u***r
发帖数: 4825 | 1 https://www.rt.com/op-ed/489541-arms-race-oblivin-us-spend/
US is stuck in Cold War thinking; Plan to spend Russia & China ‘into
oblivion’ in arms race will bankrupt only America
Scott Ritter
is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet
Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s
staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter
22 May, 2020
In a stunning display of arrogance, ignorance, and hubris, President Trump’
s new arms control czar threatens to spend America’s adversaries into “
oblivion” in any new arms race. But the joke is on him.
Trump’s newly appointed Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control
Marshall Billingslea has breathed new life into an historical interpretation
that holds the United States won the Cold War with the Soviet Union by
escalating an arms race that turned out to be unsustainable for Moscow,
bankrupting the Soviet economy and accelerating the collapse of the Soviet
Union as a political entity.
In remarks made to the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank,
Billingslea noted that the threat of a new arms race would be enough to
bring both China and Russia to the negotiating table for the purpose of
crafting a new trilateral arms control treaty that would replace the current
bilateral New START treaty, scheduled to expire in February 2021.
“We intend to establish a new arms control regime now, precisely to prevent
a full-blown arms race,” Billingslea said. If, however, either Russia or
China (or both) decided to forego negotiations and continue to pursue new
strategic nuclear weapons, then President Trump “has made clear that we
have a tried and true practice here".
We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into
oblivion.
There are numerous factors that mitigate against Billingslea’s seemingly
desire to refight the Cold War. First and foremost, the United States, like
the rest of the world, exists in a new post-pandemic economic reality.
Whether or not the American people or their elected representatives in
Congress are prepared to shoulder the costs of an avoidable arms race with
Russia and China while on the cusp of an economic depression is very much a
debatable point.
Even if the political will for the kind of open-ended spending extravaganza
required to “spend the adversary into oblivion” existed (and with 30-plus
million Americans currently out of work, and millions more expected to
follow, such thinking rests more in the realm of fantasy than reality), it
is virtually impossible for the US today to replicate the conditions that
existed back in the 1980s. The current Russian and US defense economies of
today are a far cry from those that existed during the Cold War, a fact that
bodes well for Russia, and less so for the US.
Trump failed to prove he’s a true anti-interventionist. If he wins again,
we might see MORE wars
Trump failed to prove he’s a true anti-interventionist. If he wins again,
we might see MORE wars
Russian defense industry today is founded on a legacy inherited from Soviet
times, when defense industries took precedence over every other aspect of
the Soviet economy and attracted the finest scientists and technicians,
backed by a virtually unlimited budget. Under former Minister of Defense
Dmitry Ustinov, the Soviet ballistic missile production base benefited from
a multitude of research and design centers, each connected to its own
supporting infrastructure of production facilities responsible for
manufacturing diverse components and assembling them into finished products.
By 1988, the Soviets had seven different ICBM types deployed. Those were a
mix of third-, fourth- and fifth-generation liquid and solid fuel missiles.
While impressive in terms of scope, scale and quality, the Soviet ICBM
procurement model was, in the long run, unsustainable. The demands generated
by the perestroika reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev beginning in 1985
meant the existing model of multiple design bureaus working in parallel in
a virtually competition-free environment had to transition to a missile
procurement model driven by cost accounting methods and the limitations
imposed by a new era of bilateral strategic arms control agreements.
In the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, there remained
only two missile design bureaus involved in the production of ICBMs. After
the fall of the USSR, one of them - Yuzhnoye - fell under the control of
Ukraine.
Today, Russia’s JSC Votkinsk Machine Building Plant produces the RS-24 Yars
missile, deployed in both a mobile- and silo- based variant, and is
developing the RS-26 Rubezh, a modification of the RS-24 capable of
deploying the advanced Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle. Votkinsk also
produces the solid-fuel RS-56 Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile (
SLBM), its first foray outside of the world of ICBM development and
manufacturing. In a sign of the times, the Makeyev JSC in Miass, which
formerly only produced SLBM’s, is producing the massive RS-28 Sarmat ICBM,
intended to replace the aging R-36 Soviet-era heavy silo-based ICBM.
The new Russian ICBMs are the finest in the world—no nation has anything
that can compare, even the United States. They are also among the most cost-
effective in the world today. The fact that these missiles are produced in
an manufacturing environment plagued by shortages of materials needed to
produce critical components is a testament to the resilience of the Russian
defense industry, which has literally been forced to both adapt and overcome
in the course of the three decades of economically difficult times that
have passed since the end of the Soviet Union.
For its part, the US defense industry has been the benefactor of virtually
limitless largesse, feeding off a bloated defense budget that has expanded
from some $300 billion in 1990 to over $740 billion today. However, over the
course of the past 30 years, this money has not been spent on modernizing
the US strategic nuclear force. The example of the Minuteman III missiles
serves as a point of illustration.
US nukes in Poland would not be a deterrent, but a MASSIVE provocation for
Russia
The United States currently deploys a force of 400 Minuteman III silo-based
ICBM’s. The original Minuteman ICBM was developed at a cost of $17 billion
(measured in 2020-equivalent dollars) over the course of five years. The
Minuteman III—the version deployed today—is derived from the same 1960’s
technology and was initially deployed in 1970. Originally designed for a
lifetime of some 10 years, the Minuteman III has been subjected to a series
of life-extension upgrades that will keep it viable until 2030. After this
time, the missile must be replaced.
The US Air Force is currently developing a new silo-based ICBM, known as the
Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD). The missile will be designed to
last until 2075, and in addition to incorporating new technologies, will
also involve significant upgrades to the related silos and launch control
facilities. Current estimates published by the US Air Force for the cost of
the GBSD are some $62 billion (by way of comparison, the total Russian
military budget is approximately $65 billion).
Even this high cost is disputed by the Department of Defense’s Cost
Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office, which projects the actual
cost of the GBSD to be between $85 and 100 billion. One of the major reasons
for this discrepancy lies in the fact that the United States has not
designed a new ICBM since the 1970’s, with the MX Peacekeeper. The final
contract for the GBSD is expected to be let in September 2020, although as
the only bidder, Northrop Grumman, Inc. is expected to be the awardee. This
fact alone makes the CAPE estimate seem overly conservative—Northrop
Grumman has developed a well-earned reputation in defense industry circles
for projects it is involved in coming in over budget and behind schedule.
Based upon current examples of contractual cost overruns, the GBSD costs
could skyrocket to $200 billion or, and this number does not incorporate the
negative impact on defense procurement resulting from the failure of
Congress to pass a defense budget on time, making long-term procurement
decisions impossible and further driving up the cost.
The US is treating China like it’s Nazi Germany. This slide towards a 3rd
world war needs to end before it’s too late
The GBSD is but one of a range of modernization programs being planned by
the US, involving every aspect of its strategic nuclear triad. These
programs, which include new manned strategic bombers and new missile-
carrying submarines, are expected to cost more than $1.2 trillion over the
course of the next 30 years—and these are conservative estimates. Given the
spectacular budgetary inefficiencies in the US defense procurement system
today, it is almost certain that any new strategic nuclear weapons system,
whether it be an ICBM, SLBM or manned bomber, will cost the US taxpayer far
more than originally planned, and more than likely perform far less than
originally designed.
Marshall Billingslea can bluster all he wants about spending an adversary
into oblivion. The reality is that the US is not prepared, politically or
economically, to engage in any new arms race predicated on open-ended
budgetary support.
In the Cold War, it was the Soviet Union playing catch-up to US superiority
in the field of ballistic missile technology. Today the tables have been
turned. Any arms race will find the US operating from a disadvantage right
out of the gate, with Russia already fielding the kind of fifth-generation
missiles the US has yet to design, let alone produce.
Billingslea is right about one thing—if the US were to engage in an arms
race with an adversary where cost was not a limiting factor, the result
would, in fact, be oblivion. But the victim would be the US, not Russia or
China. | u***r
发帖数: 4825 | 2 好像很多美国、欧洲有独立思考能力，敢讲和主流媒体不同观点的人，都被逼到RT发文
了 | S*******d
发帖数: 1 | 3 只要有俄罗斯和中国这样的极权国家存在就不能避免冷战 |
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