- An era has come to an end. The US has officially withdrawn from the INF Treaty. But the termination of the treaty is not the scary part. The scary part is that there's no replacement. One can withdraw from any treaty as long as they understand what's left on the territory they leave. A new arms race has basically been announced. John Bolton has announced that New START is not likely to be extended. Washington is ruining international security and demonstrates its careless optimism. Trump hopes to sign a new treaty that will include China, but China refuses. Iran is being forced to develop a nuclear bomb, but few people believe it'll be able to finish the project. North Korea is testing new missiles. The White House announces that it's not afraid of an arms race because Trump is on good terms with Vladimir Putin.
I believe that this statement must be treated very seriously. We must realize that, in simple words, it means that Washington is sure that it can quickly catch up on the advanced armament program. It's been accidentally revealed that the US is developing new hyper-weapons. Those prototypes haven't been officially announced. The fact that the US is not afraid to state it means that it's sure that its economy is superior and that Russia won't be able to sustain a new arms race. That's the reason it's acting the way it is. That's the reason it's absolutely sure that nothing threatens its dominating position.
Yakov Kedmi, public figure (Israel): The situation surrounding the treaty must be viewed from several perspectives. We must analyze the process of its development. Many people who talk about it today take only its present state into account. When Russia and the US signed the treaty, it was done at the initiative of the US and in the interest of the US. By signing the treaty, Russia basically lost its means of counteracting intermediate- and short-range missiles. There was one paragraph that forced Russia to do that. Land-based missiles had to be destroyed, but the parties were allowed to keep sea-based ones.
The US, whose key forces are its ships, its navy, was able to keep those missiles and continued developing them. The Soviet Union didn't possess such missiles. The US was hoping that during the next 20 years, it would be able to establish decisive military superiority over Russia. When it came to this conclusion at the end of the 20th century, not at the beginning of the 21st, it developed the second stage, the Prompt Global Strike concept based on the Tomahawk missile, which is launched from sea- and air-based platforms. It hoped that Russia wouldn't be able to respond to this kind of might. That's why the US wasn't developing strategic missiles. It's already been mentioned that the newest American strategic missiles were made in 1973-1975. It bet on the missiles that Russia wasn't allowed to develop. Russia is a land power. The US has been developing its other missiles. I'd like to remind you that, according to the PGS concept, 5,000-6,000 missiles will be fired at Russia within 30 minutes. It's supposed to cause a meltdown of the Russian missile defense. That was the case when they just came up with the concept. But their modern-day specialists continue to believe in the concept.
It appears that Russia's come up with a more than adequate response to the upper hand of the US. First, Russia began producing those missiles, the Kalibr missiles. Secondly, Russia found a way to counteract the naval might of the US. Take the Aegis destroyer, for instance. It can carry 70-90 missiles, which it can fire. But that's just one ship, what if it gets sunk? Russia assigned a task to find an efficient means of striking surface and submarine vessels. And the means was found. The Kinzhal is just one example. That made the Americans come to their senses. They made the calculations and realized that Russia had an enormous advantage in terms of strategic missiles, which became even greater when the Sarmat was developed.
Russia has three types of missiles that the US doesn't have. Russia neutralizes America's might, which is based on intermediate-range sea-based missiles. That naturally made the Americans realize that they failed to accomplish their goal. Now, they want to use their intermediate-range missiles based in Europe to neutralize Russia's strategic advantage. These missiles have a different flight time. They won't be able to defeat Russia using just their strategic missiles. They realize that they're far behind. That's why they need land-based missiles. They've taken their previous experience into account.
This time, they're promising to develop mobile missile platforms. They're going to produce a lot of mobile platforms, which are harder to target compared to a destroyer. It's very easy to destroy a destroyer. That's the reason why the Americans are withdrawing from the treaty. But there's one thing that must be noted. First, the Americans don't have those missiles yet. The first thing they can do is making the land-based version of the Tomahawk missile. They will do that. But it won't do any good. If our information is correct, next year, Russia will release a new Kalibr missile. It'll be a new, upgraded Kalibr missile with an extended range of 2,800 miles. The type of warhead is also important here. The US is beginning to lose. Russia can make land-based Kalibrs just as easily. Secondly, Russia has enough missiles that can be slightly modified to turn from short-range missiles into missiles with a range of longer than intermediate.
-Russia's not supposed to have short- and intermediate-range missiles. The Kremlin said that Russia doesn't have such missiles.
-They are sea- and air-based.
Yakov Kedmi: If we take a land-based missile with a flight range of 300 miles and modernize it, it may end up with a range of 2,800 miles. That's pretty simple. And if we equip this missile with a next-generation thermonuclear warhead, which weighs 10, 20, or 30 kilograms and has a power of 100 kilotons, the missile will be able to fly even further, because it's not the old 400-kilogram warhead. That'll complicate the situation in Europe. Despite their engineering talent, the Americans are bad with calculations.
There are two things I'd like to point out here. That doesn't make Russia and Europe enemies. On the contrary, that's an unsolvable issue for Europe. The country that will house the missiles threatening Russia will be wiped off the map in case of a military conflict. Europe's aware of that. It's perfectly aware of that. Russia can easily annihilate Poland. The damage that the American missiles in Poland can inflict upon Russia isn't that serious.
And the last thing regarding China, they're constantly trying to spook us with China. Spooking Russia with China is one of the American propaganda programs. They don't want us to get closer. China will never be able to engage in strategic combat against Russia due to its geography. China's geographic position makes it very vulnerable. That's why China's not a strategic military threat to Russia. Russia's giant territory is its giant advantage. It's larger than the oceans the US was allegedly guarding.
