http://freebeacon.com/national-security/northcom-russian-cruise-missile-threat-to-u-s-grows/
Russia is developing a long-range cruise missile that poses a new threat to the United States, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command warned this week.
“Russia is progressing toward its goal of deploying long-range, conventionally-armed cruise missiles with ever increasing stand-off launch distances on its heavy bombers, submarines, and surface combatants, augmenting the Kremlin’s toolkit of flexible deterrent options short of the nuclear threshold,” Adm. William Gortney, Northcom chief who heads the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said Thursday.
“Should these trends continue, over time NORAD will face increased risk in our ability to defend North America against Russian cruise missile threats,” he said in prepared testimony to the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces.
Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.) said he is very concerned about funding shortfalls for missile defense.
“The United States of America is on its way to losing its military edge, not just in terms of the ability to project power, but to even defend the homeland,” Rogers said. “This situation is intolerable.”
However, former Pentagon nuclear strategist Mark Schneider said the Russian missile is the KH-101.
“The Russians describe the KH-101 as a 5,000-kilometer [3,106-mile] range conventional cruise missile,” he said. “The KH-102 is the nuclear version.”
The KH-101 is configured for launch on Russian strategic bombers. There have been Russian press reports that a sea-based variant is deployed on Russia’s Severodvinsk-class nuclear attack submarines.
A report by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) said at least nine nations are developing land-attack cruise missiles and several will make them available to foreign customers. “The cruise missile threat to U.S. forces will increase over the next decade,” the report said.
Schneider, the former Pentagon strategic nuclear policy official, said the KH-101 is one of several new cruise missiles being developed by the Russians.
“There is a very large asymmetry in cruise missile capability developing between the U.S. and Russia,” Schneider said. “We have eliminated our only nuclear submarine-launched cruise missile, are ending production of our Tomahawk conventional ship launched cruise missile and the range of our air-launched conventional cruise missile is less than 1,000 kilometers,” he said. “Our follow-on nuclear air-launched cruise missile is not until late 2020s. All of this reflects the fact that the Russians are preparing to fight us while we are preparing to fight terrorists.”
LAST LINE says it all. We are now officially playing catch-up. So they can attack from 3000 miles away with nuclear NEXTGEN cruise missiles that are being sold to 9 hostile nations. We have no nuclear cruise missles but we might still have one or two tomohawk cruise missiles that can attack at 600 miles (1000 km). And we cant have any NEXTGEN capacity until LATE 2020s.... Guess we should start mounting patriot missile batteries on trawlers to patrol the 7 seas 24/7. That's a plan!
I sure do feel better.
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