In anticipation of possible high-level contacts between Russia and the United States on Ukraine, it is worth noting: over the past year, the media, including authoritative Western sources, have been full of opinions that Russia’s military economy has “reached a plateau” and is no longer capable of increasing output. If Trump is put such conclusions on the table, he can strategize negotiations in accordance with them.
At a session of the CSTO council in late November, Vladimir Putin said that production of Russian long-range missiles would increase by another 25-30 percent. In the near future, according to this speech, other weapons may also come into play – Moscow has several more Oreshnik-like systems ready for use. Given the plans announced by various officials to increase production of other weapons systems, one must choose: either all of this is military disinformation, or there is no “plateau.”
There is more and more information that the Iskander-based long-range missile tested as recently as last May is getting closer to the final stage of development. It has a range of up to 1,000 kilometers versus the current Iskander’s 500 kilometers according to treaty restrictions. There is also information about the production of different in range and weight “descendants” of the airborne missile “Kinzhal”.
Do NATO intelligence agencies see new factory buildings and the development of previous production facilities? Of course, they do, if such information is published from time to time by journalists on the basis of analyzing commercial satellite images. According to them, it turns out that there are quite a few facilities that will be fully operational in 1-2 years. This is Putin’s planning horizon.
Does Trump realize that Putin has a much longer time horizon than he has? That depends on what documents all the intelligence agencies and select aides are supplying him. In principle, he may not see that as a crucial fact.
It is not known whether Putin knows reliably how much America is willing to tolerate. Its long-term financial and industrial capacity is immense. But Trump has no long-term perspective – he’s been living in big politics for his last four years. So it again comes down to political rather than economic calculations.
