If tomorrow war ...

From whom and what the Russian army is going to defend the country

If tomorrow is war. The main task of the state is to ensure the security of its citizens. According to the results of military reform, the number of Russian army should be reduced to 1 million people. With whom is the reformed Russian army preparing to fight, from whom does it have to defend the country? On the eve of February 23, the day of the defender of the Fatherland, The New Times turned to military experts to find out who threatens Russia and why
Judging by the new military doctrine (see p. 10), as, indeed, by the rhetoric of the first persons, we can conclude: the main enemy of Russia is still, as in the Cold War, NATO and the United States remain. But Russian experts put completely different threats in the first place.

Bomb in the suitcase

According to Fedor Lukyanov, the editor -in -chief of the magazine “Russia in Global Policy”, from the point of view of an immediate threat, Pakistan is most dangerous: “The chances that irresponsible radical forces will come to power there, perhaps quite large.” The situation in Pakistan is unstable. For several years, part of the country has been under the control of terrorists who seek to take possession of nuclear weapons. “Something extraordinary must happen to Pakistan so that nuclear weapons are in someone’s hands, but this is possible. The country is in a very bad state, ”says Pavel Baev, leading researcher at the Institute for Research of Peace Problems in Oslo. - It has many different groups that are capable of capturing nuclear weapons. These are not only the Taliban and Islamic groups in the completely uncontrollable city of Karachi, but also the groups associated with military intelligence. ” And in the case of the capture of nuclear weapons, it is absolutely not clear where to wait for the blow from. “As soon as we say that the weapon is not applied by the state, this is not about missiles and aircraft, but rather about an attempt to deliver nuclear weapons to the enemy’s territory in some other way,” the expert says. - For example, in a suitcase or in a container. From such a threat and protection is needed completely different. Huge volumes of commercial container transportation that cannot be controlled. Smuggling. This danger scares, because no one has ever encountered this. ”

Missiles Chuchhe

“ North Korea for analysts is a black box. Everything here is completely unlucky, ”says Pavel Baev. - The country constantly balances on the verge of internal collapse. How the weapon is stored, who holds the hand on the button is incomprehensible. ” Alexander Khramchikhin, the head of the information and analytical department of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis, is convinced that Russia should not be afraid of Korean missiles: “For the DPRK it is only a subject of trade, primarily with South Korea.” But from the accidental hit of Korean missiles, none of the neighbors is safe. “Their missiles have a dangerous property of flying anywhere,” says Alexander Konovalov, president of the Institute of Strategic Objects. - Not so long ago, two of them fell into the sea 60 kilometers from the find. Our military claims that they tracked them constantly. But when the rocket goes and it is not known what it carries, why it was launched, and it is already 60 kilometers from your large city, it must be shot down, and then it is already sorted out. And we have nothing to knock down missiles there or another place. ” Pavel Baev is even more pessimistic: “If the crazy North Korean missile flies into the territory of the Russian Federation, we will not even be able to find it. We most often learn about the launches of these missiles from the Western press: our warning system has still been focused on launching US missiles. ”

Bomb named. Ahmadinejad

Iran will create nuclear weapons over time, but it will be the greatest danger to Israel - most experts converge in this. “Iran will, of course, make nuclear weapons, but will use it for threats, will not go to combat use,” said Professor MAI Yuri Chudetsky. “After all, Iran will simply erase from the face of the earth.” If Tehran decides on nuclear blows, then they can be applied primarily to Israel, which will be completely destroyed in the event of a nuclear attack. “Therefore, the United States will keep Iran under the aim from its bases in the Persian Gulf and strengthen the shield of Israel. In addition, the Americans can cover Israel with the help of missile systems located on ships in the Mediterranean Sea, ”predicts Dmitry Train, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Moscow Center of Carnegie. However, some analysts are convinced that Israel will not wait for the development of the situation and itself will strike at nuclear facilities in Iranian territory. So, Fedor Lukyanov believes that Israel may consider a slightly dangerous Iranian nuclear threat and deliver a preventive blow. And this involves the start of the United States into one more regional conflict. Such a scenario, the expert says, is quite realistic in the next couple of years. “The interests of Israel in accordance with its concept of national security can only be ensured if it remains the only nuclear power in the region,” Alexander Konovalov supports it. “Having learned about Iran’s attempts to produce his nuclear weapons, he will immediately begin to act.” In any case, the main danger for Russia, according to the analyst, will be that she will have to choose - to become an ally of Israel or Iran in the upcoming conflict.
Iran has nothing to oppose Israeli aviation. “The Air Defense Systems“ Thor ”that Russia sold to Iran are far from effective against all planes,” explains Dmitry Train. -Now a deal has been concluded on the supply of the S-300 system to Iran, which Iran would not completely cover, but could greatly soften the blow. She is still not set by Iran. ” According to Konovalov, Iran is able to create problems with the world community without nuclear weapons: “Iran has such a“ street ”, the Horde Strait, along which day and night there is a continuous stream of tankers from the Persian Gulf. With the help of several diesel submarines, built in the USSR, and anti -ship -based Iran coastal -based systems can block the strait. This will cause a disaster in exchanges and markets. ”

A storm from the Middle Kingdom

In the event of a conflict with China, nuclear weapons are considered a traditional argument. “Russia has a system of around Moscow, it is not capable of covering from a massive blow, but it was more or less effective protection from China,” says Dmitry Train. “In the late 60s, when this system was located, the Soviet Union had a more real probability of a military clash with China than with the United States.” But Alexander Khramchikhin calls not to be seduced: “For intercontinental missiles, we still have a huge advantage. But it is quickly reduced. In addition, our ICDSs are aimed at restraining the United States, and in relation to China they are simply redundant in range: for many of them, some of them are in the dead zone. And China has many medium -range missiles, which we do not have at all. In relation to Russia, they can be considered strategic. Even from the eastern regions of China, they get to almost anywhere in Russia. I believe that in the event of an attack, China will not be the first to apply an atomic blow, but will declare its readiness to do this if the Russian side was used by the nuclear weapon. The calculation is simple: the current leadership of the country will rather agree to territorial concessions than to substitute itself under nuclear warheads. ” If it comes to ordinary weapons, boring with Beijing will also be difficult. “The power of China is that he can move multimillion -dollar armies in any direction,” says Alexander Konovalov. “And if they are modern and well armed with ordinary high -precision weapons, then this is a very formidable argument.” And Russia, what Alexander Khramchikhin is sure of, cannot withstand the invasion of ordinary weapons: “The general purpose forces of Russia and China are completely incomparable. Even those two of the seven Chinese military districts that adjoin our border, Shanyansky and Beijing, are generally stronger than all of our Ground Forces from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka. Soon in our troops there will be a maximum of 3 thousand tanks and about the same amount at storage bases, where the state of equipment, to put it mildly, is not very good. And China has about 8 thousand tanks, of which at least 2 thousand are quite modern, ”the expert concludes. Fedor Lukyanov considers such calculations too speculative: “Military conflicts with the participation of China are precisely excluded in the coming years. This is the prospect of purely hypothetical and unreal - at the next 20 years. ”

The war of the worlds

It seemed that the idea of ​​a global conflict with the United States remained during the Cold War, but some experts still allow a clash with the United States. “A disarming blow to our strategic nuclear forces from the United States is one of the two most likely scenarios,” said Alexander Khramchikhin. - We are talking about attacking winged missiles with non -nuclear equipment that our warnings satellites will not cut at the start. We will learn about the attack only when most of our nuclear shield will already be destroyed. And the units of missiles that remain after the blow will no longer be able to overcome the American pro. If we continue to reduce strategic weapons at the current pace, and the Americans will continue to increase the pro, this scenario can be implemented after five years. ” Professor Chudetsky, who for many years created a missile shield of the Motherland, on the contrary, is sure that America is not able to disable Russian nuclear forces without serious losses: “If they hit all our starting positions, it should survive about 10% - this is an approximate figure that is periodically counted. This should be enough to inflict irreparable damage. ” Khramchikhin believes that the lag of domestic nuclear weapons becomes critical: “During the period of Putin and Medvedev’s presidency, our nuclear forces were doubled. For warheads, the reduction is catastrophic: instead of missiles with the divided combat unit, rockets with one warhead are purchased. As a result, over the years of the "revival of combat power" we wrote off more than 1 thousand warheads, but bought only 40. "
Another increase in the factor increasing the development of the American missile defense system, after June 12, 2002, the United States unilaterally left the contract of restriction of missile defense systems. The United States has positional areas in Alaska and California. In Central Europe, it is planned to place the third positional district. According to experts, the American about is not yet very effective. “The Americans believe that they will improve the systems in California and in Alaska along the way, and they were left to protect the national territory,” explains Alexander Konovalov. “The American SM-3 missile system has significant potential, on the basis of which Americans are going to build a new about Europe.” “In total, it is supposed to establish about 1,400 objects capable of intercepting up to 300 nuclear charges,” adds Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems. “Systems about marine basing are developing, this year they successfully tested Boeing 747 with a chemical laser, and systems for intercepting charges that broke deep into the country are developing.” So far, the capabilities of the American warning system about the nuclear strike are noticeably exceeding the possibilities of interception. “The United States has a whole chain of radar across Canada,” says Pavel Baev. - The system of detailed radars has always been oriented that the rocket flies from the north through the pole from the Soviet Union. The radar, standing in Norway, covers our Kola Peninsula. Satellites fix the start, and the radar detects the rocket already on the trajectory. ” Russia is still developing only warning systems. “The new radars that Russia is building is now quite adequate,” Pavel Baev estimates. - One in the Leningrad Region replaces the one that we lost in Estonia. And one more in the Stavropol Territory - instead of two radar in Ukraine. In addition, there are stations in Azerbaijan and in the Far East. With satellites, it is more difficult for us, most of them are quite quickly out of order. ”
Conventional weapons in a possible conflict will be assigned a secondary role. Experts agree that Russian ground forces are not rivals to Americans. “As for the usual weapons, the Americans broke away from us into a whole generation, by an order of magnitude,” admits Colonel General Leonid Ivashov. However, the vast majority of experts, including the head of the Moscow Center of Carnegie Dmitry Train, believe the war with the United States is extremely unlikely: “This will not happen,” the training said. But as for China, the situation may turn differently here, experts believe.