Russia Builds Up, U.S. Tears Down

As Russia significantly upgrades and modernizes its nuclear forces, the Obama administration is preparing to launch yet another round of nuclear missile cuts, according to reports last Wednesday.

Moscow announced in April that it will deploy the first of its new intercontinental ballistic missiles this year, called the Yars-M. The new missile has a range of 6,835 miles, can carry a warhead weighing up to 1.5 tons, and can penetrate U.S. missile defenses. “[W]e achieve the most complex part of the rocket boost so fast that the enemy does not have time to calculate its trajectory and, therefore, cannot destroy it,” said retired Russian strategic forces commander Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia is also developing new rail-mobile icbms, submarine-launched missiles, Topol missiles and a new strategic bomber.

Trends in the U.S. are moving in precisely the opposite direction.

The American military is short somewhere between $1 billion and $1.6 billion that policymakers had allocated back in 2010 for nuclear modernization. This shortage has already prompted officials to scrap plans to build a plutonium facility in New Mexico and to postpone a test launch of a Minuteman iii missile. The shortage also jeopardizes a new strategic submarine program, and programs for life extension of three key warhead types.

According to reports, President Obama is also expected to soon announce that he aims to cut U.S. nuclear stockpiles to as few as 1,000. Policy experts like Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, say the planned cut undermines U.S. deterrence and Washington’s ability to extend a nuclear umbrella to its allies in Europe and Asia. “I find this deeply concerning, given the sorry state of the nuclear modernization commitments made during the last round,” Rogers said.

The U.S. has displayed a further lack of resolve in its nuclear commitment by mysteriously ordering a study on the environmental impact of closing an entire wing for land-based nuclear missiles. None of the announced plans call for closing a missile wing, and no explanation has been offered for the purpose of the study. Could orders for such a study be designed to condition the American people and policymakers for more drastic cuts to the U.S.’s arsenal than have even been announced? Some analysts think so.

As nations in Eastern Europe and beyond see Russian might growing and American will deteriorating, they will be increasingly inclined to abandon the sinking U.S. ship, and to rally instead behind Russia. For more about the significance of Russia’s strides toward resurgence, read “Russia’s Dark Rider.”