Russian Bomber Flights: The Real Cost of Missile Defense?

Last week, British fighters flew to intercept eight Russian bombers approaching British air space in what the Times of London called "the biggest aerial confrontation between the two countries since the end of the Cold War." Aerial starring matches like this were standard during the Cold War, but had been relatively unknown since then. In August, Putin resumed the practice of regular patrols over international waters by nuclear-capable Tu-95 bombers, leading to several incidents like this one involving Britain, the United States, Norway, and Canada.



State Department spokesman Sean McCormack downplayed the importance of the Russian flights, referring to the bombers as "old aircraft taken out of mothballs" and characterizing this development as "an internal decision...That is a decision for them to take; it's interesting." McCormack implies that the causes of this policy are entirely endogenous to Russia (e.g. Putin's desire to flex military muscle at home or demonstrate his power to the world). It is also possible, however, that the roots of this decision are exogenous to Russia, which is to say, this is a response to the behavior of another state.

The decision to resume bomber flights may be closely related to Putin's fears about missile defense. Putin is concerned with the intrusion of NATO military capability into the Warsaw Pact area (i.e. the planned placement of missile defense interceptors in Poland). NATO expansion eastward is contrary to the deal that was struck between Russia and the United States on German reunification: Russia consented to a unified Germany joining NATO in exchange for a promise that NATO would not expand beyond Germany's eastern border. Thus, even the expansion of a missile defense system of dubious effectiveness is seen as a threat, and if the system were expanded it could diminish or even eliminate Russia's ability to launch a nuclear strike using ICBMs.

The commander of Russia's Strategic Air Force said in March that he sees bombers as the antidote to American missile defense:

"Missile shield elements, which are located in silos, are very vulnerable and have weak defenses," Lieutenant-General Igor Khvorov said. "Therefore, all aircraft deployed by [Russian] strategic aviation can either apply electronic counter-measures against them or physically destroy them."

The resumption of bomber flights will have minimal implications on Russian military power, but with this decision Putin is publicly flexing a tool that happens to be extremely well suited to counteracting missile defense systems. Other counter-missile defense capabilities have been expanded in strategically significant ways: In May, Russia announced that it would begin equipping its Topol-M missiles with multiple independently targetable nuclear warheads. General Nikolai Solovstov explained to Pravda that this addition would "help penetrate missile defenses more effectively."

At the beginning of the Cold War, Western analysts understood Soviet domination of Eastern Europe as an act of aggression, a prelude to a possible invasion of Western Europe. In retrospect, many historians believe that Stalin had absolutely no intent of launching such an invasion, but was in fact acting defensively, seeking to create a buffer zone against a possibly resurgent Germany. The failure of the West to understand Russian actions as a reaction made those actions appear more aggressive then they actually were, which raised tensions significantly. If we fail to understand the possible connection between the Russian resumption of bomber flights and Putin's fears about missile defense, we run the risk of making the same mistake again, over half a century later.