Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present:

98. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. July–August 2008, p. 43; “Armaments, Disarmament and International Security,” SIPRI Yearbook 2007. Translatedfrom English for the Russian edition. Edited by A. A. Dynkin, A. G. Arbatov, V. G. Baranovsky, A. A. Panayev, A. N. Kaliadin and A. G. Lisov,Moscow: IMEMO RAN, 2008, p. 61.99. M. D. Maples, Director, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, “Current and projected national security threats to the United States,” statementfor the record, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, 28 February 2006. H. M. Kristensen, R. S. Norris and M. G. McKinzie, “Chinese NuclearForces and U.S. Nuclear War Planning,” Federation of American Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, November 2006,p. 37. URL: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/Book2006.pdf.100. J. Lewis, “The ambiguous arsenal,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 61, no. 3, May–June 2005, pp. 52–59.101. Chinese State Council, “China’s National Defense in 2006,” Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China: Beijing,December 2006, URL: http://www.chana.org.cn/english/features/book/194421.htm.102. Trutnev, p. 577.103. It is entirely possible that the relations between the two future superpowers (United States and China) will considerably differ from the relationsthat existed under the bipolar structure of world policy, when the Soviet Union and the United States had been the two superpowers andwhen there had been two ideological, political, military and strategic poles from 1945 through 1991. The United States and China may continue todevelop closer relations in the form of economic, scientific and industrial symbiosis with multiple intercrossing complex combinations of rivalryand cooperation, where rivalry does not escalate into grave conflicts. It is necessary to keep in mind the traditionally high degree of pragmatismof the major part of the Chinese political class and the potential growth of the political heft of the U.S.-oriented Chinese business class, and thegrowing role of hundreds of thousands and even millions of technocrats, managers and businessmen who have undergone training in the UnitedStates. The United States will be pushed into such symbiotic coexistence by virtue of traditional Anglo-Saxon rationality and by the perception ofthe objectively growing economic power of China. However, we should not rule out the possibility of a worsening of U.S.-China relations at somepoint. It should be once again noted that the most probable reason for such a worsening may be the aggravation of the Taiwan situation, since thesecuring of China’s sovereignty over Taiwan is as important for the stability of the political power and the entire political system of China as isthe securing of a high growth rate for the Chinese economy, which in the foreseeable future depends on further expansion of Chinese producerson the U.S. market and on the degree of accessibility of advanced U.S. technologies for Chinese companies. Perception of the current U.S. policytoward China as a policy aimed at the dissolution and fragmentation of China and the liquidation of its communist regime considerably raises thestakes in the U.S.-China stand-off, including nuclear confrontation. In the event of such U.S. threat not just to China’s government, but to manymillions of government officials, the Party apparatus and the command staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, the struggle with theUnited States will be the struggle for not just their political endurance, but for social, economic and even physical survival. And this may result inmobilization of defensive resources in this rapidly economically growing country in such a scale that practically nobody in the United States couldestimate right now.104. For more details, see “Armaments, Disarmament and International Security,” SIPRI Yearbook 2007.105. On the eve of 9/11, this opposition in the U.S. Senate was quite large. The Democratic leadership had formulated a number of conditions underwhich they would consider the possibility of further promotion of establishment of the missile defense systems. In fact, those conditions wereso strict that they even blocked the development of a number of the most important components of the missile defense systems. Opponents of theestablishment of the missile defense systems in 2001 planned to do the same thing that their predecessors managed to do with Reagan’s StrategicDefense Initiative, which had basically not passed the research (and partially the development) stage in the 1980s.106. “Armaments, Disarmament and International Security,” SIPRI Yearbook 2007, p. 352.107. Ibid.108. Ibid.109. “Armaments, Disarmament and International Security,” SIPRI Yearbook 2007, p. 673.110. R. Temirbayev, “O putiakh dvizheniya k miru bez yadernogo oruzhiya” (“On Ways toward a Nuclear-Free World”), Indeks Bezopasnosti(Security Index) 15, no. 1, spring 2009, p.88.111. Experts note that it is very difficult to detect the depth of the “partner” with modern hydro-acoustic surveillance systems. When on duty,submarines choose their submergence-depth based on sea hydrology, which is measured during submergence, and on the assigned task.112. It should be kept in mind the submergence depth of a submarine is limited by the depth-pressure restrictions that are imposed with respect tothe delivery vehicles for torpedoes, and even more so for the missile-delivery vehicles.113. Full text of the the U.S.-Soviet Incidents at Sea Agreement is available at: http://www.armscontrol.ru/start/Rus/docs/incsea.htm114. First of all, this refers to thousands of strategic cruise missiles with low vulnerability to existing missile defense systems; we can also mentionthe increasingly growing arsenals (with many thousand missiles) of operational-tactical and operational cruise missiles of Russia’s “opponents.” Wewill see massive use of unmanned strike aircraft with relatively small high-precision warheads, which, if used on a large scale, are able to ensurewhat Alexander Svechin called the “attrition effect.”68Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present: Theoretical and Applied Questions