STRATDELA #31
Cold times, hot news.
Before we start…New Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence are in force.
Strategic offensive weapons
More BTF action in Europe, including a relatively uncommon live B-52H bombing run in the Baltics.
MIRV’d Minuteman III launched from Vandenberg, command transmitted from airborne platform. Looks like it was quite interesting.
Doomsday aircraft production is continuing in the US.
SLCM-N development and production is going to be a challenge, including industry-wise. Or not. Or will:
"Johnny Wolfe’s a good man... If he gets the guidance to shorten that timeline, he can be creative.”
Yars deployment in the Kozelsk missile division also in progress.
DPRK remains absolutely undeterred in continuing the expansion of nuclear arsenal.
And they know how to show their missiles:
Hyperhype
H-6 with Kinzhal-ish weapons had some fun at Zhuhai 2024.
Some interesting figures on OG Kinzhal published here: maximum range is 1000+ km with 1.5 meter miss, MiG-31I launch at supersonic speed from the stratosphere.
India is actively catching up with the hypersonic weapons party. 1500+ km range sounds impressive.
AUKUS wants to become a crucial framework for hypersonic weapons development (and deployment, clearly).
US Navy wants to start testing CPS from Zumwalt in 2027-2028 only. And it is related to the delays with the Dark Eagle, who could have imagined.
Post-INF
Well, now we have Oreshnik (Hazel). Intermediate-range ground-based hypersonic missile has been announced back in 2019 in response to the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty. Yuzhmash plant had been hit quite impressively, but it is difficult to assess the results at the moment. Guesses on the accuracy and warheads are also premature. According to the given description it is difficult to reliably determine what it is - it may be a development of the Rubezh “light” ICBM with the addition of a new type of payload (by the way, there has been no news about “Anchar-RV” for a long time), or maybe something completely new, especially since our design bureaus have always had a number of missile projects on and off their tables. There is already a stockpile of battle-ready missiles. Oreshnik will be operated by the Strategic Rocket Forces. Weapon is clearly dual-capable, but conventional mission seems to be a priority.
Russian "Post-INF Moratorium" lives: no deployment of INF-range weapons before the US deploys theirs, but no limits on development, production and, well, testing.
It is a sign of both vertical and horizontal escalation looming on the horizon. Russia sent a notification through the NRRC before the launch.
Full range of Russian intermediate- and shorter-range missiles under development.
Missile Defense
Looking forward to Trump nominating NFL player to run MDA.
Military Space
Quite useful cheat sheet:
USSF is more and more actively discussing offensive counterspace capabilities by the way, but there are extremely scarce details on those.
More robot-arm’d satellites to the orbit in a few years, awesome!
Anduril is getting deeper and deeper in the US military satellites, with their AI-ish tool Lattice used to upgrade network.
US Commerial Reserve Satellite Partners program is nearing first actual deals.
Military Industry
Kongsberg will produce JSM for the Japanese F-35A.
Russian solid fuel rocket motor production is expanding.
Arms control, diplomacy and signalling
UN vote on new research on nuclear war effects was quite fun. UK comments are noteworthy though:
“Nuclear war would have devastating consequences for humanity. We don’t need an independent scientific panel to tell us that.”
Also, for reference, Russian official statement on TPNW is available.
Russia-DPRK Treaty on comprehensive strategic partnership has been ratified.
Shoigu spent some time in Beijing discussing ‘strategic security’.
Putin traditionally said some stuff about nukes and arms control at Valdai.
Xi and Biden came up with some basic joint understanding on AI and NC3: “stressed the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons”.
G20 “…recommited to advancing the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and a safer place for all and will uphold our obligations in this regard.”
Belarus still believes in arms control.
Putin spoke on Oreshnik IRBM. Twice.
Further reading (and watching)
Great SIPRI research on missile technology proliferation and New Space industry
Long Ryabkov interview [In Russian]
New Report on the Nuclear Employment Strategy of the United States
Some thoughts on cooperation between Russia and China on the Strategic Security level
Overview of Oreshnik [In Russian]
Short op-ed on NPT and its importance even now [In Russian]
Comments on new Russian ‘nuclear doctrine’ [In Russian, but there will be an English version soon]
Interview on latest escalatory, nuclear and missile developments [In Russian]
Music
I love black metal, I love tanks, what else to ask for:
End Notes
That’s all for today, stay tuned for more stuff (can’t call it good) that is brewing under STRATDELA banner. Feel free to reach out, feedback always welcome!