STRATDELA #43

Summertime...whatever

Strategic offensive weapons

MIRV’d Agni-5 ICBM tested in India. No surprises here, missile development in South Asia follows the global trends.

Russian heavy Sarmat ICBM tested, reportedly succesfully. Some official comments, including mentions of suborbital trajectory, can be found here.

More launches carried out by Russian strategic nuclear forces during joint exercise with Belarus, but more on it in other sections.

Have a nice photo of venerable Bryansk SSBN (667BDRM/Delta-IV):

Increased B-21 order becoming more and more real. Also, important milestone passed with operational test pilot and development test pilot flying together.

LRSO labeled as “best-performing” next-gen nuclear weapon in the US.

Regular Minuteman-III ICBM test launch coincided with the RU/BY nuclear exercise.

Hyperhype

Leidos enhanced their production capacity for CHGB with new US Army contract.

ARRW not only revived, but also getting into the anti-ship business.

Hypersonic testing is a real bottleneck, and Stratolaunch tries hard to fix it. Including for the missile defense missions.

Post-INF (and other long-range precision weapons)

Not only Post-INF, but closely related: more and more long-range missiles involved in the exercises in the South-East Asia.

Typhon also deployed in Japan. Also, “for exercises”.

ELSA is something very strange, as now France wants to (re)join the effort by UK and Germany in the deep precision strike capability development.

Back in the SEA, Vietnam looks like the next BrahMos operator.

In the meantime, more Oreshnik IRBM uses…or tests…or whatever. It’s complicated.

Early Warning/Missile Defense/Military Space

Dassault Aviation and OHB want to build a spaceplane for ESA called VORTEX-S.

Everything with wings in space can and should be considered a military purpose vehicle.

Some US space capabilities have been destroyed during the Epic Fury operation, as acknowledged by officials. Looks like even more have been destroyed as of today.

Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator program continues in the US as well. More challenges for Russia, China, and others, and even more reasons to invest in counterspace capabilities. Sad.

Same is true for the USSF interest in military operations in cislunar space. Things will get really nasty soon.

Military Industry and military-technical cooperation

A rather unexpected turn in the general trend of missile proliferation in the Asia-Pacific: Norway decided not to deliver NSM to Malaysia.

Really important thing that I will definitely write more about: Pentagon brings producers of low-cost munitions on board to replenish arsenal depth.

Tradition contractors are also expanding production, with new Lockheed Martin facility aimed at NGI and ARRW, among other things.

Arms control, diplomacy and signalling

Big nuclear weapon exercise carried out in Russia and Belarus within the Union State framework, involving both strategic and non-strategic nuclear forces. Yars, Sineva, ALCMs, Iskander-M, Kinzhal, Su-25. Training of nuclear munitions delivery mentioned as well. Most information available here, but, unfortunately, official English version still unavailable. Videos can be found in the STRATDELA telegram channel.

NPT RevCon failed to deliver a final document, but the effort was impressive. And no one left the treaty so far. Good.

I would put the rumors about possible increase in US nuclear weapons footprint in Europe in this section this time, but it might change rapidly.

Further reading

• National Security Space Policies in the Changing Environment, report from 2024 event, still relevant

• Good CBO calculations on the Golden Dome costs

• STRATDELA Special about Sarmat test launch:

• More stuff on Sarmat test with some good satellite images.

• My fresh paper (more of an essay actually) on arms control published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, feel free to reach out for a copy.

• Good effort to revive nuclear winter studies.

• Great research into missile launch notifications and implications for strategic stability .

• Traditional Russian Nuclear Weapons report by FAS.

• Interesting take on possible future directions of the US Nuclear Strategy.

• Long interview with Sergey Ryabkov.

• Good report on strategic risks in the Asia-Pacific.

• Important speech by Elbridge Colby.

• Another report on the Golden Dome.

• Some thoughts about the major nuclear forces exercise in Russia and Belarus this May [In Russian].

• Good Oreshnik analysis:

  The Missile That Came In from the Cold

• Quality writing on European deterrence cooperation.

• Important thoughts on future US nuclear posture.

• Good paper on the French nuclear doctrine evolution.

• Useful perspective on how missile defense battle vis-a-vis Iran are different compared to the one against China.

Music

Combichrist keeps delivering:

End Notes

That’s all folks. Stay tuned for more good stuff, feel free to drop me a message.