“Доверяй, но проверяй” (“Trust But Verify”)

Votkinsk Machine Building Plant. Located about 8.5 km to the east of the birthplace of Pytor Illyich Tchaikovsky, in the Russian Federation Republic of  Udmurtia, is an industrial facility whose name, in typical Soviet fashion, obscures the products made there.   It is a name unfamiliar to most outside of the arms control, intelligence or…

Looking Into the New Year (II) – What Does Russia Want Now?

Part I here. 29 December 2009.  In the US, the games of the season are underway, whether it be the NCAA college football bowls or the intramural finger-pointing inside the beltway over the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner.  Parts of the US were buried under a new winter storm while other parts continued digging…

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One Second After – Of EMP and Post-Apocolypse America (Part 2)

With the previous article as prologue, we turn to the review of the work at hand – One Second After, by William R. Forstchen (forward by Newt Gingrich). The premise for One Second After lies in the devastating effects of an EMP attack carried out by employing a few nukes launched in an asymmetric strike. …

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One Second After – Of EMP and Post-Apocolypse America (Part 1)

9 July 1962.  At Johnston Atoll, a scrap of coral in a remote part of the Pacific, a Thor IRBM stands on the pad as launch preparations are carried out.  Loaded with test equipment, its prime payload is a W-49/Mk-4 RV payload.  The target, however, is not to be found on a map or chart….

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DPRK and Long Range Missiles: Here We Go Again

Looks like the missiles of spring are coming back for return engagement this summer: SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea may this month test a missile designed to fly as far as U.S. territory and may also be gearing up for skirmishes with the South around their disputed sea border, South Korean media reported on Monday….

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North Korea’s Nuke Test

It appears that second-time around worked for the North Koreans: SEOUL (AFP) — North Korea carried out a second and more powerful nuclear test, defying international pressure to rein in its atomic programmes after years of six-nation disarmament talks. The hardline communist state, which stunned the world by testing an atomic bomb for the first…

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Красная звезда среда – Red Star Wednesday

Several items on the docket today: If at first you don’t succeed… From Ria Novosti comes word the much troubled Bulava SLBM will be tested five times in the coming year: Despite five failures in 10 trials, Russia’s Defense Ministry is planning to complete a series of Bulava tests and put the ICBM into service by…

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Restructuring the Military: 2009 Edition

… (T)his budget represents an opportunity; one of those rare chances to match virtue to necessity, to critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements, those things that are desirable in a perfect world from those things that are truly needed in light of the threats America faces and the missions we are likely to…

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The Missiles of Winter – Part II: Rampant Proliferation

Previous: The Missiles of Winter (I): International Conventions March 1985.  In the high desert, west of Tehran, an element of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps Air Force (IRGC AF) is going about their business in the early morning darkness.  The object of their attention is a SCUD-B SRBM fixed to a MAZ-543P transporter-erector launcher, both…