- MOSCOW (AFP) - Moscow's latest
bid to flaunt its military might backfired dramatically when three failed
missile tests revealed that even Russia's final line of defense -- a fearsome
nuclear arsenal -- was not immune from the rot eroding the post-Soviet
military.
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- Russia this week staged its biggest war games in 20 years
aimed primarily at demonstrating that its powerful nuclear force could
penetrate a missile defense shield being built by the United States.
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- Their launch only a month before Vladimir Putin's expected
re-election on March 14 were also due help the president's tough guy image
that has played so well among voters traumatized by Russia's loss of international
prestige.
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- But little went according to plan in the Arctic waters
this week.
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- Putin went out to sea in a nuclear submarine Tuesday
to witness two failed launches of missiles that could theoretically deliver
a nuclear strike on the United States.
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- A third missile veered off course and self-destructed
the next day. It was the first such accident in 36 tests.
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- "Our fictitious enemy won" the war games, the
popular Gazeta.ru Internet site scoffed.
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- "The navy's defense shield of Russia blew up over
the Barents Sea," the centrist Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily agreed. "The
naval exercises ended in complete failure."
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- The disintegration of Russia's ground and air forces
-- equipped by Soviet tanks that no longer work and with planes grounded
because there is no cash to pay for fuel -- has been an open secret since
the military got bogged down in the first 1994-96 Chechen war.
-
- The navy's troubles came to prominence with the August
2000 Kursk nuclear submarine disaster. But Russia has in fact not been
sending more than a few ships out to sea for years. It has only one functioning
airplane carrier.
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- Meanwhile morale among soldiers has largely collasped.
Recruits regularly complain of brutal hazing, or initiation ceremonies,
and corrupt generals who force them out into the Siberian cold in threadbare
outfits. Food is limited and teenagers try almost anything to avoid the
draft.
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- But Russia's nuclear arsenal has always served as a defensive
backbone that keeps politicians here referring to their country as a "great
power."
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- That backbone appeared to develop an unpleasant crack
this week.
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- "These mishaps tell us one clear thing: We have
little money and a lot of weapons. And these weapons are growing old,"
said Ivan Safranchuk of the Center of Defense Information.
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- "This shows that these weapons are reaching the
end of their lifetimes and should not be further used."
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- Maxim Pyadushkin of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies
and Technologies agreed that "what happened shattered all illusions
that our nuclear and rocket forces are the most battle-ready element of
our armed forces."
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- Russia's main problem is that it has been churning out
only a handful of missiles a year while keeping in service rockets which
were built as far back as the early 1970s.
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- Analysts urge the military to carry out an urgent re-think
of their strategy.
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- But the official Krasnaya Zvezda defense ministry daily
announced proudly that the missile that exploded Wednesday -- first constructed
in 1979 -- would be "exploited for another 10 years, and possibly
20 or more, serving as our nuclear backbone."
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- And Russia's deputy chief of staff general reported Thursday
that a new class of ballistic missiles would not be introduced until 2010.
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- "I wish that we had these rocket complexes yesterday
-- but we fully understand the government's financial means," Yury
Baluyevsky said.
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- Meanwhile analysts scorned the military's effort to cover
up their embarrassment by initially denying and then giving conflicting
accounts over the accidents.
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- The national state-controlled television stations refused
to report on the test failures and instead focused on three other successful
ground-based missile tests.
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- Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said the navy was
trying to confuse foreign intelligence services which were closely following
the war games.
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- "But if the most modern ballistic missile available
to our navy really did misfire, any serious foreign intelligence service
will eventually find out about it," Felgenhauer wrote in Novaya Gazeta.
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