Arms race in full swing as Russia launched largest ballistic missile in history

Revelations 6:3-4 “ when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Russia’s ‘Satan 2’ and the new missile race
  • On Friday, Russia launched the largest ballistic missile in history. Weighing in at 200 tons, Moscow says the Sarmat rocket – dubbed “Satan 2” by Western defense analysts – is the first with sufficient range to hit any location on earth from a single launch point.
  • Russian military officials claim their new Zircon anti-ship missile is capable of speeds in excess of 4,000 miles per hour, roughly six times the speed of sound
  • In the last two years, China has showcased its own trove of medium-range missiles, one dubbed the “carrier-killer” for its intended ability to take out the United States’ largest warships.
  • Russia and China see missile technology as key to pushing back the United States and its allies. China is believed to be installing such systems on the network of artificial islands it is constructing to dominate the South China Sea.
  • This escalation comes at a dangerous time. Around the world, cyberattacks and other new forms of confrontation are redefining what it even means to be at war. Combined with the return of this very Cold War-style missile contest, the world may be heading towards a very disconcerting balance of terror

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Turkey could look elsewhere if Russia won’t share missile technology

Russian S-400 Triumph medium-range and long-range surface-to-air missile systems drive during the Victory Day parade, marking the 71st anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, at Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2016.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey could seek a deal to acquire a missile defense system with another country if Russia does not agree to joint production of a defense shield, its foreign minister was quoted as saying on Monday.

NATO member Turkey is seeking to buy the S-400 system from Russia, alarming Washington and other members of the Western alliance, and President Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara has already paid a deposit on the deal.

Turkey hopes that the deal would allow it to acquire the technology to develop its own defense system, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, in an interview with Turkish newspaper Aksam, said the two countries had agreed on joint production.

“If Russia doesn’t want to comply, we’ll make an agreement with another country,” he said when asked about reports that Russia was reluctant to share the technology. “But we haven’t got any official negative replies (from Russia)”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked in a conference call with reporters if the deal would go ahead if Moscow did not agree to joint production, said: “Contacts and negotiations at an expert level in the context of this deal are ongoing. This is all I can say for now.”

Cavusoglu said Turkey had initially hoped to reach agreement with producers from NATO allies.

Western firms which had bid for the contract included U.S. firm Raytheon, which put in an offer with its Patriot missile defense system. Franco-Italian group Eurosam, owned by the multinational European missile maker MBDA and France’s Thales, came second in the tender.

Turkey, with the second-largest army in the alliance, has enormous strategic importance for NATO, abutting as it does Syria, Iraq and Iran. But the relationship has become fractious since an attempted coup against Erdogan in July 2016 and a subsequent crackdown.

 

 

(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul and Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Editing by Dominic Evans and Richard Balmforth)