The unity of air and space attack forces attained in the second half of the 20th century, of the common forms of aggression assimilated by them called for the organization of the same aerospace defense (ASD) of Russia integrated by tasks, resources, realizable forms, space and time.

The

The practical fundamentals of Aerospace defense were laid down as early as in the 1960s. It was built on the principles of integrated conduct of Air Defense as well as space missile defense (SMD) against the common enemy operating in aerospace environment. Within the limits of the single fighting service of the Armed Forces (Air Defense Forces), the unified command and control of military districts and detached air defense armies, missile warning assault (MWA) army, missile defense (MD) army--and the corps of space control system (SCS) were organized. Their joint employment was envisaged in the context of the overall form of warfare--strategic operation for meeting hostile aerospace attack, with air defense force commander-in-chief and his headquarters prepared this operation, directing the troops in the course of its conduct and being responsible for the actions effect of all the aerospace defense forces.

Certainly, it is impossible to regard the ASD organization in those days as perfect. It did have significant drawbacks.

* First, ASD, already existing in practice, was not legally enacted, nor was it legislatively protected. In the ruling documents, there was neither defense of this type, nor the armed forces fighting service, nor the command, nor the concept ASD proper.

* Second, the system of fighting against the enemy operating in the air and in space was structurally disproportionate. Its air defense component withstood the severe test of World War II, imbibed warfare experience in local wars, and was organized with due account of the lessons provided in combat. By contrast, the missile-space defense component was barely in the making and did not have such experience. By its scope, scale, fighting strength and potential capabilities, the air defense system was incommensurate with the system of SMD.

* Third, the training of highly-qualified military personnel for the troops that address AD and for the troops that resolve SMD missions was not sufficiently integrated, and the Air Defense Command Military Academy that trained specialists for both arms of ASD, even by its very name reflected not the essence of the graduates trained, but the affiliation with the fighting service of the USSR Armed Forces--Air Defense Forces.

Right down to the 1990s, there was only one little thing left to be done-to rename air defense forces for aerospace defense forces. The change of formal attributes of the material system of aerospace defense could initiate progressive changes in the scope of its actions. In his time, analyzing the feasibility of such transformation, P.F. Batitski, the then active Commander-in-Chief of Air Defense Forces said: "For the time being, given the extremely different scope of air defense and aerospace defense, the unified system on two different legs--the one of the elephant and the other of the crane--does not appeal to the eye, therefore, let's wait."

Regretfully, we waited in vain.

After the country's collapse, the new independent states cannibalized the USSR's aerospace defense system on the basis that "everything in my territory belongs to me." In current conditions, the RF President's Decree dated 13.07.1993 No. 1032 was received with the flicker of hope for restoring the forfeited assets. Pursuant to this document, the creation "of the RF Unified Aerospace defense" was to begin on the basis of the segment of air-defense and air-and-missile defense systems that fell to Russia's share. In so doing, the Decree noted that the RF aerospace defense should be created on the basis of air defense forces.

But the hopes turned out premature. The subsequent reshuffles of the RF Armed Forces that were conducted under the guise of military reform aggravated the situation by moving the process of aerospace defense organization off dead center ... in the direction of its obvious regress. Here, several steps "in prejudice of evolution" need to be focused upon.

The first step related to the reattachment of space missile defense forces from air defense troops to strategic missile forces.

What capabilities did the RF Armed Forces acquire and what capabilities did they lose as the result of this decision?

The answer to the question raised should be given from two viewpoints--that of nuclear deterrence and that of aerospace defense.

The prime consideration in favor of merging of aerospace defense troops with strategic missile troops in the 1990s was the fact that the disclosure of the actual launch of hostile intercontinental ballistic missiles was needed for the timely and effective delivery of nuclear launch-under-attack strike. And this is exactly what the principle function of aerospace defense troops (forces) is. Therefore, if the reattachment of space missile defense comes under the leadership of commander-in-chief (commander) of strategic missile troops, the effectiveness of nuclear missile strike will allegedly increase.

The reason sounded convincingly, but it was cutting corners.

* First, the disclosure of the actual blast-off of hostile ballistic missiles is merely one of the many functions of the space missile defense system. Other functions (detection, determination of trajectory coordinates and parameters of space objects, collection and processing of information, identification of signs of the opening of hostilities in space and from space, destruction of hostile military spacecraft, and the missile defense of the country's separate economic regions) have nothing to do with requirements of strategic missile troops.

* Second, some of the above-mentioned functions of space missile defense troops are called for on the permanent basis, including peace-time, for the benefit of ensuring the safe day-to-day use of outer space (for instance, the monitoring of orbit parameters of overage spacecraft and of "space garbage", the exactly forecast points of their fall, etc). A number of tasks are assigned to missile space troops, in the course of conventional war, with the deployment of nuclear weapons and after the mutual "exchange" of nuclear blows. These operations do not fit in, either by target, or by content, or by spatial-and-temporal characteristics, in the "single-shot" structure of implementing the tasks of strategic missiles troops that will have to look for alternative destination after performing the launch (incidentally, only in case of nuclear missile war).

* Third and this is the main point: the structure itself of information flow concerning the launch of ballistic missiles remained unchanged, and it cannot be different. Strategic missile troops are committed not by the decision of the commander-in-chief of the fighting service (arm of the service) of the RF Armed Forces, but by the decision of the Supreme Commander (the RF President). He is the one, who was and continues to be the chief user of information about the launch of hostile intercontinental ballistic missiles, which is provided by space missile defense troops. Command centers and general headquarters of the fighting services (arms of the service) of the RF Armed Forces (including strategic missile troops) receive from the space missile defense operations center only the alert information equally needed by all for reacting timely to the threat of nuclear destruction of troops and facilities.

Did Russia's aerospace defense, perchance, soar after the merger of strategic missile troops and space missile defense troops?

Negative answer to this question is even more obvious. The separation of space missile defense from air defense turned out downright cankerous for the country's aerospace defense. In the event of unleashing of hostilities, air defense forces and space missile defense forces were to participate in the strategic operation designed to repulse hostile aerospace attack. But the situation developed, whereby the planning of this operation, its conduct and responsibility for its result came to be functions of various control bodies (previously, all those functions were assigned to air defense troops and to their general headquarters).

Under new conditions it was hardly possible to account for the following:

-- for what sake it was necessary to change what we have and what we refined for what we do not have, taking it away from those, who were engaged in it from the outset, and passing it on to others, who had not dealt with similar things before;

-- in what respect the divided air defense and space missile defense systems excelled the unified aerospace defense system;

-- why the interaction of separate air defense and space missile defense systems was found more propitious than centralized actions in the unified aerospace defense system;

-- who will organize the interaction of the air defense system with the space missile defense system at inter-service level; who will accomplish it and by dint of what technical means; who will define their architecture, authorize their development, make them operational and how soon (in the USSR it used to take decades to accomplish similar undertakings and not always successfully). (1)

Thus, the decision that was adopted and that became effective in 1997 concerning the reattachment of space missile defense troops to strategic missile troops did not do any good to Russia's missile nuclear forces, instead it harmed substantially the aerospace defense of the state. The decision raised more questions than it gave answers, which is precisely what motivated the search for new venues of reforming the RF Armed Forces. History again offered Russia the chance to restore the aerospace defense system (at the cost of admitting and correcting the committed mistake). But the chance was not used.

The second step of "evolution" of integral parts of the former aerospace defense system consisted in withdrawing space missile defense troops from strategic missile troops and in merging them with the military space forces, which formerly were also part of strategic missile troops. The integration that was carried out in 2001 resulted in the birth of space troops.

Let us analyze this decision with the former approach-who benefited from the decision and what the benefit was.

Created in 1992, military space forces included space launcher complexes, main spacecraft test and control center, arsenals, training and research institutions, etc. The principle task of the military space forces is to maintain, in the prescribed strength and capability, orbital military spacecraft forces and land-based launch and control facilities, to launch spacecraft and control them in orbital flight.

Units of military space forces were utilized in the form of supportactions.

Space missile defense troops retained their former duties. Battle actions were the principle form of employing space missile defense force that was capable of destroying hostile ballistic missiles and (in the long term) of killing enemy space-based means.

According to their designated purpose, assigned tasks, forms and methods of their fulfillment, space missile defense forces are compatible with the military space forces no more than with the strategic missile troops. Equally well, they might have been included in airborne forces composition or reattached to Belorussian partisans.

But the problem under discussion is somewhat different. The main point is that the aerospace defense system was still divided. Fighting against the common aerospace enemy is organized by various headquarters. Instead of the centralized command and control of aerospace defense forces, at best we get their interaction. But there is simply no one to be held responsible for the outcome of meeting aerospace aggression.

Thus, like in the previously considered case, the structural merger of the two most important components of the RF Armed Forces--space missile defense forces and military space forces--did not lead (nor could lead) to their functional unity in the framework of newly formed space troops. Neither military space forces nor space missile defense acquired any new qualities. And the aerospace defense system is still absent as before.

The third step in reforming the troops (forces) responsible for our Homeland's aerospace safety was taken not after the foregoing step, but alongside with it. The RF President's Decree dated 16 July 1997 No. 725 discontinued air defense forces as the fighting service that Russia's aerospace defense of Russia should have been built. That is to say, the sole legal instrument as pertaining to aerospace defense organization, which was never repealed officially, actually became invalid and lost its primary significance.

What were the consequences that this decision entailed?

* First, after the merger of air defense troops with the air force, the tactical formations of a new kind of Armed Forces together with the air defense forces reattached thereto were placed under operations control of military district commanders. In addition, air force armies and air defense armies "were deprived" of operation as warfare form. Similar contradiction between the declared operational level of the formation and its realizable tactical employment form was not allowed in any of Armed Forces fighting services.

* Second, the air defense zones (districts) set up earlier as inter-service operational (prestrategic) formations of air defense troops were discontinued. The unified control of all the air defense forces located in the same territory became problematic. The person and the agency that had necessary rights to operational leadership of the air defense troops (forces) of the air force, of the Navy and of ground troops in common space, at one point in time and against single airborne enemy were discontinued.

The former control system (its technical component) is preserved and is in operation. But the further development of this system in line with the needs for joint actions of inter-service air defense forces is curtailed due to deviation from the territorial principle of their organization. New automatic equipment complexes are not designed. Available complexes permit to control, in a fully automatic mode, only the air defense forces of the air force and in part mission equipment packages of the frontline and army air defense segment. The remaining air defense forces (in ground troops--air defense forces below army level, in the Navy--all air defense forces) appeared in isolation from the automation control network.

The unified command and control of air defense forces in the new combined-arms structures (battle formations in strategic lines, regional troop formations) were proclaimed for form's sake. However, for its realistic implementation, it is essential to revise completely the control system approach and to restore the territorial principle of air defense organization. Any air defense resource (surface-to-air missile system, fighter aircraft, radar station, jamming station, etc.), irrespective of its fighting service or departmental relevance, turning out in particular territory, must be immediately included in the zone (district) information network. The resource becomes concurrently the user of information (about the enemy, the aerial situation, the neighbors, and the nature of future tasks) and the source of information (concerning its location, status, military capabilities and the results of its actions). The created territorial control body includes this resource in its information database that subsequently allows reckoning with it as the element of the air defense system in the event of combat planning, task assignment, allocation of targets. In so doing, this will not only improve effective countering of air blows, but will prevent losses of our aviation from friendly air defense assets, as well.

* Third, with the transition to air defense organization "by strategic lines," such categories as "aerial vector" and "strategic aerospace vectors" are gradually committed to oblivion. The number, boundaries and even the names of aerial vectors began to coincide with the number, boundaries and the name of strategic lines. What is this coincidence fraught with for Aerospace defense? The fact is that space for meeting aerial aggression appears (on the operational level) mismatched with the space of the aerial aggression itself. (2)

All that did not at all bring nearer the solution of the problem of creating Russia's aerospace defense.

Further steps for "improving" what was left from the aerospace defense system can be prognosticated by current military strategic experiments and in the context of general trends to reform the RF Armed Forces. Transition to command and control by "strategic lines" or by "regional commands," given unobvious advantages of organizing armed struggle "on land," fails to lead out of the ultimate deadlock of organizing it in aerospace context. There is no place in it for the unified nationwide aerospace defense system, while the air defense of objectives in the country's territory is replaced by the air defense of troops in the front combat zone.

Sooner or later, we will understand that aerospace defense is not simply the variety of military actions, but the most important component of the military security of the state. And its organization is neither the function of the fighting service (of the Air Force) nor the function of the RF Ministry of Defense, but the subject of concern of Russia's general government. After all, if this takes place (it might as well happen while it is peace-time), then in the process of its further evolution, it will be essential to address a number of problems.

The first problem is regulatory and legal. In April 2006, the RF President enacted Russia's Aerospace Defense Inception Concept. The plan of its realization in the state was developed. But, the work in its entirety was carried out in the absence of the articulate concept of military (the more so defense-oriented) construction in the Russian Federation, in the midst of the unembodied image of the RF Armed Forces, with military reform vector constantly changing its direction. Aerospace threat was singled out as the most critical one among other cross-border threats in Russia's National Security Concept, while Aerospace defense construction was not stated in domestic military doctrine.

Owing to protracted trade-offs between the fighting services and arms of the service of the RF Armed Forces, the conceptual approach documents concerning Russia's aerospace defense turned out to be well-oiled and inconcrete in its content. The body in the Ministry of Defense and in the general staff that should be responsible for Russia's aerospace defense was not specified. In the RF Armed Forces, Aerospace defense specialists are missing and, up till now, there is no state-guaranteed order to train them on the basis of Aerospace Defense Military Academy.

The second problem is at the back of the menace of "idle taking" with regard to the subject proper--that of the RF aerospace defense. Today, many people point out the importance and those, whom key decisions are contingent on, are certainly aware of the relevance of organizing Russia's aerospace defense, but with the proviso--that it should be build it without spending a single kopeck on it. Conceivable as "red herring" ploys here are various naming transformations (of educational institutions, of the forms of strategic actions, etc.), mergers of the fighting services of the RF Armed Forces, etc. Dangerous is the tendency of establishing the Aerospace defense of the individual district or city under the guise of "RF Aerospace Defense.". Aerospace defense is only possible on nationwide basis (not even within the size and scope of the Armed Forces!). Any alternative undertaking should be qualified as wildcat venture or shady deal masterminded for diverting financial resources from the state budget "to the middle of nowhere." It is impossible to defend Moscow separately from Russia.

The third problem consists in the diffuse perception of the essence of aerospace defense. Separate reformists regard the aerospace defense system to embrace everything that shoots upwards and spaceward, flies, emits electromagnetic energy, detects, carries out jamming, i.e., possesses definite qualities and is employed against the forces of hostile air and space attack. Therefore, today disruption of the strategic aerospace operation of the potential enemy is assigned not to the integral aerospace defense system, but to some totality of troops (forces), to the simple "set" of formations of the Armed Forces fighting services and arms of the service that are subordinate to the various commanding echelons, that implement the forms of military activity of their own, located where they had been ordered to deploy in the line of direct subordination and that do not have any unified strategic command and control agency. So the bottom line is: to what end to act and how to act. Thus, much at least is clear, but what is not clear is who will do it and under what command and control. And the worst thing is that there is no one to be responsible for the outcome of meeting aerospace aggression.

Of course, there are also other problems, some of them are objective and are inseparably linked with the economic potential of the state, with potentialities of its defense budget, and with the status of the defense complex. It takes time to resolve them. Once the economy puts itself right, the problems will drop away. There are obstacles of purely technical nature--the construction of the aerospace control system, its alignment with the overall control system of the Armed Forces, etc. Those obstacles are also surmountable.

It is essential that by the time we get out of the crisis of objectively prevailing problems, we had avoided leading ourselves into the deadlock of artificially created problems, had avoided getting ourselves entangled conceptually, and had understood what aerospace defense system we want to realize and what aerospace defense system ought to be built for that.

NOTES:

1 Yu.V. Krinitski, I.V. Yerokhin, A.P. Korabel'nikov, V.G. Chekhovski, "Resheniye prinya-to--problemy ostalis'," Nezavisimoye voyennoye obozrenie, No. 8, 1999.

2 Yu.V. Krinitski, Sovmeschenie vozdushnykh i strategicheskikh napravlenii: dostoinstva i nedostatki, vozmozhnyie posledstvyia, Voyennaiya mysl' No. 10, 2005.

Col. Yu.V. KRINITSKI

Candidate of Military Sciences, professor

Military Aerospace Defense Academy

Yuri Vladimirovich KRINITSKI was born on 2 September 1959 in the town of Akhtyrka in Ukraine. In 1976, he graduated from the Minsk Suvorov College, and in 1981--from the Higher Engineering Air Missile College in Minsk. From 1981 to 1988, he took command positions in the air-missile units in the Ural Region.

In 1991, he graduated from the Military Air Defense Academy; in 1994 he finished the Academy's postgraduate courses. He successfully defended dissertation. He is Assistant Professor of the Chair of Operational Art. He is the author of more than 80 scientific publications.