Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 19-122-Russia-10-49

CdW Intelligence to Rent -2016- In Confidence [email protected]

Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 19-122-Russia-10-49

By Mike Eckel May 18, 2016 WASHINGTON -- A new Russian intercontinental ballistic missile. Upgraded U.S. nuclear gravity bombs and air-launched nuclear cruise missiles. A European exclave freshly bristling with Russian ballistic missiles.

And all of that military hardware topped off with a warning from Russia's president one day after a U.S.-built missile-defense system went online in Romania."Until now, those taking such decisions have lived in calm, fairly well-off and in safety. Now, as these elements of ballistic missile defense are deployed, we are forced to think about how to neutralize emerging threats to the Russian Federation," Vladimir Putin told a meeting of top Russian defense and military industry officials on May 13. "All these are additional steps toward throwing the international security system off balance and unleashing a new arms race." Even beyond the Kremlin, 25 years after the end of the Cold War and with Russia and Western powers squaring up over continuing conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, there are fears that Moscow and Washington are on the cusp of a new arms race -- nuclear, conventional, or both Russia has sent eye-catching signals about its weaponry in recent months: new cruise missiles fired from Caspian Sea naval ships at Syrian targets; the suspected deployment of short-range ballistic Iskander missiles to the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad; new ballistic-missile submarines going operational; and the Russian undersea fleet and long-range-bomber patrols approaching Cold-War tempos. The United States has meanwhile ramped up its military operations in Eastern Europe and adjacent seas. The Pentagon is quadrupling its spending on European defense initiatives. Naval ships and U.S. aircraft are conducting more frequent surveillance patrols near Russia's borders. An additional U.S. Army combat brigade is scheduled to start rotating into Europe and the top U.S. commander in Europe has suggested he would support a "permanently stationed armored brigade" on the continent. And the Aegis Ashore missile-defense system went operational in Romania on May 12, incensing Putin. "The thing with arms race dynamics [is that] no one has to intend to run an arms race for that dynamic to take over," said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in nuclear nonproliferation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "I worry about the increasing intensity of the deployments."

Gravity Bombs, Nuclear-Tipped MissilesThen there are the nuclear arsenals. Strategic warhead and delivery-system counts in both countries have been more or less dropping, thanks to the 2010 New START treaty.But both countries are at the same time modernizing other parts of their arsenals. The United States is moving forward with a multidecade, multibillion-dollar upgrade of its weapons, which includes the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb, 180 of which are based in Europe, about which the Kremlin has already expressed displeasure. The U.S. administration is also moving forward with a controversial new nuclear-tipped cruise missile. Russia is expected this year to flight-test a new super-heavy, silo-launched, intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, capable of carrying up to 12 warheads and affectionately dubbed Satan-2, after its much-feared Soviet predecessor.A breathless report by the Russian Defense Ministry TV channel Zvezda claimed the missile, scheduled for deployment by 2018, would be able to destroy the entire state of Texas.

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster”― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

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"There's an arms race in the sense of, 'Hey, we can still keep up with what the U.S. is doing; the U.S. is building a fifth-generation fighter aircraft; we can build a fifth-generation fighter aircraft, but we're not going to buy 150 of them," said Dmitry Gorenberg, senior research scientist at the Virginia-based research group CNA, who specializes in the Russian military.

The prospect of a rekindled Cold War-style arms rivalry is in many ways a remarkable reversal from the situation early in U.S. President Barack Obama's first term, when Moscow and Washington tried to "reset" bilateral relations that had soured over issues like the 2008 war in Georgia and Russian opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.But now, with Putin asserting Russian power and influence in neighboring Ukraine and Syria, arms-control experts say, the chances of a new agreement to reduce arsenals further is slim to none.A larger danger may be the fraying of existing ones, like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear





Forces treaty, the 1987 treaty known as the INF that both Washington and Moscow have accused the other of violating.Russian warhead counts under New START have also risen recently, prompting some concern, though experts say the fluctuation doesn't necessarily mean Russia will fail to meet a 2018 deadline for compliance. "Unless a new arms-reduction agreement is reached in the near future, the shrinking of Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal that has characterized the past two decades will likely come to an end," arms scholars Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris wrote in an article published this month in the Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists. Russian officials have pointed to last week's activation in Romania of the missile-defense system, and specifically the launch system used to fire missile interceptors, as being in violation of the INF, something Putin pointedly raised in his comments. U.S. officials have countered that the system, which is similar to one used to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles aboard Navy ships, complies with treaty restrictions.Last year, Russian TV aired purported plans for an underwater, nuclear-capable drone that would have the ability to shower a coastal area with radioactive fallout, making large regions uninhabitable for decades.

Soaring Spending To be sure, there are politics holding back the push forward into a full-blown arms race. But more than anything, what may be constraining both are fiscal concerns.Defense spending has soared under Putin, particularly since 2007, and was estimated at nearly 4.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2015. Since then, however, the country's economy has suffered due to low oil prices along with Western economic sanctions and retaliatory Russian bans, and the Kremlin is poised to cut its defense spending this year by 5 percent, the largest figure since Putin was elected president in 2000. That has affected some notable weapons programs, including the planned revival of a railway-based ballistic-missile launch system, part of Moscow's effort to deepen the country's nuclear deterrent capabilities. Dubbed "death trains" or "phantom trains" by Russian state media, the network of covert boxcar-style launchers and missile complexes, initially designed by Soviet engineers, would boost the stealth, mobility, and counterstrike capability of Russia's arsenal. The U.S. strategic arsenal, meanwhile, is undergoing a massive modernization that Defense Secretary Ash Carter has said will cost $350 billion, and outside experts say will in fact be closer to $1 trillion over 30 years. The U.S. House Appropriations Committee noted in the 2017 Department of Defense spending bill now making its way through Congress that that figure poses "an enormous affordability challenge." Greg Thielmann, senior fellow at the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said Russia's deployment of the new Satan-2 -- its first flight is expected this summer -- was particularly troubling because silo-based missiles are considered more vulnerable to counterstrikes. Also, he said, Russia will need to deploy many more warheads in order to keep up their overall count as the older-generation Satan missiles are retired. "There are a lot more things that need to be talked about on the margins," Thielmann said. "I'm much less worried about new Russian ICBMs in terms of keeping the overall balance stable, than I am about some of these things that are introducing new technologies into the strategic balance."That includes armed drones or new hypersonic glide missiles being aggressively developed by the United States, along with Russia and China, he said."If both sides keep doubling down, you could see [things] kind of a spiral into an arms





race that neither side really wants, but I see both sides somewhat reluctant to go too far in that direction," Gorenberg said. "At least for now."

New Divisions May Reduce Russian Army’s Combat ReadinessPublication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 97May 18, 2016 Russian Defense Minister Sergei ShoiguDuring a regular ministerial conference call, on May 4, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu clarified previously declared plans to counter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He noted, “The defense ministry is taking a number of measures to counteract the buildup of NATO forces in the immediate vicinity of Russian borders. Two new divisions will be set up in the Western Military District and one division in the Southern Military District until the end of the year” (TASS, May 4). It was reported earlier that a new motorized rifle unit would be set up near Rostov-on-Don and two more divisions in the Smolensk and Voronezh Regions.Senior NATO officials reacted as expected. The new Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Curtis Scaparrotti, said: “In terms of their deployment, NATO has responded to their [Russian] aggressive actions on the eastern border… I’ll review […] our plans, their posture, and recommend my military advice, the posture, the exercises that we need to continue to deter and also be able to respond.” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated the reasons for this approach: “We have seen the willingness of

Russia to use its military force in Europe against an independent sovereign state—Ukraine—illegally annexing Crimea and destabilizing eastern Ukraine. And that is the reason why we have responded. It is a reaction to the behavior of a Russia which is more assertive and a Russia which has shown the will of using military force to change borders in Europe for the first time since the end of the Second World War” (Nato.int, May

4).Countermeasures to the Russian military buildup will certainly be among the main topics of discussion at the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw. And yet, seemingly counterintuitively, the creation of new divisions in western Russia most likely will not strengthen, but may actually damage the overall combat capabilities of the Russian army. The ability for rapid deployment has been among the most important achievements of the Russian armed forces to date. This capacity was well demonstrated during operations in Crimea, Donbas and Syria. It took just a few days in February 2014 to deploy about 40,000 troops on the border with Ukraine. This was a major success: in comparison, in 1999, the military command was able to move troops only three weeks after Chechen rebels stormed Dagestan.One of the major achievements of the military reforms carried out by former Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov (2008–2011) was rapid deployment. He understood that the main weakness of the Russian army was the intended implementation of the concept of mass mobilization. In particular, the authorities planned to summon millions of reservists in case of a military threat. For this reason, about 80 percent of Russian military units were constituted as skeleton units—specifically designed to accept reservists and arm them. The mass mobilization concept required a lot of time to rebuild each unit in an emergency. Therefore, Russian military forces were generally unable to deliver a quick response. Furthermore, the viability of mass mobilization was itself a myth due to Russia’s





demographic plunge. The number of reservists had declined with every passing year.In this situation, Serdyukov decisively eliminated all skeleton units. As a result, the number of divisions, brigades and regiments in the Russian Ground Forces decreased from 1,890 to 172 (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, May 12, 2009). In the end, the military command had at its disposal several dozen formations able to deploy within a few hours of receiving their orders. President Vladimir Putin hurried to take advantage of this capability in Ukraine and in Syria. The Armed Forces have, thus, become the Kremlin’s main if not sole foreign policy tool. But growing ambitions soon came into conflict with actual capabilities as Russian leaders began to set new, larger-scale goals for the army. First and foremost is the military confrontation with NATO. But the number of Russian units is simply too small to plan any serious operation against a global adversary. Therefore the Ministry of Defense began to set up new divisions—and not just limited to the three divisions that Shoigu recently mentioned.The Russian defense minister reported last September that, since the beginning of 2015, about 30 new formations were set up in the Western Military District (TASS, September 15, 2015). And in late November, he noted that more than 15 units had been formed in the Southern Military District, while the formation of two further units were in the final stages (Interfax, November 25, 2015). According to Nezavisimoye Voennoe Obozrenie, only recently “eight new major operational formations, more than 25 divisions [combined arms, Air Force, air defense, Navy], [and] 15 brigades” appeared (Nezavisimoye Voennoe Obozrenie, February 19). The Western Military District had been reinforced with a newly-formed 1st Tank Army, headquartered near Moscow (TASS, February 2). A senior source in the General Staff told TASS the 20th General Purpose Army in the district had to be created from scratch, as most of its original forces had been reassigned to the 1 st Tank Army (TASS, March 25). However, neither Putin nor Shoigu can change the realities of Russia’s demographic situation. According to the plans of the Russian defense ministry, the Armed Forces will grow by only 10,000 troops this year (Mil.ru, December 11, 2015). This is enough to fully man one division, but certainly not 40 new units.

Two possible options might square this circle: First, Russia may create new divisions in a “Western direction” into which it could transfer troops from other regions. In fact, this is already happening. The commander of the Central Military District announced earlier this year that the 201st Motorized Rifle Division, based in Tajikistan, would be reduced to a brigade level (TASS, January 30). Thus, in trying to satisfy its ambitions, Russia is dramatically diminishing its military presence in Central Asia—a region where a real military threat exists.But the number of available Russian troops is quite limited. So Kremlin military planners will likely rely on a second option. The Russian defense ministry may begin creating skeleton units to be staffed by heretofore non-existent reservists. This would signify a return to the discredited Soviet concept of mass mobilization. As a result, the dispersed forces of existing brigades will lose their combat capabilities. Nonetheless, the Kremlin is already considering how to arm these mythical thousands of reservists. For example, Putin recently held a meeting on enhancing the mobilization readiness of industry (Kremlin.ru, May 13). The discussion touched on the possibility of, on the eve of war, retooling the Russian economy to significantly boost domestic weapons production. At the end of the 1980s attempts to strengthen mobilization readiness in the face of falling oil prices finally destroyed the Soviet economy. Now, it seems, the situation is being repeated.





Russia’s Tactical Missile Systems in SyriaPublication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 96May 17, 2016 By: Roger McDermottIskander-M (Source: armyrecognition.com)Russia’s announced partial military drawdown of its force deployment in Syria has effectively given way to conceding that its military footprint in the country will endure for some time. With the withdrawal of some Aerospace Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskikh Sil—VKS) assets and insertion of limited replacements, it seems that unless there is an upsurge in the intensity of the fighting, the air grouping will remain relatively modest. However, there appears to be interest in using and testing Russian tactical missile systems in the Syrian conflict, perhaps to compensate for the limited drawdown and also to offer force protection (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, May 10).Despite these ongoing experiments with weapons systems in the Syrian civil war, the Russian defense industry continues to struggle to meet the challenges of a highly ambitious military modernization program. On May 11, President Vladimir Putin met with the leaders of the defense industry and praised the performance of technologically advanced aircraft such as the Su-30SM, the Su-34, Su-35, Mi-28N and Ka-52, as well as precision-guided munitions and cruise missiles. The Su-34, equipped with a new-generation electronic warfare (EW) system, was certainly at the forefront of testing network-enable operations. Nonetheless, Putin complained that the “execution of a number of contracts, unfortunately, turned out to be lengthy, and some of them even ripped off [the state].” The meeting that ensued behind closed doors reportedly further discussed these concerns and measures to avoid such problems in the future (Krasnaya Zvezda, May 12). Plenty of defense industry officials, companies and even defense officials are willing to talk up the achievements of an unreformed domestic defense industry; yet, the “ripping off” continues seemingly unabated. Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov notes the increasing demands on military modernization linked to space-based systems and creating synergy between Roscosmos and the defense ministry. The priority areas, in turn, are no less demanding: to create suitable systems for the Armed Forces to support command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR). Borisov understandably stresses advances in dual-use technologies and the progress of the Russian version of the global positioning system (GPS)—GLONASS. But with additional state resources targeting such efforts, he has nothing to say on the internal corruption issues plaguing the Russian defense industry (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, May 10).Progress has been reported in the area of hypersonic systems and weapons. Russian defense industry sources claim to have made significant progress in hypersonic development, with the Tactical Missiles Corporation working closely with the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology. These defense industry officials believe that a synergy in cooperation between the military-scientific community and the defense industry can result in real breakthroughs. One such potential breakthrough is in the area of responding to the





United States’ Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system. Borisov refers to progress with the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In particular, a test launch scheduled for later this year holds out the promise of deliveries in 2018–2019. Major-General Vladimir Vasilenko, the former head of the defense ministry’s 4 th Central Research Institute, notes that the development of new heavy-liquid strategic missiles can potentially overcome US missile defense due to their multidirectional azimuth of approach to the target, forcing the opposing side to provide a circular BMD system. “And it is much more difficult to organize, especially for finance, rather than sectoral missile defense. This is a very strong factor,” Vasilenko said. One of the means to overcome missile defense is the use of a hypersonic warhead (Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, May 13).In the long term, such military-technical advances may ultimately undermine Russian arguments that the United States’ BMD threatens to compromise Russia’s nuclear deterrence. However, based on developments in Syria, the Russian defense leadership is also paying particularly close attention to theater tactical weapons systems. In late 2015, the operational-tactical missile system PTRC 9K720 Iskander was deployed in Syria (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, May 10). It is worth noting that the defense industry has worked on missiles for the Iskander, including cruise missiles, to extend its range; which has important implications linked to Russia’s threats to deploy Iskanders in Kaliningrad in retaliation for US BMD plans in Central Europe (see EDM, May 12, 16).Though the system is not new, its developer, the machine-building design bureau Kolomenskoye, has been involved in upgrading missiles for the platform. This has resulted in the inclusion of the new R-500 cruise missile (which can be fired by the Iskander launcher), with its inertial guidance system that corrects the missile’s trajectory by comparing maps with a data radio altimeter. Russian sources indicate the Iskander was in use by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in 2013–2014 to halt offensives against regime forces. During sandstorm periods in spring and fall, which mitigated the use of combat aircraft, the SAA used the Iskander with cluster warheads to counter enemy forces. It is likely that the Iskander is used in conjunction with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and Special Operations Forces Command (Komandovaniye Sil Spetsial’nykh Operatsiy—KSSO) for targeting. It is unclear whether the R-500 for the Iskander has been used in combat in Syria. But it is noteworthy that, with its range of at least 500 kilometers—thus making it subject to the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty—this missile’s possible introduction into the Syrian theater of operations may be about combat testing its performance and extended range (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, May 10).As a consequence of withdrawing some of the platforms and reducing the size of the VKS force grouping in Syria, other operations such as the SAA’s use of operational-tactical missile systems are becoming more pressing. The use of these in combat and analysis of the impact on enemy forces will yield lessons for Russia’s General Staff, which could be useful for its own longer-term force modernization planning (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, May 10). Meanwhile, the operations in Syria appear to be yielding valuable lessons for the Russian military. Targeting during the VKS’s close air support for the SAA has relied heavily on KSSO units acting as “spotters” on the ground. Reportedly, the targeting also involved up to 25 percent of operations depending on reconnaissance from UAVs. And, in turn, there are calls for further advances in UAV technology in order to keep up with the surge in their use in Russian combat operations. These systems, it seems, are being overstretched, and the defense industry will need to produce new aerial drones to meet future challenges, especially in tactical UAVs with short flight durations (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, May 10)




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Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 19-122-Russia-10-49