“Justify the lag": why Bolton accused Russia of borrowing American hypersonic technologies

US Presidential Advisor on National Security John Bolton accused Russia of "stealing" hypersonic technology. This was announced by an American official on the eve of an interview with Voice of America *, commenting on the incident with a rocket engine test in the Arkhangelsk region. According to him, "this is an example of how Russia is striving to technologically improve its capabilities in the delivery of nuclear weapons."

“This is also evidence that Russia, with an economy approximately equal to the Netherlands, has a high level of defense spending to modernize its nuclear arsenal, create new delivery systems, hypersonic flight and planning systems, hypersonic cruise missiles, which are largely based on stolen American technology, ”said Bolton.

At the same time, he emphasized that “the presence of such opportunities in Russia and the likelihood of their occurrence in other countries continue to pose a serious challenge for the United States and its allies.”

• US Air Force Experimental Hypersonic Engine Arnold
• © US Air Force

For the "external user"

Recall that as early as 2017, the Dagger hypersonic missile system has been on pilot combat duty of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Until the end of 2019, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the first regiment of the Strategic Missile Forces, armed with the Avangard hypersonic complex, should take up combat duty.

In the coming years, the Russian Navy will receive another hypersonic missile system - Zircon.

The United States does not have such weapons, although it has been actively developing and testing hypersonic systems in past years. Little is known about the relatively recent successes of US military developers. So, in June 2019, at the Edwards Air Force Base in California, the U.S. Air Force tested the AGM-183A Advanced Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) missile model: it was hung from a B-52 bomber, testing air resistance in flight.

On August 5, the US Air Force announced bench tests of a hypersonic jet engine. It is reported that it is ten times more powerful than what was used in tests of the prototype X-51 hypersonic missile in past years.

As experts noted in an interview, it is no coincidence that Bolton made a statement about the “theft” in the propaganda media funded by the US government.

“This is a purely propaganda statement intended for an“ external user, ”Vladimir Batyuk, head of the Center for Military-Political Studies of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, emphasized in a conversation with RT. “It is necessary to somehow justify the fact that the United States, having a military budget significantly exceeding the ten countries following them, is significantly behind both Russia and China in a number of military technologies.”

The editor of Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine Alexei Leonkov agrees with this point of view. According to him, "Comrade Bolton decided to take advantage of" a campaign at a controlled radio station and issued "false propaganda at the Goebbels level."

According to Vladimir Batyuk, Bolton's statement sounds ridiculous.

“You cannot steal what is not. The fact that the US has been trying recently to catch up with China and Russia is a well-known fact, ”the political scientist believes.

In addition, according to the expert, “without the corresponding military developments of the Russian side”, any information received from intelligence services would be meaningless.

“You need to understand: what is stolen should be used subsequently in production. Without their own developed scientific and technical base, all these “thefts” have no meaning, ”Batyuk believes.

"This is ridiculous"

According to Alexei Leonkov, Russia, having come to the technology of controlled hypersound, significantly overtook the United States, so the Americans had nothing to steal. Rather, the opposite.

“When Comrade Bolton claims that something was stolen from them, this is ridiculous. To teach a missile to fly even faster is one thing, but to maneuver and overcome missile and air defense systems is another. The Americans tried to control hypersound. Tests were carried out, but the device self-destructed, ”said the expert.

According to Alexei Leonkov, many technological solutions that are used by the United States in Russia have long been recognized as obsolete. If you look at the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon project, you can see the aerodynamic steering wheels as “controls.” This decision was abandoned back in the USSR.

• Advanced Hypersonic Weapon Warhead (AHW)
• © Sandia National Laboratories

“This technology does not allow to storm high speeds, because the protrusions on the warhead at high speeds create the so-called twists, in which the warhead will behave unpredictably, the effectiveness of an attempt to control such rudders tends to zero with increasing speed. Our experts studied this solution back in the 1980s, and the Americans are producing such weapons only now. Who stole from whom, one asks? ”- Leonkov asks a rhetorical question.

According to the expert, only the USA can be blamed for technology theft.

“Behind all the breakthrough technologies in America are not Americans. Their F-35 aircraft borrowed a lot from our Yak-41 aircraft. In space technology: the X-37B unmanned orbiter is all the development of the Molniya NPO, where Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky was the chief designer, these are his projects. It is similar to our BOR - this is one of the programs in the framework of the Spiral project and the Buran project. He repeated the entire BOR flight program to the point. The American Dream Chaser orbiter is our EPOS. ”

Failed statement

A few days before Bolton's statement, US President Donald Trump himself commented on the state of emergency in the Arkhangelsk region. He stated that the explosion "helped the United States learn a lot."

• Donald Trump
• Reuters
• © Leah Millis

“We also have similar, but more advanced technologies,” Trump assured readers of his Twitter.

As noted by Alexei Leonkov, the US president does not say that the Americans, if they have similar attitudes to the Russian, have a “sample of the 1950-1960s”.

The American president believes that the accident occurred on a Skyfall rocket. So in NATO designate the promising Russian cruise missile 9M730 "Petrel" with a nuclear power plant. The official information of the Ministry of Defense and Rosatom does not confirm such assumptions.

The United States is learning much from the failed missile explosion in Russia. We have similar, though more advanced, technology. The Russian “Skyfall” explosion has people worried about the air around the facility, and far beyond. Not good!

Trump’s statement excited the Americans, as it was previously thought that Washington abandoned similar projects back in the 1960s.

“This is ... inaccurate information. In the late 50s and early 60s of the last century, the United States worked on a less advanced version of similar technology, but curtailed the project before launching the test model, ”said Patrick Tucker, editor of the Defense One portal.

David Burbach, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval College, noted that Trump made an unsuccessful statement.

“To tell the world that the United States has a secret superweapon with a nuclear power plant and that we have lied about this for many years is a bad idea from the president’s side. Especially if we don’t actually have it - but we almost certainly don’t have it, ”the scientist emphasized.

It is a bad idea for the President to tell the world the US has secret nuclear powered super-weapons and that we've been lying about that for years. Especially if we don't actually have them, which we almost certainly do not. https://t.co/pK0sNPRpeg

Doubts were also expressed by ex-US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.

“Do we have a similar technology?” Cruise missiles with a nuclear power plant? While working in the National Security Council, I was not acquainted with such a program. Can someone tell us more about this? ”Said the former diplomat.

In the years, McFaul led the Russian direction at the US National Security Council.

We have similar technology? Nuclear-powered cruise missiles? I wasn't read into that program when I worked at the National Security Council. Can anyone shed more light? @ LauraSHHolgate @ NarangVipin @ steven_pifer @ Cirincione @ LSRTweets @ JBWolfsthal? https://t.co/COsfAnY29R

Recall that last year, the American defense corporation Lockheed Martin registered a patent for a compact fusion reactor that can fit in a combat aircraft. However, the company has not yet announced that it has managed to create a working model. Controlled thermonuclear fusion is a complex problem that scientists around the world have been struggling for decades.

In July 2019, U.S. media reported that Skunk Works’s new technology division began construction of an experimental reactor as part of this project.

• Launch of the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome
• © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation / RIA Novosti

Pretext for allegations

On the eve of John Bolton’s statement about the theft of US hypersonic technology from the US, a Reuters source in the presidential administration said that “Russia's attempts to develop a hypersonic cruise missile” questioned the extension of START III, which expires in 2021.

Earlier in the Trump administration, a similar statement was made by John Bolton. In June, he argued that START III allegedly did not limit the new weapons systems that Russia and China were developing, and therefore there was no point in extending it. According to Bolton, the US president believes that a new strategic arms limitation agreement should be signed with the participation of Moscow, Washington and Beijing.

According to Vladimir Batyuk, the active pedaling by the Americans of the development of the latest Russian defense systems may be associated with the search for a plausible excuse for withdrawing from the START III treaty, limiting the nuclear capabilities of Russia and the United States. Earlier, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty), after having previously accused Russia of violating its conditions.

“Such a possibility exists,” the expert believes. - This applies not only to hypersound, but also to other Russian latest systems. For example, the Russian Burevestnik nuclear-powered rocket, the Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo, are all strategic carriers, but they do not fall within the strategic triad of START III. All this may become a pretext for accusing Russia of violating treaties. ”

What the Americans cannot do, they want to ban, says Alexei Leonkov.

“So it was with the INF Treaty. As soon as our medium-range missile systems became much better than the American ones, they began to discharge. The whole direction was eliminated. Here is the same attempt. What they cannot do better than us, they seek to ban, ”says a military expert.

* "Voice of America" ​​- the media recognized by a foreign agent by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 05.12.2017.