Moscow Defense Brief Your Professional Guide Inside # 1, 2010

Moscow Defense Brief Your Professional Guide Inside # 1, 2010 Worth the Wait CONTENTS Defense Industry #1 (19), 2010 Russia Joins the Fifth-Gen Game 2 PUBLISHER Centre for Analysis of Energy Security Strategies and Russia’s Efforts to Secure EU Gas Market 3 Technologies Iran Breakthrough for Russian Nuclear Industry 6 CAST Director & Publisher Ruslan Pukhov Editor-in-Chief Arms Trade Mikhail Barabanov Russian Arms Trade in 2009: Figures, Trends and Projections 9 Advisory Editors Konstantin Makienko Naval Build-up and New Submarines in Asia-Pacific: Alexey Pokolyavin Growing Security Risks 17 Researchers Ruslan Aliev Sergey Denisentsev Armed Forces Polina Temerina Interview with Admiral Vladimir Vysotskiy, Dmitry Vasiliev Commander of the Russian Navy 21 Editorial Office 3 Tverskaya-Yamskaya, 24, office 5, Moscow, Russia 125047 Facts & Figures phone: +7 495 251 9069 fax: +7 495 775 0418 Non-combat Losses of Russian Military Aviation in 2000-2010 25 http://www.mdb.cast.ru/ To subscribe, contact 32 phone: +7 495 251 9069 Our Authors or e-mail: [email protected] Moscow Defense Brief is published by the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without reference to Moscow Defense Brief. Please note that, while the Publisher has taken all reasonable care in the compilation of this publication, the Publisher cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions in this publication or for any loss arising therefrom. Authors’ opinions do not necessary reflect those of the Publisher or Editor Translated by: Ivan Khokhotva Computer design & pre-press: ZEBRA-GROUP www.zebra-group.ru Cover Photo: Russia’s fifth-generation fighter, the T-50, developed under the Sukhoi corporation’s PAK FA project and first flown on January 29, 2010. Photo taken on February 12, 2010, at the Komsomolsk-upon-Amur airfield, during the T-50’s second test flight. Photo by: Sukhoi Corporation © Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, 2010 Printed in Russia # 1, 2010 Moscow Defense Brief 1 Defense Industry Russia Joins the Fifth-Gen Game Konstantin Makienko ussia flew a prototype of its fifth-generation fighter on • The political risk is that cumbersome Russian bureaucracy RJanuary 29, 2010, in what analysts agree was a major could well stymie Indian participation in the program. milestone for the national aerospace industry. The Sukhoi And without the Indians, mass production becomes corporation’s T-50 jet, developed under the PAK FA (Future commercially unviable because the Russian Defense Front Line Aircraft System) program, took off from a Ministry’s order for the new jets will be very modest. Komsomolsk-upon-Amur airfield for a 47-minute maiden But although it would take at least another decade flight. The aircraft is the first radically new Russian design to turn PAK FA into a proper combat system, the maiden that looks likely to enter commercial production since the flight of the T-50 has been a major boost for the Russian first MiG-29 and Su-27 prototypes of the previous fourth aerospace industry. Its existing customers can now see a clear generation took to the air back in 1977. way forward for their national air forces, and their choice of The maiden flight of the PAK FA has broken America’s Russia as a supplier has been vindicated. Russia can now complete monopoly on the development and production of negotiate with potential foreign customers from a much fifth-generation fighter jets. It has also demonstrated that stronger position, and that includes civilian contracts as well while not America’s equal militarily, Russia is still a solid as military. Several countries, including Libya and Vietnam, second in terms of defense technology, outranking both have already expressed their interest in the future Russian Western Europe and China and punching well above its fifth-generation fighter. economic weight. Of course, any serious military, political or commercial But while the maiden flight itself was a major coup for dividends of the PAK FA program hinge on Russia’s ability Russia, the success of the PAK FA program is not a foregone to take it from the prototype stage to mass production. If conclusion. Serious financial, technical and even political that happens, America’s F-35 and the Russian T-50 will hurdles still remain. They have the potential to cause major be the only two players on the world market for combat delays or even stall the program completely. aircraft after 2020. The European offerings, which are all • In terms of technology, the biggest worry is the remaining based on essentially fourth-generation technology, will be uncertainty over the so-called “next engine”. The existing marginalized, and Europe itself will most likely be eliminated T-50-01 prototype is equipped with deeply upgraded as a serious competitor. That opens up very alluring and fourth-generation engines. And while they provide hitherto inconceivable prospects of cooperation between the the necessary amount of thrust (even for supersonic Russian aerospace industry and some European aerospace cruising), they are not up to the fifth-generation spec in powers which still retain a large degree of sovereignty and terms of the thrust-to-weight ratio and fuel economy. independence from the United States. Many observers are skeptical about Russia’s chances At present, very little is known about the T-50’s onboard of creating a proper fifth-generation engine that could equipment, and even less about its future missile systems, so compete with America’s Pratt & Whitney F119. Problems there is no point trying to compare the Russian and American also remain with the new radar and other onboard fifth-generation fighters in terms of their combat capability. equipment, but recent progress suggests that the risks But it would not be much of a stretch to say that regardless of here are moderate. the T-50’s actual strengths and weaknesses, it is guaranteed • The financial risks stem from uncertainty over Russia’s to seize up to 30 per cent of the market simply by virtue of not economic prospects, which are too dependent on exports being American. The new Russian-Indian fighter clearly has of oil, gas and other natural resources. The PAK FA project excellent prospects on the Asia-Pacific markets, especially could well grind to a halt if the country suffers another those which Russia has already staked. What is more, when economic shock like the one it went through in 2009, when paired with the Su-35, the T-50 could be an even more the economy shrank by 8 per cent and the budget deficit enticing offering that America’s much-vaunted bestseller of spiraled to 5.9 per cent. the future, the F-35. 2 # 1, 2010 Moscow Defense Brief Russia Joins the Fifth-Gen Game Energy Security Russia’s Efforts to Secure EU Gas Market Natalia Grib, Kommersant publishing house special energy correspondent ussia is pursuing a number of strategies to secure its with a total length of 1,220 km and annual capacity of Rpresence on the European Union’s gas market. The most 27.5 bcm, is expected to become operational in 2011. The obvious one is to build new pipelines bypassing the existing second leg should follow in 2012. But the project is facing short overland routes. These include the Nord Stream financial hurdles. A new law that came into force in Germany pipeline in the Baltics and the South Stream in the Black Sea on October 2009 limits the margin of profit for gas transit region. A closer look at Russia’s energy policy also reveals that projects to 5 per cent. But shareholders of Nord Stream Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is trying to help his AG are determined to solve that problem. Among them is Turkish counterpart to keep his hand firmly on the tap of the Gazprom itself, which owns a 51-per-cent stake, as well as proposed Nabucco pipeline from the Middle East to Europe. BASF/Wintershall and E.ON Ruhrgas (20 per cent each), Finally, there are signs that Moscow is trying to secure a role and Gasunie (9 per cent). If France’s GDF SUEZ accepts the for itself in future Iranian energy projects, so as to make sure invitation to join the project, it will own a 9-per-cent stake, that cheap Iranian gas does not knock down prices on the while the shares of the two German partners will be reduced European market. The results of these efforts should become to 15.5 per cent each. obvious some time after 2015. Gazprom has already signed new contracts to supply 21 bcm of gas annually via Nord Stream. The remaining 33 bcm of the pipeline’s capacity will be filled with gas rerouted from Strategy One: the gas “pincers” the existing pipelines that cross Belarusian and Ukrainian territory. As for South Stream, so far Russia has not even The idea of building offshore gas pipelines that would bothered to look for potential new customers. The new bypass transit countries came to Vladimir Putin in 2004- pipeline’s projected capacity is over 60 bcm. That makes 2005. Russia’s Yamal-Europe pipeline, which was aiming to it a viable alternative to the Ukrainian gas transit system bring 33bn cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually from Siberian (total transit capacity 120 bcm), on which 75 to 80 per cent gas fields to consumers in Germany, was facing political of Russian gas exports to Europe now depend. obstacles in Belarus and Poland. Belarusian leader Aleksandr South Stream should take the route along the Turkish Lukashenko was refusing to grant Gazprom a long-term lease shelf of the Black Sea from Russia to Bulgaria, and then on to of the land plots for the new pipeline’s pumping stations.

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