibility for a compromise on the ABM defense in the early 2000s, according to the undivided opinion of real experts. Just it was no good to be stubborn as a mule about the one and only statement. But look at any symposium, conference, meeting and negotiations on the ABM defense. Who are the main experts there? Correctly - diplomats, political scientists, economists, lawyers and others. At best you can get a sight of retired officers from the Strategic Missile Forces.

That’s why we are getting the impression that some Antimissile Faculty was opened in the Moscow State University of Foreign Affairs with the departments of radar raging, electromagnetic field theory and technology of super high frequencies, radio receiving and radio transmitting equipment, automatic control theory, antenna systems and radio wave propagation.

Probably, some Society of Lovers of Maxwell's equations was formed in the walls of the University of Foreign Affairs, some Rotor Club (where, presumably, only true fans of the electromagnetic field theory take part), and some Section of waveguide magic-T works hard and fruitfully.

For example, not so long ago one of the federal TV channels represented one of the military chiefs as a leading specialist in the field of the ABM defense. And he was a graduate of the Moscow State University of Foreign Affairs. Presumably, it was he who graduated from this Antimissile Faculty and unsparing of himself he had also elective course in the Society of Lovers of Maxwell’s equations.

It is believed that the people who negotiate about the ABM defense don’t need at all to know the theory and practice related to the antimissile defense. They are a kind of effective "negotiators" - and there is nothing to add (I am still wondering what a fool invented the word - "negotiator"). But let us turn to the examples.

Well, in particular, not so long ago the topic of the joint operation of the Gabala radar station was intensively discussed at all levels. I should say in clear (the wording was derived from Wasserman) - this idea could not be born in the head of a specialist. It could only appear in the brains of diplomats, lawyers, political scientists. And I’ll explain why.

Let us suppose that the parties have agreed on the joint operation of the Gabala radar station. The question immediately arises: how, in what form and where to deliver data to the other side from the Gabala radar station? Because you can’t climb to the command and instrumentation center and start flapping control flags towards NATO, CENTO and SEATO. Such as - receive the data via voice.

In this case as for Gabala you had to pull a cable as long as several thousand kilometers. Or to build a wideband radio relay line with stations every few dozens of kilometers (due to the earth curvature).

Suppose that we have built it and poured no less money into it than into the construction of the station itself. Now it is necessary to solve the following question. The information from Gabala will be communicated under the standards adopted in Russia. It can’t be coped with NATO, CENTO and SEATO. This means that we need to create some interface complex. It will transform our information to the standards adopted in the West.

Suppose that we solved this technical problem (very complicated, by the way). But nobody had asked before if this information could be interesting for the Americans (and Europeans) in principle? And they don’t really need it in any way. The Americans have their own missile warning system. It is global, with multiple levels and carries out its tasks successfully in every corner of the Earth.

So why did they raise hell around the issue of joint exploitation of the Gabala radar station? Why were so many swords crossed if the problem had certainly no positive decision? How easy after all we ourselves gave up the Gabala when Azerbaijan opened mouth wide for the rent of the station. And even top officials were got caught in this quicksand.

I think it happened only because of the ignorance of the elementary principles of the ABM and Space Surveillance system. After all, political scientists and lawyers are apparently unaware, in particular, that the Gabala is just an octopus tentacle. A head, eyes, brains of this octopus are situated in Solnechnogorsk. And it’s a data communications system that is a stand-alone   element of any ABM, Missile Warning and Space Surveillance system. And the technical requirements for it are very high. As reference, only one microsecond in radar location is 150 meters in range. For ABM defense it’s a very essential figure. And if they knew it all (or at least a small part), they wouldn’t talk rot about joint exploitation of the Gabala radar station. But they continued beating the air for long months.

Therefore, gentlemen, it is necessary to be master of the subject - and no other opinions.

Or these respected comrades are sitting and discussing joint operation of the ABM defense system with the West. Although from the very beginning it’s clear even for a non-expert that no joint ABM defense system with our overseas partners can exist inherently. And just for one simple reason. ABM is a concentration of the advanced technologies. It’s the downright frontier of science and technology if to use trite pretentious words. Nobody never and under no circumstances will share these technologies with any "partners" and even with the "strategic partners". For it is in fact a betrayal of the national interests.

But political analysts transcendentally discuss who will have the “button” in the future antiballistic missile defense system. No, guys, there is no firing button in antiballistic missile defense systems. ABM is a fully automatic system. It operates in the combat mode without a human operator (no other variants when the closure rate of the antimissile and the target is more than seven kilometers per second).

For example, in the national ABM defense system A-35/35M there was even a command that blocked all activation switches and buttons of the system during the combat cycle in order to eliminate any human intervention in the battle mode. Firing order for any antimissile in any ABM system is gives by the digital computer complex.

And how many swords had been crossed on the subject of the so called undirectedness? Meanwhile, the antiballistic missile defense system isn’t a gun or a rifle. It isn’t directed, it operates what is called circularly. And it serves to the defense of the sector of the terrain that hosts important objects (e.g. top management location, administrative and political centers, etc., intercontinental ballistic missile sites).

And how many diplomats, lawyers and economists took so much trouble demanding to obtain from the U.S. "the safeguards against anti-Russian using antiballistic missile defense system"? Let's try to analyze this issue, as the saying goes, in laypeople terms. For a start let’s simplify the situation. And let’s try to understand what safeguards can be here.

Although before the mission analysis it’s necessary to declare at once: the USA will give no safeguards to anybody and ever in this area. And it would be very naive to expect such a result.

Yet let’s imagine how it could be. The anti-missile battle was developed over the territory of Europe. The armed struggle began, say, between NATO and the Middle or Far East states possessing the missile technologies and the corresponding armaments. Russia doesn’t take part in the conflict. Therefore, no safeguards are necessary.

After all, it’s impossible to imagine such a phantasmagorical situation where a fleet of Russian missiles (flying off somewhere on its own business) will appear from somewhere over the European continent during the hypothetical conflict East-West. And their American/European ABM defense systems can not knock down it under the earlier commitments.

There is the next situation. Russia is a participant of the conflict. What can be the safeguards then? It’s unclear.

And how can we achieve some positive results in the negotiations on the ABM defense with such opening narrative? It’s never, nowhere and under no circumstances. We can come to only one thing - the total loss of the military-political face that happens on an annoyingly regular basis.

All that treaty process in the area of the control and reduction of armaments had never given our country at least some positive results. It was absolutely nothing but loss and disgrace. Let’s list some of the milestones in the process.

For instance, CFE Treaty of 1990. When we had signed it we were terrified ourselves: how it was possible on earth to sign such bullshit. Why did it happen? During the work upon the document we sent to Paris not specialists but the right people in requital. It was the Soviet era when a foreign trip was like the Order. That’s why it was all sorts of small-time crooks and assholes up to political cadres and including but not experts. And when the treaty had been signed we were amused ourselves.

INF Treaty. It was a stupidity mixed with the betrayal of the national interests though the word "stupid" is probably too soft here. Military and political idiocy - it will be more accurate.

START treaties. It brought nothing but harm.

Next: Moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. It’s again military and political stupidity and long-term harm.

The question arises: what to do? And that's what.

1. To cease all negotiations on the antiballistic missile defense topics. To complete this process because the zero results are visible now. And to develop the national system and the systems to overcome the missile defense of the potential enemies.

 2. To stop all the START consultations and negotiations. To complete this process once and for ever or for historically foreseeable future. At least for 50-75 years we shouldn’t come back to this issue under any circumstances.

3. To withdraw from the INF Treaty on in unilateral basis and to resume production of these systems so necessary for the national security of Russia.

4. To pull out of the moratorium on nuclear testing.

And this will be the policy of the consistent upholding of the core national interests of the Russian Federation.