A New Arms Race With Russia?

Russian military officials gaze into an intercontinental ballistic missile silo at an undisclosed location.
Photo AP (Image taken from MSNBC)

Russia To Raise Nuclear Missile Output Fourfold -- The Guardian

• 70 ICBMs intended to pressure US in treaty talks
• £95bn package includes tanks, ships and planes

Russia has thrown down a new gauntlet to Barack Obama with an announcement that it will sharply increase production of strategic nuclear missiles.

In the latest of a series of combative moves by the Kremlin, a senior government official in Moscow said the Russian military would commission 70 strategic missiles over the next three years, as part of a massive rearmament programme which will also include short-range missiles, 300 tanks, 14 warships and 50 planes.

Military experts said the planned new arsenal was presumed to consist of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) rather than submarine-launched missiles. If this is the case, the plans represent a fourfold increase in the rate of ICBM deployment. The arsenal will include a new-generation, multiple-warhead ICBM called the RS-24. It was first test-fired in 2007, with first deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov boasting it was "capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems".

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My Comment: With the economic and financial crisis now hitting Russia .... followed by a collapse of oil prices .... now puts into question the ability of Russia to have the resources to increase its military budget and to meet its commitments into doubt. From what I know .... this is not going to be possible .... and Russia announcements of new weapon programs is more talk than substance.