The Syrian warzone has provided Russia an endless defense exhibition platform to showcase and boost the export its military equipment. To date, Moscow has succeeded to attract potential buyers for at least one of its advanced weapon system, S-400 Triumf air defense missile system.
Currently S-400 is probably the scariest surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, which is a low-cost substitute to the US Patriot and THAAD systems with a technological superiority. It has a striking range of 400km and it can shoot down up to 80 airborne targets simultaneously. Its radar has a surveillance area of 600km area.
According to the US intelligence assessment, Russia’s S-400 costs around $500 million as compared to Raytheon’s Patriot and Lockheed Martin’s THAAD systems that rates at more than $1 billion and approximately $3 billion respectively.
Although in a rare success for the US, UAE awarded the largest single contract to Raytheon at IDEX 2019 for supply of Patriot missile systems but the contract was against the expectations of Acting Secretary Defense Patrick Shanahan who predicted for THAAD instead.
In addition, Missile Defense Review 2019 asserted that Patriot has a proven combat record but the US army’s announcement to buy limited number of Israeli Iron Dome weapon systems to protect its soldiers coins its distrust over the performance of Patriot.
Unlike, the United States – Russia’s willingness to supply and share the technology, to some extent, of S-400 to almost any country in the world gives it an enormous push to market its defense nugget and allure the buyers.
As of now – China, India, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE have either purchased or are in negotiations with Russia for buying the redoubtable S-400 systems, while several other countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Vietnam have shown their intentions in acquiring these systems.
In doing do, Russia is eroding a number of US interests – stealing the strongest US defense exports markets; building stronger ties with the US closest allies; expanding its influence in the emerging economies; and ripping the US CAATSA that imposes sanctions on Moscow and the countries dealing with it.
By allowing Russia to play on its historically ‘home grounds’, Washington is only abetting Moscow to take its regional partners as the US officials warned Turkey that Ankara’s purchase of S-400 could jeopardize the transfer of F-35 new generation fighter jets and possible could end up in US sanctions.
But the NATO-member is committed to go on with the purchase of two regiments of S-400 at the cost of $3.4 billion from Russia. The delivery of first batch of S-400 is expected in July and will be activated in October.
Vice President Mike Pence said in his speech at Munich Security Conference ‘We will not stand idly by while NATO allies purchase weapons from our adversaries. We cannot ensure the defense of the West if our allies grow dependent on the East’.
The US also offered Turkey its Patriot defense systems but Ankara declined the offer, stating it cannot accept the US Patriot as it stands. However, Ankara has not absolutely ruled out the acquisition of Patriot, saying that the negotiations on cost, technology transfer, and delivery period are still underway.
Although India locked a special US waiver for the purchase of five regiments of S-400 for $5.4 billion from Russia but it is still fretting over the potential US sanctions. The so-called US Major Defense Partner (MDP) is working out a Rupee-Ruble payment transfer with Moscow to bypass US sanctions on Russia.
Speaking to the journalists at Aero India 2019, Anatoly Punchuk deputy director of Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation signaled at such a payment transaction saying ‘Dollar is no longer the universal currency for trade in defense’.
Russia has also offered MiG Aircraft Corporation’s MiG-35 with manufacturing facility in India. The company official claimed that MiG35 light-class fighter jet is unrivaled and also it would cost 20% less than similar foreign models. In April 2018, India Air Force had issued RFI for the purchase of 110 fighter jets to Rafale.
So far, China is the only country that has been delivered S-400 under $3 billion contract for an undisclosed quantity that was signed in 2015. Beijing bought the system after several tests and trails. Russian media reported that in October 2018, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) shot down a ‘simulated ballistic target’ almost 250km away and travelling at supersonic speed of 3km/second.
The question arises why China is buying S-400 while it has its own air defense missile system such as HQ-19 or Red Flag 19 (a significant upgradation of HQ-9) that is capable of intercepting satellite and ballistic missiles from a stupendous range of 3,000-4,000km and features with kinetic kill vehicle.
China has different thoughts from that of the Russians and the Americans, which means that Beijing is focusing more on developing of the defense armaments of the future – hypersonic weapons – rather than the staging air defense missile systems.
Hypersonic weapons can travel more than five times the speed of time (Mach 5) – 1.6km or around 1mile per second. Given that the modern fighter jet and cruise missile can fly at a supersonic speed of Mach 2 or Mach 3, hypersonic missile can bring any of them down easily.
Last year, the chief of US Strategic Command admitted briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee ‘We don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon (hypersonic) against us’. ‘Both Russia and China are aggressively pursuing hypersonic capabilities.’
The successful development of hypersonic weapons will almost completely eliminate the effectiveness of S-400, Patriot, THAAD, and other air defense missile systems – which will make all of them obsolete and waste of money. By the time, any countries that will take S-400 deliveries in 3 to 5 years will be strained to update their defense to cope with a hypersonic era.
It is pertinent to note that S-400 is considered the bottom of Russian military industry so China seems to showing lesser interests in Russian military products, therefore remains disinclined to invest in technologies, which are bound to be outdated in near future.