Source Ria Novosti

MOSCOW, Russia: This agreement between Moscow and Washington was supposed to prevent a third world war. Five years ago, on August 2, 2019, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty ceased to be in effect. The document, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in December 1987, limited Russian and American nuclear arsenals for more than 30 years. RIA Novosti reports on the consequences of the US and Russia's withdrawal from the INF Treaty.

 Maritime solution

 The Americans initiated the termination of the INF Treaty — Washington withdrew from it unilaterally. They explained this by the fact that Russia has 9M729 missiles for the Iskander operational-tactical complexes deployed in the Kaliningrad region. They claimed that their declared range — up to 500 kilometers — does not correspond to reality. Land-based missiles are supposedly capable of flying much further — and this is a direct violation of the treaty.

 Moscow categorically rejected all the accusations and even invited Western military attachés to see a sample of the munition with their own eyes. 

 Representatives of most NATO countries ignored the presentation. But after withdrawing from the INF Treaty, the US immediately began adapting its long-range missiles for use from the ground. Formally, to counter China in the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, to target the European part of Russia.

 In addition, the Pentagon has instructed the industry to create medium- and shorter-range missiles for the ground forces as soon as possible. Deployment is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2023. Lockheed Martin received almost $340 million for this contract. The task is to develop a promising surface-to-surface missile system with expanded combat capabilities, capable of hitting targets at a distance of 500 to 5,000 kilometers.

 The contractors did not reinvent the wheel and took ready-made solutions from the Navy. The result is the MRC Typhon . This is a 40-foot standard sea container on a wheeled chassis with four Mk 41 vertical launch systems. These are widely used in the Navy and can fire missiles of various purposes. They accommodate winged Tomahawks, as well as quasi-ballistic land-based SM-6s. It is the Typhon that the Americans want to deploy in Germany, as it became known in July.

 Up to 2700 kilometers

 The US military has been using various modifications of the Tomahawk since 1983. The range, depending on the variant, is from 1,600 to 2,500 kilometers. The US Navy has used these missiles in all armed conflicts involving them since Desert Storm. The weapon is accurate, unpretentious, and inexpensive. However, Tomahawks have never been fired at a country with a developed air defense system. Subsonic speed and fairly large dimensions make them not the most difficult target for a modern air defense system.

 The RIM-174 SM-6 missile was accepted into service in 2013. The surface-to-air class is designed for air defense and anti-missile defense of warships. The firing range against air targets is 230 kilometers. However, as part of the "Typhon", it operates in a quasi-ballistic mode against surface and ground targets. The range is up to 740 kilometers. At the final section of the trajectory, guidance is provided by an active radar homing head.

 The MRC Typhon battery set includes a unified command post with a support vehicle, four launchers and transport and loading systems. Everything is mounted on three-axle semi-trailers, transported by HEMTT family tractors. A prepared position is required for firing.

 In addition to the Tomahawks and SM-6, hypersonic LRHWs with a range of up to 2,700 kilometers will be transferred to Germany. That is, in theory, they can reach Naberezhnye Chelny. The missiles accelerate to Mach 17, which greatly complicates their detection and interception by air defense systems. This development in the United States was difficult, many test launches were unsuccessful. However, in June, LRHWs were successfully tested in Hawaii - the missile hit the target in the designated area.

 Fragile balance

 Under the INF Treaty, such actions by the US in Europe would have been unthinkable. The treaty was signed on December 8, 1987. Both the US and the USSR pledged not to produce, test, or deploy ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles of medium (from one to five thousand kilometers) and shorter (from 500 to one thousand kilometers) range. Such weapons upset the fragile balance of the Cold War - warheads could reach their targets in an extremely short time. Such systems near the enemy's borders gave a great advantage, depriving or seriously weakening its potential for a retaliatory strike.

 By June 1991, the USSR had destroyed 1,846 missile systems (RSD-10 Pioneer, R-12, R-14, OTR-22 Temp-S and OTR-23 Oka), the USA - 846 (Pershing-2, Pershing-1A, BGM-109G (land-based Tomahawk cruise missile). However, the treaty began to crumble at the seams back in the 2000s. In 2001, President George W. Bush announced that the national missile defense system would protect both the USA and its allies. He did not rule out the deployment of its elements in Europe.

 In June 2002, Washington officially withdrew from the 1972 agreement that obliged the US and the USSR to limit themselves to one area covered by missile defense. Even then, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was ready for the possible cessation of the INF Treaty. In 2007, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov, reported that all the documentation on medium- and shorter-range ballistic missiles had been preserved, meaning that their production could be easily organized. However, the nuclear rhetoric then died down for several years.

 Russia's response

 Now, however, there is nothing holding back either the US or Russia. Moscow has repeatedly warned of mirror measures in response to the deployment of missiles in Europe — the resumption of production of similar weapons. As the Foreign Ministry emphasized in May, "taking into account the R&D conducted earlier and the accumulated experience of the Russian military-industrial complex, this process will not take much time."

Russia has truly rich experience here. In 1987, the USSR had 650 medium-range RSD-10 Pioneer missiles. They were all eliminated under the terms of the INF Treaty. But the Pioneer, with a range of 600 to 5,500 kilometers, could destroy any European NATO base or large city no more than ten minutes after launch.

The missile came in two versions: a single-block (1.5 megatons) and a multiple warhead (three blocks of 500 kilotons). It was housed in a transport and launch container on the wheeled chassis of a MAZ-547V tractor. Because of their mobility, it was very difficult for NATO intelligence to detect these systems. Resuming the production of Pioneers, albeit in a non-nuclear version, and putting them on combat duty would have been a strong argument against further involvement of the West in the conflict in Ukraine.