Kyle Mizokami
The thirty-two Gorgon missiles reached the end of their serviceable lives in 2002–03, and had been removed from active duty service by 2006. Meanwhile, the 53T6 missiles have allegedly been replaced with new missiles, also named 53T6, with a range of eighty kilometers and an altitude of thirty thousand meters.
Despite the new missiles, the future for Moscow’s ABM system is unclear. Much of the existing system is old and will eventually need replacing. That will be expensive, and Russia’s defense spending has begun falling again. Under the New START treaty the country is allowed only 1,550 deployable nuclear warheads, and the question is whether or not A-135’s warheads are more valuable on ballistic missile interceptors or ballistic missiles. Sooner or later, Moscow will have to decide whether to prop up such a limited system, or go all in on nuclear deterrence.The most heavily defended city in the world is not Washington, DC. It’s Moscow. While the District of Columbia has legions of Secret Service and Homeland Security police defending it, the Russian capital is the only one in the world—that we know of—defended with nuclear-tipped missiles. It’s all the result of an exception built into a forty-four-year-old arms control treaty.The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was an arms control agreement between the United States and Soviet Union. Unlike other treaties that focused on offensive weapons, the ABM Treaty focused on limiting defensive weapons, missiles designed to knock down incoming nuclear warheads. The theory behind the treaty was that unrestricted ABM missile deployments on both sides would lead to ever-escalating offensive missile arsenals, as each side tried to overcome the other’s ever-growing defenses.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/fact-russias-capital-has-nuclear-missile-shield-20927
