Vanguard Magazine

www.vanguardcanada.com JUNE/JULY 2020 31 AIR the adversary's foreign policy, leadership dynamics and their own perceptions of vulnerability and opportunity. NORAD, as an operational command, focuses most- ly on the capabilities available to a poten- tial adversary, the doctrine governing their use, and indications and warnings of hos- tilities and intimidation actions. The Changing Understanding of Deterrence Deterrence has always been more complex than the simplistic invocation of Mutually Assured Destruction or the Gorbachev - Reagan declarations that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. As far back as the 1980's, advancements in precision guidance led some strategists to observe that a new generation of pre- cision conventional weapons could effec- tively strike key targets hitherto included in nuclear targeting plans. More recently, advances in very low yield nuclear weap- ons may have made them more useable. Defined escalation ladders have therefore been superseded by complex conventional and strategic (nuclear) escalation paths, which present new challenges to the warn- ing systems and defences. Russia President Putin has articulated a revision- ist foreign policy heavily influenced by NATO's expansion, Russia's historical memories of invasion as well as its fear of American capability to destabilise Russia through precision conventional strikes on its strategic weapons, command and con- trol nodes and leadership and thus gain a decisive advantage in any regional conflict in its neighbourhood. In response, for the better part of a decade, Russian defence ministers and senior military officers have articulated a doctrine commonly described as "escalate to de-escalate." Implementation of the Russian doctrine would begin with diplomatic warnings and exercises. Intimidation tactics, such as close approaches to national borders or even overflights might follow. At a certain point, a limited conventional strike might be employed, followed by a low-yield nuclear strike, probably on a target where few individuals would be killed. Should the desired effect not be achieved, at that point, Russia might choose to execute a limited nuclear strike with low yield weap- ons against military targets. Escalation to carefully selected civilian economic and infrastructure targets would arouse pub- lic opinion favouring a stand-down in the face of Russian determination. Whatever the finer points of deterrence or escalation theory may be, Russian mili- tary modernisation has placed high prior- ity on the necessary precision long-range conventional and nuclear weapons. In par- ticular, the Long Range Aviation (LRA), far from being a moribund Cold War relic, has received extensive modernisations of its two strategic bombers, the Tu-95MS (NATO reporting name Bear-H) and the Tu-160 (Blackjack); the Tu-160 has been placed back into production to replace the Bears. An entirely new strategic bomber is under development. A new ALCM, with two variants, the Kh-101 (conventional) and Kh-102 (nuclear) has been deployed and allocated the NATO Reporting Name AS-23 Kodiak. The AS-23 is estimated to have 2,500 to 2,800 km range, capable of extremely precise targeting and very diffi- cult to detect and intercept. The Russian Navy's most modern nuclear attack sub- marines as well as its modern diesel-electric submarines are being equipped with the SS-N-30 Kalibr Land Attack Cruise Missile (LACM), with a range of 2,500 km. Photo: NORAD.

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