Colleagues reminded me that the Aegis Ashore system in Poland is about to become operational. The purpose of this entire project has always escaped me. Or, rather, I find it puzzling that a purely political enterprise with little or no utility has survived for so long. 1/ It was, of course, a political project from the very beginning. Obama had to do something about missile defense in Europe. The old GBI (in Poland and Czechia) was not particularly popular or capable. And it was a US mainland defense, so it had zero utility for Europe. 2/

The word for these kinds of reports is "tendentious." It's not even cherry-picking the evidence. It's just lining up unrelated facts and making an argument out of it. Don't have time to go through it in detail, but here is one example. Really? Three Sarmat tests? 1/

https://twitter.com/CNASdc/status/1720889401662726624

True, there was one Sarmat test in April 2022. How a development test (it was the first one) is related to exercises? There was a report about a Sarmat failure in April 2023. What was in July 2022? Definitely not a flight test. 2/

I was surprised to see how many people believed (still believe) that the resumption of nuclear tests is a matter or days/weeks. It seems that we are safe for quite some time. By the way, the idea that Russian weapon designers are itching to test is quite wrong. 1/ They are known to have developed quite a few new weapons after 1990. For example, some air-delivered ones between 2000 and 2010 - a large-yield bomb (similar to B83) and smaller ones (see attached, from ) 2/ elib.biblioatom.ru/text/dela-i-go…

Here is my very preliminary take on Russia's revoking its CTBT ratification. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. Feel free to weigh in if you are). The Duma took 10 days to study the issue. Rightly so - it may get complicated. Here are the options as I see them: 1/ I should start, however, with another disclaimer: Russian government can be very creative with the law, so almost everything is possible. One thing is, the Duma has clear instructions from the president: "we can withdraw the ratification, and if we do, this would be enough." 2/

How do you verify the absence of nuclear weapons at a weapon storage site? We set up an experiment to check the on-site inspection procedures in practice. The report is now online - . We present it at NPT PrepCom on July 31. Key points are in the thread 1/unidir.org/menzingenreport The idea is that nuclear weapons should not be "deployed," meaning that they should not be stored next to their delivery system. This applies primarily to non-strategic weapons. Moving them to some central storage will reduce all kinds of risks. See 2/ https://t.co/f1TyZROTxjrussianforces.org/blog/2017/08/w…

Can an armed group like Wagner take control of some of Russia's nuclear weapons and somehow use or detonate them? The short answer is no, it's virtually impossible. I wanted to write a longer thread, but things are happening way too fast. 1/ Let me just note that the Voronezh-45 site (aka Object 387 or Borisoglebsk) may well be empty. Its only "daughter" unit is the air force training center at Yeisk (the map is at , the org chart is in the Lock Them Up report, linked there) 2/ https://t.co/VY8g3mbDj6russianforces.org/blog/2017/08/w…

I probably wouldn't say "much of the blame" but Kara-Murza (writing from jail, btw) has a point. I would put it a bit differently - investing in democracy in Russia instead of, say, NATO expansion, would have been a much smarter _security_ strategy washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/… This is not to say, of course, that there was no investment in democracy. There was. I guess my point is that it's a much more difficult thing to do and nobody really has a good idea of what can be done. 2/

This is a very interesting piece on the nuclear escalation management, with many good observations. I would disagree, though, that what Russia was doing was creating the "threat that leaves something to chance.” Certainly not the way Schelling meant it 1/tnsr.org/2023/06/escala… At no point Russia wanted to create an impression of a loss of control over its actions. The message was very consistent - if you attack us, we are ready to respond. There were no moves by strategic or non-strategic forces that would suggest uncertainty on Russia's part. 2/

Trenin develops Karaganov's "preemptive retaliatory strike" argument. He notes that nuclear weapons proved not very useful. Since their use would be against the doctrine, he suggests 'modernizing' the doctrine and 'sending a signal' globalaffairs.ru/articles/ukrai… 1/ Trenin's idea is that the signal should be 'unambiguous' and 'non-verbal' and demonstrate a resolve not to follow 'the rules set by the adversary.' What's important is that he admits that 'in parallel' Russia should reach out to its 'strategic partners and neutral states' 2/

A brief thread on the ​Belgorod-22 site (aka Object 1150 or Golovchino). It is what is known as a "national-level"storage facility. As such, it is at some distance from "base-level" storage sites that serve operational units and located nearby. See russianforces.org/blog/2017/08/w… 1/ Strictly speaking, weapons stored there would be considered non-deployed. Normally, Belgorod-22 would deliver weapons to its two "daughter" base-level sites - Morozovsk (air force, Su-34?) and Novorossiysk (navy). 2/

A few thoughts about missile defense in the last night's missile attack. First, I'm cautious about the "all intercepted" claim. Of course, I'd much rather see this being true (or, indeed, that no missile launched to begin with). But even if some went through, intercepts matter 1/ The capability to intercept ballistic missiles is not new. The Soviet Union did the first intercept (of an R-12 missile) on 4 March 1961. Of course, modern systems like Patriot are more capable/compact than what the Soviet Union had at the time, but that's not significant. 2/

Here comes the New START part. I'm afraid no good news here This is a strange way of thinking about New START inspections.

US China's Military Developments Report (CMDR) says the 300 missile silos are real. Well, what about fissile material production? China doesn't have that much plutonium. USG people tell me that "it's all real, it's all in the report." But there is not much there. 1/ The report says that China will use two CFR-600 breeders to produce Pu. But China "is [still] constructing" these. The first is expected to start this year, but the second will not be operational until 2026. See this for details fissilematerials.org/blog/2021/03/r… 2/

Here is my understanding of the IAEA at Zaporizhzhia NPP situation. IAEA keeps a small permanent presence mission there - these are safety and security people. The IAEA team continues to come to the plant from the Ukrainian territory, crossing the front line and all. 1/ The team also includes someone from the safeguards, but only because they know the plant well. The most regular safeguards inspection (under Ukrainian CSA) took place shortly before the "annexation" of the region, which included appropriation of the plant by Russia. 2/

"Everybody ran, so I ran too..." (this is from a great Soviet movie). I set up @russianforces@mastodon.online. I'm not sure, though, that it could be as useful as Twitter. I will stay here and I believe one can keep Twitter usable despite all changes 1/ Centralization is still a strong side of Twitter. Everybody is in one place and instantly. Distributed servers is a good idea, but it had its limitations (do you remember usenet groups?). With multiple servers you are at the mercy of the synchronization process. 2/

We know about the Sep 1983 false alarm in the Soviet early-warning system. The story is that Stanislav Petrov saved the world by recognizing the alarm as false. He did the right thing, but "saved the world" is not correct. My take russianforces.org/blog/2022/10/d… and a short thread 1/ Most importantly, the popular version of the episode assumes that the Soviet Union had "launch on warning" posture. It didn't. Nobody would have launched anything unless there were actual nuclear detonations on Soviet soil. 2/

Did Russia threaten to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine? Not really. At least not yet. I've put together some of my thoughts in this op-ed in @MoscowTimes. Some key points (which you have seen here already) themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/18/a-r…

So far, all 'treats' were against the West... 1/ But "it is one thing for a leader to promise to defend his country in a global confrontation; it is quite another for him to reach for nuclear weapons because his army is not performing well on the battlefield. There is considerable distance between these narratives." 2/

I must say Biden's 'nuclear Armageddon' talk makes me nervous. It seems to imply that the US considers responding against Russia militarily if it uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The thing is, that's exactly what Putin wants - that way he could dial up his nuclear blackmail. 1/ So far, the rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin was about protecting Russia from a (non-existent) Western 'nuclear blackmail.' But the US/NATO are not in this war, so any nuclear use would be just a premeditated attack against Ukrainian civilians (or a threat of such an attack) 2/

As many people correctly noted, one can read this 'precedent' remark in two ways - as a condemnation of US nuclear use (and strategic bombing in general) or as a precedent that Russia feels it can follow. I think it's probably the condemnation

https://twitter.com/ElenaChernenko/status/1575843268470116352?s=20&t=kN1G-wanrVGZz_2vrokKHw

1/ Strictly speaking, it wouldn't be the first time Russia used past actions of the West to justify its own. Like in, 'Since you recognized Kosovo we can recognize South Ossetia' or 'Since you invaded Iraq we can invade Ukraine.' We've heard it often enough. But. 2/

The ghost of nuclear artillery refuses to die. A NYT story by @SangerNYT @antontroian @BarneysNY hints at it (although they don't say directly that it's there). My take is that we can be certain that Russia doesn't have nuclear artillery. A short thread nytimes.com/2022/10/01/wor… 1/ Here is the history of VNIITF (the lab that worked on artillery) - "On 19 March 1992, 12GUMO and Minatom issued a decision No. 6-3/119 that ordered withdrawal from service and elimination of all artillery and mortar nuclear weapons" elib.biblioatom.ru/text/kiryushki… 2/

It's understandable that a few recent developments again made people worry again about nuclear use. I don't have a crystal ball, but there are a few things to consider. And they seem to suggest that we are still at least a few steps away from that point. 1/11 First, the US keeps telling us that there are no signs of Russia's being prepared to use its weapons. But would they see them? I would say, most likely. 2/11