The painful issue of today's Europe - what are Russia's options?

I think that it is time for me to directly address the issue of today's Europe role in world affairs.  In this blog I have often voiced very harsh criticisms of both "old Europe" and "new Europe" - to use Rumsfeld's classification - but I have never addressed this issue head-on, and this is what I propose to do now.

Let me begin by a little disclaimer and say that while I am ethnically and culturally Russian, I was born in the heart of Western Europe from in a family of refugees.  I spent most of my life in Europe, and I have become especially close to what I call my "2nd homeland" - the northern Mediterranean from Spain to Greece (which I consider as one coherent - if diverse - cultural zone).  So for all my criticisms of Europe, part of me is most definitely European.  Furthermore, and regular readers of this blog know that, I have spent a good part of my life in an absolute opposition to the Soviet regime and then the AngloZionist colonial regime of Eltsin which followed it.  So while I am ethnically and culturally Russian, I am hardly an automatic supporter of everything "Russian".  In fact, I repeatedly have to pinch myself to check if I am dreaming every time I say something positive about the Kremlin or Putin (who is, after all, an ex-KGB officer).  I am so used to be disgusted, outraged and even ashamed by everything which comes out of the Kremlin that, if anything, I have to struggle with my kneejerk suspicion, if not hostility, towards anything "Kremlin".  And yet, here I am, in 2014, a longtime Cold War participant (on many levels - private, corporate and even professional) catching myself in the undeniable fact that I am becoming a "Putin groupie".  I can hardly convey how weird this still feels to me.

I wanted to begin by clarifying all this because what I will write next I do not write as "a Russian bashing Europe" but as a European disgusted with his own birthplace.  So here we go:

First, for all its rights and wrongs, and even though we have been more or less a US colony since 1945, I still believe that Western Europe was the "good guy" during the Cold War.  Yes, I know, Churchill and the rest of the Anglosphere created that Cold War much more than the Soviets and, yes, the Soviets were not nearly as bad as our propaganda said, nor were we nearly as good as we fancied ourselves to be.  And yet, Europe, Western Europe was a continent, a society, which was free, especially compared to Eastern Europe.  Anyone doubting this today should watch the beautiful German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" ("The lives of the others") of director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (preferable in the original German language - with subtitles if needed).  Here are a few links to this remarkable movie:

SORRY - I HAD TO REMOVE THESE LINKS AS I DID NOT WANT TROUBLE WITH BLOGGER.  YOU WILL HAVE TO LOOK FOR THIS MOVIE BY YOURSELF

THE SAKER

This movie shows, without any exaggerations, what life was like in the last years of the former GDR and I think that for those who might be tempted to forget what daily life was under Soviet rule, this is a very good refresher.

I feel that I want to mention this because I then felt - and still do today - that in those years one could be if not proud, then maybe at least grateful to live in a society which was comparatively wealthy and comparatively free.

This being said, anybody with a little bit of political maturity understood that if Eastern Europe was occupied and controlled by the Soviets, Western Europe was occupied and controlled by the USA.  So most of us, at least as I recall, were dreaming for the day when the Cold War would finally be over (it was not pleasant at all to live with a bullseye painted on your head) and when both the USSR and the USA would pack and finally go home.  For simple and basic reasons of geography, we all understood that we could built a "fortress Europe" which would be basically immune from any outside military attack, probably for the first time in European history.  If NATO and the WTO (yes, it was called the "Warsaw Treaty Organization" and not the Warsaw "Pact" - that is a US propaganda term) would dissolve and the USA and the USSR would leave a united Europe would be simply unconquerable from the outside.  As for notion of another internal European war - my generation (I am 50 now) found it utterly ridiculous and basically unthinkable: would the Netherlands invade Belgium?  Or France invade Spain?  As for the East Europeans, we simply assumed (mistakenly as it turned out) that after decades of rather heavy Soviet occupation they would yearn for peace and freedom as much as we did.

Then the Wall came down, Gorbachev betrayed his own country and Party, three Commie non-entities (Eltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich) destroyed the Soviet Union against the will of most of its people, and the previously demure and peace-loving West suddenly became overwhelmed with a new messianic mission: to conquer the eastern "Lebensraum" for NATO and the EU.  As for the newly "freed" East Europeans, instead of finally enjoying some true freedom, they all decided that the highest they can hope for is to be colonized by the USA and NATO, lest those dangerous Russians show up again.  I will come back to the West Europeans later, but let me say this about East Europeans here:

How did they forget this basic fact of history: Russia has never attacked the West.  Not once.  Unless, of course, you consider a counter-attack as a form of attack.  The historical truth is that it is the West which attacked Russia over and over and over and over again.  This is why there was a Crimean war with Russia and not, say, a "Corsican War".  Yes, Russia did counter-attack each time and, yes, Russian soldiers did end up camping on the Champs Elysees or under Brandenburg Gate, but this hardly happened because of some mysterious "Russian imperialism".  Sure, I will be the first to agree that 19th Russia had no business keeping western monarchs in power or chewing up Finland or Poland, but in all these instances you will see that what triggered these (nevertheless unjustifiable) interventions was a (mistaken) sense of assisting the legitimate rulers of Europe.  Not saying it's right (it's not!).  I am just saying that when the West invaded Russia it hardly had as a motive to assist the legitimate authorities.  I would never blame the Chechens or the Persians for being fearful of Russia, but the Poles or Balts (who more than anybody tried to occupy, subjugate and partition Russia)?  The Germans or French?  Maybe the Brits or the Hungarians (who sure had their own little Empire going!)?  This is beyond ridiculous...

And yet the East Europeans were so terrified of Russia that they decided to replace one occupation by another.  Forgive me if I have no respect whatsoever for that kind of paranoia, ignorance of history or simply crass russophobia.

As for the West Europeans, probably motivated by their own inferiority complex (well, after all, Europe never freed itself from Hitler - it was freed by others!) and definitely egged on by the Anglosphere, they decided not only to turn what could have been a "Europe of fatherland" (as de Gaulle wanted) into a faceless meltingpot run by unelected EU bureaucrats but they also engaged in an "admission spree" for both the EU and NATO, sure as they were that "the more the better" which, of course, made both NATO and the EU much worse of than it was before.

So now we have the worst of "old Europe" mixed with the worst of "new Europe" and all of that ruled by the Anglosphere which, itself, has now been largely taken over by Zionists interests.  I don't know about you, but to me this so-called "united Europe" inspires only disgust and contempt.  Especially that this was far from inevitable.

If Europe had taken the example of its own great leaders, people like de Gaulle or even Mitterrand, it would never have accepted the subservient role it now has in the AngloZionist Empire.  One does not need to be wealthy or powerful to keep his dignity and self-esteem. So I categorically reject the argument that under the AngloZionist Empire the Europeans "could do nothing about it".

Excuse me, but if Berlin could rise up in 1953, Hungary could rise up in 1956, Czechoslovakia could rise up in 1968 and Poland could rise up in 1980, I don't see how you can make the case that today this is impossible.  Even inside the Soviet Union there were numerous uprisings (Temirtau 1959, Murom 1961, Aleksandrov 1961, Krasnodar 1961, Novocherkassk 1962 - heck there were even uprisings inside the GULag,  as in Ekibastuz in 1952).  I would even argue that the real length of the Civil War which followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was from 1917 until 1946, when the country was finally and truly pacified by the Communist leaders.  So there was plenty of resistance to the Soviet regime.

But maybe good old uprisings are now "passé"?  Okay - fair enough.  But what prevents the people from, say, Poland, Germany or Bulgaria from following the example of Alain Soral in France and create their own version of Egalité et Réconciliation or, at least, the French National Front?!  Nothing, of course.

I do see some signs of a growing revolt:  George Galloway and Nigel Farage in the UK or Laurent Louis in Belgium are clearly beginning to show signs of doing more than opposing this or that policy - they are opposing the system itself.  In France, Marine Le Pen unfortunately clearly turned out to be a "dud", but Florian Philippot (currently in charge of strategy and communications) shows some potential.  The big problem with these, shall we say, "sovereignist" parties is that they are still mostly stuck in a "conservative" or even outright reactionary position (though not Galloway!).  What Europe completely lacks is a solid "sovereignist Left" similar to what the French Communists almost became in the late years of Georges Marchais.

[Sidenote: The Europeans seem to have forgotten that capitalism is not a European tradition, but an Anglo ideology.  They have forgotten that while the north of Europe fell under the influence of Reformed/Protestant Christianity with its emphasis on individual predestination and work, the culture and traditions of rest of Europe were shaped by Latin Christianity, with a much deeper sense of social justice, equality and community.  Alain Soral is quite correct when he speaks of an "Old Testament world" which now blends Reformed/Protestant ideology on one side and the rabbinical Phariseic Judaic ideology on the other.  It is no coincidence that we live in an AngloZionist Empire and not a, say, FrancoZionist or HispanoZionist one.]

When France had the Trente Glorieuses (30 glorious years of happiness) it was because de Gaulle knew how to balance both economic progress and social welfare rather than subjugate the entire country to Big Banks (which Pompidou did as soon as he came to power).  Even the UK had a semblance of social solidarity inherited from the difficult war years.

But now, what do we see?

Most European economies are undergoing a deep crisis.  I am not talking only about Greece or Cyprus here, I am talking about France, Spain, but also the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Ireland.  Socially, Western Europe has simply added East European immigrants to its already massive amount of immigrants from Africa and the Balkans.  It takes a blind person not to see that the EU is taking water from all sides and is basically sinking.  And it is under such conditions that the EU now gets involved in the Ukrainian mess, as if it did not have enough problems without having a bona fide Nazi regime on its doorstep and yet another tsunami of economic immigrants about to join the Romanians, Latvians, Gypsies, Turks, Algerians, Kurds, Iraqis, Africans, Georgians or Albanians already sinking the European boat.

Seriously, how stupid and how blind can on become?!

As for NATO itself, it is a pathetic fighting force.  This is rarely said openly, but everybody in the military knows that.  And that is not a problem at all, because NATO's *true* role is to maintain the US grip on the European continent.  There is nothing new here, as early as in 1949 the first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay,  admitted that NATO's true role was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down".  Now this has changed to only "the Americans in, and everybody else down".  Hardly a sign of progress.  NATO also has a secondary role, to be used by European bureaucrats to foster their career and their power.  So really the core purpose of NATO is to be NATO.  And if that means inventing a non-existing threat such as Iranian missiles or "massed Russian forces at the Ukrainian border" - then so be it.

[Does anybody remember that NATO once seriously declared that Yugoslav MiG-29s could pose a threat to London (I cannot prove that, but I remember that hilarious claim vividly - the MiG-29 is a light and short-range fighter)?]

Truly, the new Cold War with Russia in Europe has exactly the same function as the Global War on terror worldwide and the War on Drugs inside the USA: to terrify the general public and to justify lavish spending for full-spectrum aggression on everybody, from the average American (War on Drugs), Russia or even Papua New Guinea (GWOT!).

Everybody in Europe knows and understand most of the above.  Many, in fact, understand it all.  And yet nobody does anything about it.  Nothing.  It's like the entire continent is in some kind of catatonic stupor.  Hence the absolutely disgraceful European vote recently at the UN when every single country in Europe (even Greece!!) voted in favor of the Banderastani regime in Kiev with the sole exception of Serbia (Bosnia-Herzegovina happened to have a Serbian president and Belarus is, for all practical purposes, not only part of Russia, but also threatened by the Ukie Nazis)!  And did anybody in Europe protest against this?

How can Europeans make fun of the putative ignorance of history and geography of Americans when they themselves act in a manner so clearly in contradiction with even a basic understanding of these matters?!

Tell me, my fellow Europeans, if Americans are really so ignorant, then how is it that they are running the show in Europe?  How is it that we are their colony and not the other way around?  Might that have something to do with the fact that when they were our colony they rebelled and kicked us out while we seem unable to return them the favor?!

And if Europeans lack the courage of Americans, why can't they at least speak up and protest, you know, like Soviet dissidents did?  Like Alain Soral does today?

To me the answer is sadly obvious: Europeans have lost any sense of self-worth or dignity.  They have become what Malcolm X used to call "house Negroes".  Listen to Malcolm X himself speak about this, listen carefully, and ask yourself this basic question: is there a single word spoken by X here, just one, which does not fully apply to modern Europeans?  Just one?


Don't Europeans treat their AngloZionists masters *exactly* like the "house Negro" treated his masters?

So my question is this: where are the European "field Negroes"?

So yes, I am disgusted with Europe and its politicians.  And I am disgusted with the deafening silence of the my fellow Europeans.  I find no excuse for it.  If African slaves could rise up against their masters, how is it that Europeans seem to have this special fondness for their current overlords?

There is one final question I need to address here: what about Russia?  Is it part of Europe?

I did write about the history of Russia in past posts (see here, here and here) and I cannot repeat it all here.  I will say that the only part of the Russian society which has had a deep attraction for western Europe has always been either the reactionary nobility or the liberal elites. For the vast majority of Russian people, even today, the people of the Caucasus or Central Asia are far closer culturally than western Europeans and their central European friends.  The only exception to this are the Serbian people who have always been close to Russians (the Russian Tsar Alexander III once said to the Montenegrin Prince Nicholas he was "the only true, faithful and sincere ally Russia had in Europe".  Little has changed since).  But for the rest of Europe?  Forget it.

Are there still "wannabe Europeans" in Russia? Sure!  First, the group which I call "Atlantic Integrationists".  Then the eternal bane of Russia: its liberals.  Then most oligarchs (they love capitalism).  Finally, the same kind of folks as we see in the Ukraine today: those who associate Europe with a high standard of living and halfway decent cops.  Toss in a hodgepodge of homosexuals dreaming of living in Holland, potheads (also dreaming of Amsterdam), the many admirers of European architecture, entrepreneurs who are fed up with the dysfunctional and corrupt Russian legal system, members of West European branches of Christianity and a few others groups and you definitely get a pro-European constituency in Russia.  But ask yourself - what do most of these groups and people have in common?  What did reactionary aristocrats and liberal revolutionaries also have in common?  The answer is simple: they simply don't like Russia.  Oh sure, they will deny that, but if you dig just a tad deeper you will see that they like "a Russia" which never existed and which they aspire to bring about.  But they never liked the real Russia, the only one which really exists.  This simple truth - that these liberal "reformers" actually always hate the real Russia - is one truism with many Russian intellectuals and leaders have repeated many times, from Dostoevsky, to Solzhenitsyn to Putin today.  And over and over again, people like Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn and Putin are the type of people which inspired the Russian masses to support them, because these masses always felt, almost instinctively, that pro-Western folks are always deeply alienated from them while leaders like Putin are true Russians who love Russia for what it is, not what it should be.

This being said, history and geography have linked Russia to Europe and in that sense, Russia will always be part of Europe.  This is what Putin - and others - mean when they say that Russia will always be part of Europe: they mean that because Europe has had a huge, and sometimes even positive, impact on Russia and because it is simply impossible to build a real "Iron Curtain" which would exclude Russia from the future of Europe.  There are many in central Europe - Poles in particular - who would deny their own eastern and Slavic roots and who would love to see a huge wall cutting Poland forever off its eastern neighbors.  I suppose that if these folks had magical scissors they would simply cut out Poland and move it to, say, southern France (there is a myth that France and Poland are particularly close whereas in reality the only thing binding these two countries together are their Masonic loges).  Ditto for the Balts who would gladly move to somewhere along the Norwegian border.  So when Putin says that "Russia will always be a part of Europe" he is trying to remind these folks that magic scissors do not exist and that no matter what, Russia will have influence and say in the future of Europe.  I am sure that Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn would agree.

But it is one thing to be aware of history and geography and quite another to make fundamental civilizational and development decisions.  The "Eurasian Sovereignists" are not dreaming of magic scissors to relocate Russia to the South Pacific or the Indian subcontinent, they simply believe that Russia has to invest its energy and efforts towards developing the immense human and natural resources of the Russian East and North and that for historical, cultural and religious reasons Russia can find much better friends and allies in Asia than in Europe.  I have to say that I completely agree with this vision.

Europe has become a continent whose leaders can openly votes in support of a vicious and openly neo-Nazi regime in Kiev without any backlash at all.  The EU will send the Banderists in Kiev money which it denies to the Greeks, and these same Greeks then vote in support of the Banderists.  Judging by the amount of laws passed in EU countries to ban racism, revisionism, negationism and even Fascism or National-Socialism one could get the mistaken impression that racism is frowned upon in the EU.  This is not so.  That only applies to anti-Jewish racism.  But anti-Russian racism is actually the official order of the day, and it enjoys a consensus support from the European elites.

So I sincerely ask you all, my friends and readers, what shall Russia do in response to that?  Pretend like this is not happening?  Try to shame Europeans into realizing what they have done (like Lavrov has been trying so many times)?  Does it not make sense for Russia to follow a simple course: try to avoid as best can be any wars or confrontations with the West (and that will be decided by the USA anyway) and turn towards the South, East and North for its future?

Honestly, what is the very bust Russia can hope for on its western borders?

The Saker

Detailed description of the Russian Iskander-M missile

I have mentioned the Russian short range missile Iskander-M several times on this blog: this is the missile which Russia will deploy if the USA persists in fielding its anti-missile system in Europe. Some have asked how exactly this new Russian missile could defeat the US anti-missile systems. Here below is a very interesting article below partially answering this question.

I will try to find an equally well-informed article about the new Russian mobile intercontinental ballistic missile RS-24 and post it here.

The Saker
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Iskander the Great

Mikhail Barabanov for the Moscow Defense Brief

The Iskander short-range mobile theater ballistic missile system is the latest armament to burst onto the political arena, serving as a persuasive argument for politico-military discussions taking place in Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. The reason why the Iskander (Western designation SS-26 Stone) has attracted so much attention is that it is quite possibly the most effective and deadly nonstrategic ballistic missile in existence.

From the Oka to the Iskander

In 1980, the Soviet Union adopted the 9K714 Oka (SS-23 Spyder) short-range theater mobile ballistic missile into service, having a range of up to 450 km and a high precision, single-stage solid propellant missile with a nuclear or conventional warhead. This system was developed by the Kolomna Machine Building Design Bureau (KBM). The accuracy of the Oka missile (Circular Error Probable – CEP) is 30 m. Oka missiles were meant to replace the notorious old 9K72 Elbrus (SS-3B Scud) short-range theater ballistic missile with a range of up to 300 km, used by the Soviet Army and forces of the Warsaw Pact. The USA was worried from the start by the outstanding accuracy of the Oka missile. In 1987, exploiting Mikhail Gorbachev’s inclination to compromise, the United States was able to have the Oka (as OTR-23) included in the list of systems to be eliminated under the U.S.-Soviet Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, even though the Treaty applied only to missiles with a range over 500 km. The Soviet Union was required to destroy every one of its 106 transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicles and 339 Oka missiles by 1991. Later, the United States insisted that former Soviet allies destroy the Oka missile systems they received in the mid-1980s on a unilateral basis: Bulgaria (eight TEL vehicles and 25 Oka missiles), Czech Republic (two TEL vehicles and 12 Oka missiles) and Slovakia (two TEL vehicles and 24 Oka missiles).

The destruction of the Oka missiles in accordance with the INF Treaty was hotly debated among Soviet politico-military circles and was seen by society as a glaring example of Gorbachev’s «betrayal.» Thus, the Soviet Union and Russia were deprived of their most effective short-range theater ballistic missile. Moreover, the R-17 Elbrus (SS-3B Scud) short-range ballistic missiles («operational-tactical» ones in Russian terminology), based on the design of the German V-2 liquid propellant ballistic missile, were withdrawn from operational use due to their low accuracy and outdated technology. Accordingly, the Kolomna Machine Building Design Bureau began to develop a new and more modern, highly accurate single-stage solid propellant short-range theater mobile ballistic missile with a range of up to 500 km to satisfy the requirements of the INF Treaty. The new system was named Iskander, after the Persian name for Alexander the Great, and intended to fill the armaments gap left by the elimination of the Oka and Elbrus ballistic missiles. Later, it was decided to use the Iskander to replace the Tochka and Tochka-U (SS-21 Scarab) short-range ballistic missile mobile systems with ranges of up to 70 and 120 km respectively, as their service life was to expire after 2000.

The Iskander ballistic missile is 7.3 m long, has a body diameter of 0.92 m and a launch weight of between 3,800 and 4,020 kg, depending on the payload. A Soyuz NPO single-stage solid-propellant engine provides propulsion. The high velocity of the missile allows it to penetrate antimissile defenses. Iskander missiles can fly a depressed trajectory below 50 km and can make evasive maneuvers up to 30 g during the terminal phase, to prevent interception by surface-to-air missiles. The Iskander has several conventional warhead options weighing between 480 and 700 kg, depending on type. These are believed to include cluster warheads with antipersonnel/antimaterial blast/fragmentation submunitions, area denial submunitions, high explosive unitary, fuel-air explosive, high explosive earth penetrator for bunker busting, and an antiradar blast/fragmentation warhead. A nuclear warhead can be affixed to the Iskander, though this capability is not advertised officially. The payload can also include tactical decoys.

The guidance system, designed by the Central Scientific Research Institute for Automation and Hydraulics (TsNIIAG), features an inertial unit with terminal guidance electro-optical correlation seeker with digital target area data. The missile has been reported to have an accuracy of 10 to 30 meters CEP, or even better. Some versions have guidance systems capable of GPS/GLONASS satellite navigation system updates during mid-course and with missile datalink for in-flight re-targeting. Other types of terminal guidance system are possible, using active radar or imaging infrared sensor seekers.

The Iskander ballistic missile system was created in two basic versions. The 9K723 Iskander missile system (sometimes called the Iskander-M or Tender) was made for the use of the Russian Army, using the 9M723 ballistic missile with a maximum range of up to 450 or even 500 km. The 9K720 Iskander-E export version uses 9M720-E ballistic missiles with a reduced payload of up to 480 kg and a reduced maximum range of up to 280 km, to respect the limits imposed by the international Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

The Iskander 9P78 TEL vehicle carries two missiles. The 9P78 four-axle TEL vehicle was developed by the Titan Central Design Bureau in Volgograd and based on a Minsk MZKT-7930 chassis. It has a length of 13.1 m, a width of 2.6 m and a height of 3.55 m, with the two missiles in the stowed traveling position. The fully loaded weight is 42,850 kg. This TEL has a 650 HP diesel engine, with a maximum road speed of 70 km/h, and an un-refueled range of 1,100 km. The vehicle has a launch crew of three, has full nuclear, biological, and chemical protection and amphibious capabilities. The TEL contains a command post with an automated fire-control system, so that each TEL can operate independently if necessary. The command post has target data and designation, navigation, and weather control positions, as well as built-in system-test equipment. The TEL can be positioned on sloping ground, and leveled with four hydraulic jack supports within 30 to 80 seconds. The missiles are raised to an angle of 85°, which takes around 20 seconds. The reaction time can vary between 5 and 16 minutes, and two missiles can be fired in salvo with 60 seconds between launches. The Iskander missile system also includes a 9T250 transporter-loader vehicle based on a MZKT-7930 chassis, which carries two reload missiles and a crane. This has a crew of two, with a fully loaded weight of 40,000 kg. There are four other vehicles based on the six-axle KamAZ-43101 truck chassis. These are a 9S552 command and control post with four operator stations and a communications suite, a 9S920 mission planning vehicle with two operator stations, a maintenance vehicle, and a crew accommodation vehicle.

A typical Iskander operational battery is expected to consist of two TELs with two reload vehicles, two command and control vehicles, two mission planning vehicles, a maintenance vehicle, and a crew accommodation vehicle. An Iskander battalion is composed of two operational batteries. A Missile Brigade equipped with Iskander missile systems, is composed of three missile battalions, with 12 TELs and 12 transporter-loader vehicles, and a total of 48 ballistic missiles.

Testing of the Iskander ballistic missile system has been ongoing at the Kapustin Yar Test Range in Astrakhan Oblast since 1995. The state tests were complete in August of 2004, and in 2007 the Iskander was formally passed into service by the MOD. Limited serial production of the system began in 2005. Iskander ballistic missiles are manufactured at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant in Udmurtia and the solid propellant motors are built by the Soyuz NPO (now part of the Tactical Missiles Corporation) at Dzerzhisky. The TEL and transporter-loader vehicles are built at the Barrikady Plant in Volgograd.

Further development of the warfighting capabilities of the Iskander missile system should include the integration of the high-precision R-500 (3M14) subsonic cruise missile, developed by the Novator Design Bureau in Yekaterinburg. The R-500 missile is actually a conventional version of the Soviet 3M10 (RK-55) long-range cruise missile, which was the analogue of the U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile. The 3M10, is installed as the Granat (SS-N-21) system with a range of up to 2,600 km on the Russian Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarines and was previously deployed as the Relief (SSC-4) ground-based long-range mobile cruise missile system, eliminated by the 1987 INF Treaty.

The R-500 is equipped with a conventional warhead and has an official range of up to 500 km to honor the limits of the INF Treaty. However, several observers have suggested that the R-500 could easily be modified to attain ranges of up to 1,000 km or even more (up to 2,500 km, depending on the size of the warhead).

In November of 2007, the Commander of the Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Ground Forces, Colonel General Vladimir Zaritsky said that «at present the Iskander-M missile system fully complies with the conditions of the INF Treaty, but if a political decision were made to withdraw from the Treaty, we would increase the fighting capabilities of the system, including its range.» The R-500 cruise missile guidance system has an inertial unit, a GPS/GLONASS satellite navigation system, and a terminal guidance electro-optical correlation seeker with digital target area data or active radar seeker. Testing of the R-500 cruise missile was completed at Kapustin Yar in 2007, and it was announced that the missile would be passed into service as part of the Iskander system in 2009. The Iskander missile system with the R-500 cruise missile is designated Iskander-K. Six R-500 cruise missiles with vertical launch canisters can be installed in place of the two ballistic missiles on a standard 9P78 TEL vehicle.

Iskander in Service

On January 1, 2007, the 630th Training Missile Battalion with four Iskander TEL vehicles, the first one of the kind, was formed at the 60th Combat Training Center of the Army Missile Troops at the Kapustin Yar Test Range, based in the North Caucasus Military District. According to the National Armaments Programs for 2007-2015, 60 serially-produced Iskander ballistic missile systems (that is, 60 TEL vehicles) will be procured to equip five of Russia’s ten Missile Brigades. The newly equipped brigades will be distributed right across Russia: the 26th (Luga, near St. Petersburg in the Leningrad Military District), the 92nd (in Kamenka, near Penza in the Volga-Urals Military District), the 103rd (in Ulan-Ude, Siberia Military District), the 107th (Semistochny, near Birobidzhan in the Far East Military District), and the 114th (in Znamensk, near Astrakhan, in the North Caucasus Military District). Each of those missile brigades is currently equipped with Tochka and Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile mobile systems. The 92nd and 107th Missile Brigades are to be the first to be reequipped, by 2011, with the first deliveries to begin in 2008. It should be noted that the list of five brigades designated to receive the Iskander does not include the 152nd Missile Brigade in Kaliningrad, the two missile brigades of the Moscow Military District (the 50th in Shuya and the 448th in Kursk), and yet another missile brigade in the North Caucasus Military District (the 1st in Krasnodar).

On May 9, 2008, four TEL vehicles loaded with Iskander missiles of the 630th Training Missile Battalion of the 60th Combat Training Centre of the Army Missile Troops took part in the Military Parade on the Red Square in Moscow. On August 630th Training Missile Battalion took part in Five-Day War with Georgia over South Ossetia. Several 9M723 missiles were reportedly fired from Russia against military targets in Georgia with cluster and high-explosive unitary warheads. According to unconfirmed reports, it was an Iskander missile that inflicted the infamous, high-precision strike on the Georgian Separate Tank Battalion base in Gori. Moreover, the Iskander missile made a direct hit on the arms depot, causing it to explode and inflicting extensive damage on the tank battalion. Russian officials have not admitted to using the Iskander missile against Georgia. However, unofficial reports testify to the high effectiveness of the Iskander missiles, as one of the most devastating and accurate weapons in the Russian arsenal.

The fate of the Iskander missile took a new turn on November 5, 2008, when President Dmitry Medvedev announced in his address to the Federal Assembly that Russia would deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad Oblast as a response to the planned deployment of parts of the American missile-defense system on Polish and Czech territory. In principle, Medvedev’s announcement should not have been a surprise to anyone following Russian military developments. First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov had said as much in July of 2007, and similar announcements have been made several times in Russian military circles in 2008. There was even a story about the plans in a September issue of Krasnaya Zvezda, the MOD’s newspaper. In fact, the issue concerns nothing more than the replacement of the Tochka-U missiles of the 152nd Guards Missile Brigade, located at Chernyakhovsk in Kaliningrad Oblast, part of the Kaliningrad Special Military Region, which is under Naval Command.

The rearming of the 152nd Guards Missile Brigade with Iskanders would allow 9M723 missiles with a range of 500 km to reach all of Poland, the eastern parts of Germany and northern Czech territories. It could target all elements of the American Ballistic Missile Defense system planned for deployment in this area, including the radar station in the Czech Republic. The accuracy of the 9M723 missile is sufficient to defeat even heavily fortified targets, including the American GBI silo-based missile interceptors, with conventional warheads. The R-500 cruise missile would allow for an even more effective destruction of targets in Europe from Kaliningrad, and probably at a greater range as well. Moreover, Russia has not excluded the possibility of equipping the Iskander with a nuclear warhead.

However, the decision to rearm the 152nd Guards Missile Brigade with Iskander missiles is only part of a full-scale review of the original plans for their deployment. Two days after Medvedev’s speech, a high official of the Russian MOD told the RIA Novosti news agency that the new plan would have all five brigades armed with Iskanders by 2015 «facing the West.» This would imply that instead of equipping the 92nd, 103rd and 107th missile brigades with Iskanders, the new weapons would be deployed to the 50th and 448th missile brigades of the Moscow Military District, the 152nd in Kaliningrad, and the 26th in the Leningrad Military District, and the 114th in the North Caucasus. On the basis of several subsequent official statements, it seems that the 152nd Guards Missile Brigade in Kaliningrad will be equipped with Iskanders no sooner than 2011, and would be timed to coincide with the deployment of American GBI missile interceptors in Poland.

Clearly, the decision to change the plan for the deployment of Iskander missiles to concentrate on reequipping the European parts of Russia first, reflects the significant deterioration of relations between Russia and the West over the past few years, especially in the wake of the Five-Day War with Georgia. In military terms, the deployment of the Iskander system in Kaliningrad and other European parts of Russia represents a radical increase in the capacity of Russian formations to inflict high-precision strikes against any target in Eastern, Central, and Northern Europe. It is extremely difficult for even the most modern and prospective air defense systems possessed by Western countries to intercept the Iskander ballistic missile. The TEL vehicles themselves proved to be difficult to detect and relatively invulnerable to American forces in 1991 and 2003 during the two wars with Iraq.

The sharp reaction of West European states to the announced deployment of the Iskander system in Kaliningrad comes as no surprise, as it represents a quantum leap for Russian military capabilities in the enclave. However, the Europeans should not forget that it is the American plan to deploy its Ballistic Missile Defense system along the Russian border that has led Moscow to making this decision. The Kremlin has clearly reasoned that the Iskander should be a weighty argument for European discussions on whether they are prepared to sacrifice their own immediate security interests for the sake of America’s politico-military ambitions. After all, the Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad are a lot closer and much more real than any hypothetical Iranian missiles.

Export Opportunities

The Iskander-E short-range theater ballistic missile mobile system was publicly offered for export in 1999, though the sale of such a sensitive article was bound to meet with many political obstacles. Syria and Iran were the first to express an interest in 2000, though Russia apparently refused delivery for fear of spoiling its relations with the United States and Israel. By late 2004, Russia had practically concluded a contract for the sale of 18 systems to Syria, but President Putin canceled the deal at the last minute. Nevertheless, future sales cannot be excluded, and Russia is clearly exploiting the prospect of deliveries to Iran as a playing chip with the United States and Iran. The Iskander-E has become a powerful card in Russia’s hand in the complex game over the Middle East.

Negotiations with the United Arab Emirates have taken place, and Rosoborneksport has also named Algeria, Kuwait, Yemen, Vietnam, Singapore, and South Korea as potential customers. In 2006, KBM representatives announced that a contract for the delivery of the Iskander-E was concluded, but did not name the purchaser. This information has not been forthcoming to date. The Novator Design Bureau has also offered the Club-M missile system with 3M14E cruise missiles and 3M54E/E1 (SS-N-27) antiship missiles for export. The Club-M is actually the export version of the Iskander-K missile system. The UAE has expressed an interest in this system.

However, Belarus is likely to make the first purchase of the Iskander-E. In November 2007, General Mikhail Puzikov announced a government decision to acquire an Iskander-E missile system brigade to rearm the 465th Belarusian Missile Brigade by 2015-2020. Puzikov said that funds had already been allocated and the missile systems would be acquired at domestic Russian prices, in accordance with the terms of the Tashkent Agreement of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The first deliveries of the Iskander-E should begin in 2010.

The Iskander-E and Club-M are unique wares on the global arms market in terms of their technical specifications and warfighting capabilities. The acquisition by any country of the Iskander-E, the Russian arms industry’s most advanced export, is sure to influence the balance of forces in any corner of the world.

Obama's first foreign policy initiative: scrapping the anti-missile system in Europe

Russian and western media outlets are reporting that Obama has offered a deal to the Russians: help us with Iran and we will not deploy the anti-missile system in Europe (see, for example, here). Officially, the American logic goes like that: IF the Iranians drop their nuclear program and IF they stop the development of long-range missiles, THEN there is no more need for an anti-missile system in Europe.

Talk about nonsense...

The reality is, of course, that the anti-missile system in Europe was aimed at Russia, everybody knows that, and the only reason why Obama is preparing to abandon it is the combination of two simple facts:

a) having lost is airbases in Central Asia, the US now needs Russia more than ever before to at least passively tolerate the US war effort in Afghanistan

b) the Russians have come up with a combination of long range and short range missiles (the RS-24 and the Iskander) which completely negate any military advantage the proposed anti-missile system in Europe could have given the USA.

In less than a year, this is yet another major victory for Russia. Having pushed the US military out of Central Asia, having crushed the US proxy in South Ossetia and Georgia, Russia is now forcing the USA into a humiliating step down from its missile plans in Europe.

Some credit has to be given to Obama and his puppeteers for recognizing reality for what it is and for acting on it. Both sides will now make face-saving statements about "no linkage" and the like, but the writing is on the wall: the USA is not nearly the superpower it likes to fancy itself to be. Now - that's official.

Will the Russians 'help' the Americans in dealing with Iran? Yes, sure, but only in a way the Iranians themselves want: to finally get a constructive negotiation going on all the outstanding issues between Iran and the USA including, first and foremost, the situation in Iraq. That is, I predict, the extend of 'help' the USA will get from Medvedev.

Impression from a trip outside the Imperial Homeland

As I have mentioned in a recent post, I have had to travel to Europe for 10 short days, most of which were centered on my mother's health issues. Still, crossing the Atlantic and returning to Europe was not without interest for me as it allowed me to take a short, but interested, look at what had changed since my departure six years ago. While some things had not changed at all (the food there is still excellent) other things truly surprised me.

More than anything else, I was absolutely baffled, and greatly disappointed, by how little original political thought I found in Europe, at least judging by the media. Sure, Dubya is as hated and despised as ever, but beyond that there is very little original European political vision. Sarkozy is in much more trouble for being rude then for being a foam-at-his-mouth Neocon. The USA is criticized for its violations of international law in Iraq, but most Europeans seem to think that the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo and, which is even worse, the wide recognition of this wholly illegal (not to mention fictional) independence is really no big deal. Worst of all, I have found out that not only do European talking heads mindlessly parrot all the anti-Russian nonsense of their American counterparts, but that they are even more rabid in what I can only describe as some bizarre anti-Russian hysteria. The sad reality is that on every single political issue I can think of the Europeans are either indistinguishable or worse than the US Neocons.

Speaking of being worse, I had the "opportunity", so to speak, to watch the idiot-box in Europe and I have to say that it is at least as toxic and mindless as the worst the US TV stations have to offer. Ditto for the printed media.

All in all, Europe (judging from the two countries I visited and from what I could see on the idiot-box) left me the impression of a "flaccid" society without much of an identity and with nothing at all in its guts to counterbalance the Empire in any way. Which is maybe why anti-Russian feelings are so strong, at least among the European pundits.

Russia, for all its (numerous) ills and deficiencies, is clearly breaking free from the Empire and while I do not particularly care for the "national-Bolshevik" ideology used by Putin and his supporters for consensus-building inside Russia, I have to admit that the actual policies followed by Russia are fundamentally pragmatic and sound. And when European complain about the lack of a free press in Russia they can only hope to get away with such baloney by counting on the fact that most of their audience cannot check for itself whether this is true or not. Likewise, Russians had a far more diverse choice of candidates to choose from during the recent presidential election than the Americans could ever dream for. Could it be that European elites dislike Russia precisely because it is now powerful, rich, diverse and independent from the Empire they still sheepishly continue to genuflect to?

I used to look down on Eastern European countries for their abject courting of the USA and NATO, for their lack of national pride, for their childish desire to appease their new masters. I now feel the same way about the rest of Europe: "Old Europe" (to use Rummy's famous expression) or "New Europe" - there is nothing there which would lead me to believe that any good came come from it.

Admittedly, 10 days is a short time to get a sense of what is going on and I might be mistaken in my bleak outlook on Europe. I would very much like to hear from others and be given reasons to hope for the future of my home continent. So if you can offer some insights, whichever side of the Atlantic you live on, please share them with me and post your comments here.

Many thanks,

The Saker