STRATDELA #34
Rapid developments
Hey folks, things are tense, events are dense, but at least it is not boring.
Also, we’ve crawled a bit away from the nuclear holocaust, which is a good thing.
Anyway, while I’m completing a new Special issue, enjoy a regular one!
Strategic offensive weapons
B-21 keeps achieving progress. Good for them. Some good details about the future Raider capabilities available here.
B-52s of the ongoing BTF-25-2 continued to integrate with allied forces.
Tu-22M3 flew over the Baltic, nothing to see here.
New records for Vanguard SSBN patrols. Not that anyone should be happy about it. More docking capability promised for Dreadnought though.
French Rafales are not really strategic by legacy designation, but the idea to deploy more of them and re-activate Luxeuil airbase has strategic implications.
Hyperhype
Testing, testing, testing is a crucial factor for the US effort. Let’s see how they will react, some interesting ideas are proposed here.
ARRW received an Aviation Week award.
ASN4G announced to arrive with Rafale F5 to Luxeuil airbase in 2035.
Post-INF
Small update on ELSA: something material promised around Summer.
3rd MDTF getting Typhon.
Chassis for Oreshnik IRBM launchers are in production in Belarus, possible deployment locations designated, per Lukashenko.
Early Warning and Missile Defense
Lockheed Martin advertising is all over the place. Some useful details about their vision for the Golden Dome included. Same is going on with L3Harris.
More GMD silos for Alaska, although I didn’t fully understand how many have been activated already. Probably not all 20, especially given the still ongoing process of deciding on GBI/NGI mix.
Important effect of the Golden Dome efforts could be the expansion of testing facilities, including for hypersonic weapons, which is hugely important as mentioned above.
Anyhow, GD will be THE biggest project that will affect a lot of the US and global defense landscape.
Military Space
Lots of ambitious statements from the US Space Force recently. Warrior Ethos, Deny/Disrupt/ Degrade, etc.
X-37B is back form the latest mission, which included some fancy orbital manoeuvres.
New fancy name from the UK: Borealis. Looks like this system will be used for Space Domain Awareness and C2, but some ‘defensive’ capabilities are mentioned as well. Still, I believe it is more about information than anything else.
France is also working on new national space strategy with a clear military flavour.
In Russia, Angara-1.2 launched some military payloads to space from Plesetsk. Likely communication satellites.
Pentagon seems quite hysterical about some of Russian and Chinese experiments lately, as well as any possible challenges to the US Space Superiority: CNN, Space Force, Breaking Defense. Beware!
Military Industry
Useful piece of data on air defense munitions use tempo in the US Navy. Long story short, the rate of consuming expensive weapons is unsustainable/
Not sure it belongs to this section, but the Pentagon spending cuts undermining DTRA is important.
Raketenmotoren, including big ones, by Rheinmetall is a very serious effort, the success or failure of which will affect the EU military capability greatly.
More moneys for JASSM/LRASM production.
Arms control, diplomacy and signalling
French-led (but probably Germany-initiated) debate on the European Nuclear Deterrence is getting hotter. In the meantime, Germany believes that the more the merrier: Euronukes should support US nukes.
ROK becoming a sensitive country per the US DoE designation is interesting.
Trilateral RU-CN-IR meeting on Iranian nuclear program happened in Beijing. Good.
Further reading (and listening)
Strategic Review 2024, a bilingual book by IMEMO scholars.
My slides on Russian nuclear thinking and acting, etc., from ISODARCO-62.
Russian view on French nuclear policies (published in 2024)
Good report from the US DoD nuclear forensics exercise
Smart op-ed correctly arguing that AUKUS Pillar II is more important than those SSNs.
Lots of fun ideas for the Australian defense.
Good explanation of how the UK nuclear deterrent is kind of independent.
Some thoughts on how Trump might drive nuclear proliferation.
And also thoughts on why nuclear proliferation will be bad for the US.
Overview of AI tech used for the US nuclear enterprise.
Chinese Nuclear Weapons, 2025.
Q&A with Anatoly Antonov.
Yet another take on the Golden Dome.
Analysis of strategic emerging technologies implications in South Asia.
Some thoughts about Oreshnik IRBM implications for the European security.
Nuclear Disarmament is hardly on the table, but the topic is important.
Also, a great dissection of the Euro Deterrent ideas by a friendly substack:
Music
Some old-school-ish SMDM for a change:
Nuclear war topic included.
End Notes
A general thought on possible French extended nuclear deterrence for the EU: if coupled with a lowered nuclear use threshold, it will pretty much follow the logic of NATO vs Warsaw Pact during the most of the previous Cold War and Russia vs NATO (and likely China) over the 1990s-2000s. But more on this later.
French Pluton SRBM at the 1 RA grounds as a final note:
