To counter several interceptor missiles and a radar station in Europe, Russia has repeatedly said it will build up its strategic offensive capability.

Now it is deploying a new intercontinental ballistic missile RS-24 with multiple individually targetable warheads. "The RS-24 will boost the Strategic Missile Force's ability to penetrate the missile defense system," Colonel Alexander Vovk, head of the Force's information service, said in mid-December.

There is nothing surprising about the asymmetry: Russia responds with what it has. But one wonders about the cost and wisdom of such a reply.

To begin with, the RS-24 is a converted Topol, only with a new nosecone. Remarks by Russian officials that the RS-24 was built around Topol elements are indirect, but there is substantial evidence in favor of that theory.

On Dec. 19 First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov twinned the two missiles, saying the new Topol-M "will also have separable warheads."

The RS-24 owes its origins to the START-I Treaty. Under it, neither Russia nor the United States has the right to change single for multiple warheads until 2009. New developments, however, are free from this restriction.

Take a closer look at the Topol. It is a mobile solid propellant missile developed as an asymmetrical response to American strategic missiles with separable warheads and increased firing accuracy deployed in the mid-1970s. Russia did not have anything of the kind. So mobile Topols (or SS-25 Sickle according to the NATO reporting name) began to enter combat duty in 1984.

In the 1990s Russia undertook a sweeping upgrading of Topols and in 2000 put in service a silo-based Topol-M (SS-27). About a year ago a mobile Topol-M2 went on operational status.

Russian top planners give the new Topols the key role in the country's ground nuclear forces for years ahead. Now they are also to act as a counterweight to American missile defenses.

Mobility is considered to be the Topol's main advantage. It hides its deployment and adds to its capability to pierce hostile missile defenses by using separable and maneuverable warheads.

These are serious arguments. But there is another side to the matter.

It would seem mobility is the answer to all prayers for camouflage and concealment. Unfortunately, ever since the United States developed Lacrosse imaging radar in the mid-1990s, darkness and cloud cover ceased to be an obstacle to missile detection.

Any concealment is out of the question now, and the system's survivability is practically zero in a hostile missile attack.

In passing it can be said that the United States decided against developing a mobile Midgetman strategic missile, concentrating instead on the survivability of its ground-based nuclear systems by hardening silos as part of the Minuteman-3 modernization program.

Now let us have a look at multiple warheads, their range and accuracy.

A host of information sources, from Encyclopaedia Britannica to such specialized magazines as Military Technology and Aviation Week, tell us that initially the Topol was fitted out with a single nuclear warhead with a TNT equivalent of 550 kilotons. Circular error probable was about 200 meters.

At the same time, America's main intercontinental ballistic missile Minuteman-3, which entered service in 1970, was equipped with three Mk-12A individually targetable re-entry vehicles each with a TNT equivalent of 335 kilotons.

Its CEP did not exceed 220 meters, and, following modernization, is estimated at 120 meters. The Minuteman has a range of up to 14,800 kilometers.

Compared with that, the Topol's all-up weight is 12 tons more than the corresponding figure for the American missile, which, naturally, affects its range.

As time went by, the single-warhead Topol-M, according, for example, to the Russian Military Parity Internet publication, "caught up" in many respects. Its sustainers now have better thrust characteristics, and CEP is reduced.

The upshot, however, is that the modernized Topol does no more than come near the American missile of 40 years ago, inferior in range and warhead yield.

But any modernization has its limits. Multiple warheads differ in principle from a single warhead, both in equipment and weight. The first requirement is a bus with an independent control system, whose electronics must be protected against the effects of a nuclear explosion and have special facilities to detect and counter noise.

Another requirement is a propulsion unit with a fuel supply to alter speed and attitude before the separation of each warhead. Besides, all warheads are provided with several attitude engines. The necessary increase in weight can be achieved only by reducing the yields or reducing the range.

The last factor is critical for the Topol-M. According to the Military Parity, the mobile system has a range not exceeding 5,760 miles, or 9,600 kilometers.

This raises a question, or rather two questions. Does asymmetry devalue the concept of ground strategic nuclear forces, which have for a long time and through difficult years guaranteed the country's security? Would it not be wiser to develop an adequate and symmetric answer by deploying Russia's own anti-missile point defense alongside an intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with standard penetration aids based on individually targetable re-entry vehicles?

But this is another story and another missile.

(Andrei Kislyakov is a political commentator for RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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