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History and the Current Status of the Russian Early Warning System
| Venue: | SGS.cls October 14, 2003 15:54 Early Warning in South Asia 135 |
| Citations: | 2 - 0 self |
BibTeX
@INPROCEEDINGS{Podvig_historyand,
author = {Pavel Podvig},
title = {History and the Current Status of the Russian Early Warning System},
booktitle = {SGS.cls October 14, 2003 15:54 Early Warning in South Asia 135},
year = {},
pages = {21--60}
}
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Abstract
This article presents an overview of the history of development and the current status of the Soviet and Russian early-warning system, which was built to provide the Soviet strategic forces with information about a missile attack in an event of a nuclear con-flict with the United States. Two main components of this system are considered—the network of early-warning radars, and the space-based early-warning system, which in-cludes satellites on highly-elliptical and geosynchronous orbits. The system appears to be capable of detecting a massive attack, but cannot be relied upon to detect individual missile launches. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States not only cre-ated massive arsenals of strategic offensive weapons, but also developed and deployed the infrastructure that would provide their offensive forces with the support necessary for implementing various deployment and attack options. One of the most important systems that constituted this infrastructure was a system that would provide early warning of a ballistic missile attack. The United States and the Soviet Union were the only states that deployed early warning systems and gave them prominent roles in their nuclear planning. The primary mission of an early warning system is to detect a missile at-tack before the missiles reach their targets. A timely detection of an incoming
Keyphrases
current status russian early warning system united state soviet union early warning system individual missile launch nuclear planning cre-ated massive arsenal timely detection ballistic missile attack soviet strategic force missile at-tack massive attack important system geosynchronous orbit cold war nuclear con-flict missile attack prominent role space-based early-warning system early warning attack option offensive force primary mission early-warning radar strategic offensive weapon russian early-warning system main component various deployment
