They were only meant to defeat Iranian and North Korean missiles. Not Russia's massive arsenal.
Mattis: Russia Can Beat U.S. Missile Defenses (For a Forgotten Reason)
U.S.
Defense Secretary James Mattis is adamant that Russia’s recently
unveiled nuclear weapons delivery vehicles will not change the strategic
balance between Washington and Moscow. Moreover, Mattis said that he
believes that Russia is wasting its money in developing weapons to
overcome American missile defenses because those systems are simply not
capable of taking on the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal.
“We
can dismiss some of this as election rhetoric on the eve of an election
and that sort of thing, but as I went through and looked at the clips
of what he showed on the videos and all, I get paid to make strategic
assessments, and I would just tell you that I saw no change to the
Russian military capability,” Mattis told reporters on March 10.
“And
each of these systems that he's talking about that are still years
away, I do not see them changing the military balance. They do no impact
any need on our side for a change in our deterrent posture, which would
be certainly an indication I registered this assessment with something
that was changing.”
Mattis argues that the Russians have entered into a one-sided arms race where the Kremlin is the only one playing.
“Let
me talk about the end-state, how many years away they are, how much
money they want to put into this arms race that they're creating with
themselves,” Mattis said. “At the end of the day, they can sink all of
that money in; it does not change my strategic calculation. I just
assumed it would all happen at great expense to the Russia people. It
doesn't change anything.”
Mattis
took aim at Russia’s developmental Status-6 nuclear-powered
nuclear-tipped intercontinental torpedo as an example of a superfluous
capability.
“Okay,
they say they can hit one of our port cities with a robotic torpedo,”
Mattis said. “Okay. They can hit one of our port cities right now
today.”
Mattis
argues that the new Russian capabilities are superfluous because
American missile defenses are not designed to intercept the Kremlin’s
weapons.
“They
say they can hit any city by getting through defenses,” Mattis said.
“We have never said that we have a missile-defense system against
Russia. It's always been against one thing—rogue nations. And let me be
very clear on those: North Korea and Iran.”
Mattis
flatly states that U.S. missiles defenses would not work against
Russian weapons. “And that's why the ones [missile defense sites] are in
Eastern Europe,” Mattis said. “They would not work. And the Russian
officers are professional enough and are technically skilled enough,
they know what their politicians say is wrong. They will not work
against Russians, and they're not designed to.”
The
Russians, however, do not believe that there is a realistic threat from
Iran and are suspicious of the fact that American missile defense sites
are very close to their borders in Eastern Europe.
Moscow’s suspicion
is that the U.S. missile defense system is designed to blunt its
retaliatory second strike capability—and even if the system is too
rudimentary to neutralize Russian missiles today, that might not be the
case three decades from now. Thus, Russia has embarked on a program to
overcome any foreseeable American missile defense capability—in the
event Washington does develop a more robust capability.
For
the Pentagon, however, the overall strategic balance remains intact.
Since the dawn of the missile age, the Kremlin has had the capability to
reduce the United States to smoldering pile radioactive ash just as
Washington has the ability to reduce Russia to charred radioactive
moonscape.
“So
what I'm saying is they have the capability to do right now what he
[Putin] was touting,” Mattis said. “So it doesn't change anything, other
than how much money do they want to spend on something that does not
change at all the strategic balance.”
Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest
. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.
