What should Russia negotiate with Cuba? Commentary by Georgy Bovt. Caribbean crisis

The Caribbean (Cuban) crisis of 1962 is a sharp aggravation of the international situation caused by the threat of war between the USSR and the USA due to the deployment of Soviet missile weapons in Cuba.

In connection with the ongoing military, diplomatic and economic pressure of the United States on Cuba, the Soviet political leadership, at its request, in June 1962 decided to deploy Soviet troops on the island, including missile forces (codenamed "Anadyr"). This was explained by the need to prevent US armed aggression against Cuba and to oppose Soviet missiles to American ones deployed in Italy and Turkey.

(Military Encyclopedia. Military Publishing. Moscow, in 8 volumes, 2004)

To accomplish this task, it was planned to deploy in Cuba three regiments of R-12 medium-range missiles (24 launchers) and two regiments of R-14 missiles (16 launchers) - a total of 40 missile launchers with a range of missiles from 2.5 to 4, 5 thousand kilometers. For this purpose, the consolidated 51st missile division was formed, consisting of five missile regiments from different divisions. The total nuclear potential of the division in the first launch could reach 70 megatons. The division in its entirety ensured the possibility of defeating military-strategic facilities almost throughout the entire territory of the United States.

The delivery of troops to Cuba was planned by civilian ships of the USSR Ministry of the Navy. In July-October, 85 cargo and passenger ships took part in Operation Anadyr, which made 183 voyages to and from Cuba.

By October, there were over 40,000 Soviet troops in Cuba.

On October 14, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft in the San Cristobal area (Pinar del Rio province) discovered and photographed the starting positions of the Soviet missile forces. On October 16, the CIA reported this to US President John F. Kennedy. On October 16-17, Kennedy convened a meeting of his apparatus, including the top military and diplomatic leadership, at which the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba was discussed. Several options were proposed, including the landing of American troops on the island, an air strike on launch sites, and a maritime quarantine.

In a televised speech on October 22, Kennedy announced the appearance of Soviet missiles in Cuba and his decision to declare a naval blockade of the island from October 24, put the US military on alert and enter into negotiations with the Soviet leadership. More than 180 US warships with 85 thousand people on board were sent to the Caribbean, American troops in Europe, the 6th and 7th fleets were put on alert, up to 20% of strategic aviation was on alert.

On October 23, the Soviet government issued a statement that the US government "takes upon itself a heavy responsibility for the fate of the world and is playing a reckless game with fire." The statement did not acknowledge the fact of the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba, nor any concrete proposals for a way out of the crisis. On the same day, the head of the Soviet government, Nikita Khrushchev, sent a letter to the President of the United States, in which he assured him that any weapons supplied to Cuba were intended only for defense purposes.

On October 23, intensive meetings of the UN Security Council began. UN Secretary-General U Thant appealed to both sides to show restraint: the Soviet Union - to stop the advance of their ships in the direction of Cuba, the United States - to prevent a collision at sea.

October 27 was the Black Saturday of the Cuban crisis. In those days, squadrons of American planes swept over Cuba twice a day for the purpose of intimidation. On this day, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down in Cuba, flying around the field position areas of the missile forces. The pilot of the aircraft, Major Anderson, was killed.

The situation escalated to the limit, the US President decided two days later to begin the bombing of Soviet missile bases and a military attack on the island. Many Americans left major cities, fearing an imminent Soviet strike. The world was on the brink of nuclear war.

On October 28, Soviet-American negotiations began in New York with the participation of representatives of Cuba and the UN Secretary General, which ended the crisis with the corresponding obligations of the parties. The USSR government agreed to the US demand for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from the territory of Cuba in exchange for assurances from the US government that the island's territorial integrity and non-interference in the internal affairs of that country would be observed. The withdrawal of US missiles from Turkey and Italy was also announced confidentially.

55 years ago, on September 9, 1962, Soviet ballistic missiles were delivered to Cuba. This was the prelude to the so-called Caribbean (October) crisis, which for the first time and so close brought humanity to the brink of nuclear war.

"Metallurg Anosov" with deck cargo - eight missile transporters with missiles covered with tarpaulin. During the Caribbean crisis (blockade of Cuba). November 7, 1962 Photo: wikipedia.org

The Caribbean Crisis itself, or rather its most, lasted 13 days, from October 22, 1962, when a missile attack on Cuba, where an impressive Soviet military contingent was stationed by that time, was almost agreed in American political circles.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the eve published a list of official losses of Soviet citizens who died on the island from August 1, 1962 to August 16, 1964: there are 64 names in this mournful register.

Our compatriots died during the rescue of Cubans during the strongest hurricane "Flora", which swept over Cuba in the autumn of 1963, during combat training, from accidents and diseases. In 1978, at the suggestion of Fidel Castro, a memorial to the memory of Soviet soldiers buried in Cuba was built in the vicinity of Havana, which is surrounded by maximum care. The complex consists of two concrete walls in the form of mournfully bowed banners of both countries. Its content is supervised in an exemplary manner by the country's top leadership. By the way, the Soviet military, who, together with the Cubans, were involved in the coastal defense of the island in the fall of 1962, were dressed in Cuban uniforms. But on the most stressful days, from October 22 to 27, they took out vests and peakless caps from their suitcases and prepared to give their lives for a distant Caribbean country.

Khrushchev made the decision

So, in the autumn of 1962, the world faced the real danger of a nuclear war between the two superpowers. And the real destruction of humanity.

In official US circles, among politicians and in the media, at one time the thesis became widespread, according to which the cause of the Caribbean crisis was the alleged deployment of "offensive weapons" by the Soviet Union in Cuba, and the response measures of the Kennedy administration, which brought the world to the brink of thermonuclear war, were "forced" . However, these statements are far from the truth. They are refuted by an objective analysis of the events that preceded the crisis.

Fidel Castro inspects the armament of Soviet ships on July 28, 1969. A photo: RIA News

Sending Soviet ballistic missiles to Cuba from the USSR in 1962 was an initiative of Moscow, and specifically Nikita Khrushchev. Nikita Sergeevich, shaking his shoe on the podium of the UN General Assembly, did not hide his desire to "put a hedgehog in the pants of the Americans" and waited for a convenient opportunity. And this, looking ahead, he brilliantly succeeded - Soviet lethal missiles were not only located a hundred kilometers from America, but the United States did not know for a whole month that they had already been deployed on Freedom Island!

After the failure of the operation in the Bay of Pigs in 1961, it became clear that the Americans would not leave Cuba alone. This was evidenced by the ever-increasing number of acts of sabotage against the Island of Freedom. Moscow received almost daily reports of American military preparations.

In March 1962, at a meeting in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, according to the recollections of the outstanding Soviet diplomat and intelligence officer Alexander Alekseev (Shitov), ​​Khrushchev asked him how Fidel would react to the proposal to install our missiles in Cuba. “We, Khrushchev said, must find such an effective deterrent that would deter the Americans from this risky step, because our speeches at the UN in defense of Cuba are clearly not enough anymore.<… >Since the Americans have already surrounded the Soviet Union with their military bases and missile installations for various purposes, we must pay them in their own coin, give them a taste of their own medicine, so that they can feel for themselves what it is like to live under the gun of a nuclear weapon. Speaking of this, Khrushchev stressed the need for this operation to be carried out in strict secrecy so that the Americans would not discover the missiles before they were put on full alert.

Fidel Castro did not reject this idea. Although he was well aware that the deployment of missiles would entail a change in the strategic nuclear balance in the world between the socialist camp and the United States. The Americans had already deployed warheads in Turkey, and Khrushchev's retaliatory decision to place missiles in Cuba was a kind of "missile leveling." A specific decision on the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba was made at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU on May 24, 1962. And on June 10, 1962, before the July arrival of Raul Castro in Moscow, at a meeting in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, USSR Minister of Defense Marshal Rodion Malinovsky presented a project for an operation to transfer missiles to Cuba. It assumed the deployment of two types of ballistic missiles on the island - R-12 with a range of about 2 thousand kilometers and R-14 with a range of 4 thousand kilometers. Both types of missiles were equipped with one-megaton nuclear warheads.

The text of the agreement on the supply of missiles was handed over to Fidel Castro on August 13 by the USSR ambassador to Cuba, Alexander Alekseev. Fidel immediately signed it and sent with him to Moscow Che Guevara and the chairman of the United Revolutionary Organizations, Emilio Aragones, ostensibly to discuss "topical economic issues." Nikita Khrushchev received the Cuban delegation on August 30, 1962 at his dacha in the Crimea. But, having accepted the agreement from Che's hands, he did not even bother to sign it. Thus, this historic agreement remained formalized without the signature of one of the parties.

By that time, Soviet preparations for sending people and equipment to the island had already begun and were irreversible.

The captains did not know about the purpose of the mission

Operation "Anadyr" for the transfer of people and equipment across the seas and oceans from the USSR to Cuba is inscribed in golden letters in the annals of world military art. Such a jewelry operation, carried out under the nose of a super-powerful enemy with his exemplary tracking systems at that time, world history does not know and did not know before.

The equipment and personnel were delivered to six different ports of the Soviet Union, in the Baltic, Black and Barents Seas, having allocated 85 ships for the transfer, which made a total of 183 flights. Soviet sailors were convinced that they were going to northern latitudes. For the purpose of secrecy, camouflage robes and skis were loaded onto the ships in order to create the illusion of a "sailing to the North" and thereby exclude any possibility of information leakage. The captains of the ships had the appropriate packages, which had to be opened in the presence of the political officer only after passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. What can we say about ordinary sailors, even if the captains of the ships did not know where they were sailing and what they were carrying in the holds. Their astonishment knew no bounds when, after opening the package after Gibraltar, they read: "Keep a course for Cuba and avoid conflict with NATO ships." For camouflage, the military, who, naturally, could not be kept in the holds for the entire trip, went out on deck in civilian clothes.

The general plan of Moscow was to deploy in Cuba a group of Soviet troops as part of military formations and units of the Rocket Forces, Air Force, Air Defense and Navy. As a result, more than 43 thousand people arrived in Cuba. The basis of the Group of Soviet Forces was a missile division consisting of three regiments equipped with R-12 medium-range missiles, and two regiments armed with R-14 missiles - a total of 40 missile launchers with a range of missiles from 2.5 to 4.5 thousand kilometers. Khrushchev later wrote in his "Memoirs" that "this force was enough to destroy New York, Chicago and other industrial cities, and there is nothing to say about Washington. A small village." At the same time, this division was not tasked with delivering a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States, it was supposed to serve as a deterrent.

Only decades later, some hitherto secret details of the Anadyr operation became known, which speak of the exceptional heroism of Soviet sailors. People were transported to Cuba in cargo compartments, the temperature in which, at the entrance to the tropics, reached more than 60 degrees. They were fed twice a day in the dark. The food spoiled. But, despite the most difficult conditions of the campaign, the sailors endured a long sea passage of 18-24 days. Upon learning of this, US President Kennedy said: "If I had such soldiers, the whole world would be under my heel."

The first ships arrived in Cuba in early August 1962. One of the participants in this unparalleled operation later recalled: “The poor fellows went from the Black Sea in the hold of a cargo ship that had previously transported sugar from Cuba. The conditions, of course, were unsanitary: hastily knocked together multi-storey bunks in the hold, no toilets, underfoot and on teeth - remains of granulated sugar. From the hold they released to breathe air in turn and for a very short time. At the same time, observers were put on the sides: some watched the sea, others - the sky. The hatches of the holds were left open. In the event of the appearance of any foreign object, "passengers" had to quickly return to the hold. Carefully camouflaged equipment was on the upper deck. The galley was designed to cook for several dozen people who make up the crew of the ship. Since there were much more people, it didn’t matter, to put it mildly. About any hygiene, of course, there could be no question.In general, we spent two weeks in the hold with little or no daylight, noah food."

Slap for the White House

Operation Anadyr was the biggest failure of the American intelligence services, whose analysts kept counting how many people could be transported to Cuba by Soviet passenger ships. And they got some ridiculously small number. They did not realize that these ships could accommodate significantly more people than it should be for a regular flight. And the fact that people can be transported in the holds of dry cargo ships could not even occur to them.

In early August, the American intelligence agencies received information from their West German colleagues that the Soviets were increasing the number of their ships in the Baltic and Atlantic almost tenfold. And the Cubans who lived in the United States learned from their relatives who were in Cuba about the importation of "strange Soviet cargo" to the island. However, until the beginning of October, the Americans simply "passed this information past their ears."

Hiding the obvious for Moscow and Havana would mean even greater American interest in sending cargo to Cuba and, most importantly, in their contents. Therefore, on September 3, 1962, in a joint Soviet-Cuban communiqué on the stay in the Soviet Union of the Cuban delegation consisting of Che Guevara and E. Aragones, it was noted that "the Soviet government met the request of the Cuban government to provide Cuba with arms assistance." The communiqué said that these weapons and military equipment are intended solely for defense purposes.

A list of official losses of Soviet citizens from August 1, 1962 to August 16, 1964 has been published. There are 64 names in the mournful register

The fact that the USSR delivered missiles to Cuba was an absolutely legal matter and permitted by international law. Despite this, the American press published a number of critical articles about the "preparations in Cuba." On September 4, US President John F. Kennedy announced that the United States would not tolerate the deployment of surface-to-surface strategic missiles and other types of offensive weapons in Cuba. On September 25, 1962, Fidel Castro announced that the Soviet Union intended to establish a base in Cuba for its fishing fleet. At first, the CIA did believe that a large fishing village was being built in Cuba. True, later Langley began to suspect that, under his guise, the Soviet Union was actually creating a large shipyard and a base for Soviet submarines. American intelligence surveillance of Cuba was strengthened, the number of reconnaissance flights of U-2 aircraft, which continuously photographed the territory of the island, increased significantly. It soon became obvious to the Americans that the Soviet Union was building launch pads for anti-aircraft guided missiles (SAMs) in Cuba. They were created in the USSR several years ago in Grushin's highly classified design bureau. With their help, in 1960, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, piloted by pilot Powers, was shot down.

The hawks were for hitting Cuba

On October 2, 1962, John F. Kennedy orders the Pentagon to put the US military on alert. It became clear to Cuban and Soviet leaders that it was necessary to accelerate the construction of facilities on the island.

Here, bad weather played into the hands of Havana and Moscow, concerned about the speedy completion of ground work. Due to heavy cloud cover in early October, U-2 flights, suspended for six weeks by that time, did not begin until 9 October. What they saw on October 10 amazed the Americans. The photographic reconnaissance data showed the presence of good roads where until recently there was a desert area, as well as huge tractors that did not fit into the narrow country roads in Cuba.

Then John Kennedy gave the order to activate photo reconnaissance. At that moment, another typhoon hit Cuba. And new pictures from a spy plane loitering at an extremely low altitude of 130 meters were taken only on the night of October 14, 1962 in the San Cristobal area in the province of Pinar del Rio. It took days to process them. U-2 discovered and photographed the starting positions of the Soviet missile forces. Hundreds of photographs testified that not just anti-aircraft missiles, but ground-to-ground missiles had already been installed in Cuba.

On October 16, presidential adviser McGeorge Bundy reported to Kennedy on the results of the overflight of Cuban territory. What John F. Kennedy saw fundamentally contradicted Khrushchev's promises to supply Cuba with only defensive weapons. The missiles discovered by the spy plane were capable of wiping out several major American cities. On the same day, Kennedy convened in his office the so-called Cuban Task Force, which included senior officials from the State Department, the CIA, and the Department of Defense. It was a historic meeting at which the "hawks" put pressure on the US President in every possible way, inclining him to an immediate strike on Cuba.

General Nikolai Leonov recalled how then Pentagon chief Robert McNamara told him at a conference in Moscow in 2002 that the majority in the US political elite in October 1962 insisted on a strike on Cuba. He even clarified that 70 percent of the people from the then US administration held a similar point of view. Fortunately for world history, the minority view prevailed, which was held by McNamara himself and President Kennedy. "We must pay tribute to the courage and courage of John F. Kennedy, who found a difficult opportunity to compromise in defiance of the overwhelming majority of his entourage and showed amazing political wisdom," Nikolai Leonov told the author of these lines.

There were only a few days left before the climax of the Caribbean crisis, which RG will tell about ...

Nikolai Leonov, retired lieutenant general of state security, author of biographies of Fidel and Raul Castro:

The CIA frankly missed the transfer of such a large number of people and weapons from one hemisphere to another, and in close proximity to the coast of the United States. To secretly move an army of forty thousand, a huge amount of military equipment - aviation, armored forces and, of course, the missiles themselves - such an operation, in my opinion, is an example of headquarters activity. As well as a classic example of enemy disinformation and disguise. Operation "Anadyr" was designed and carried out in such a way that the mosquito would not undermine the nose. Already during its implementation, it was necessary to make urgent and original decisions. For example, rockets, already transported on the island itself, simply did not fit into the narrow Cuban rural roads. And they had to expand.

On Friday November 2, the new Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez paid an official visit to Moscow and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian high-ranking officials.

The very fact that, after more than half a century of rule by the Castro brothers, Cuba has a new president is very important, but now the question of what will happen to Russian-Cuban strategic relations, which left their mark on the Cold War, and on the whole XX century. It is worth remembering the October days of 1962, when the world was on the brink of nuclear war at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I also remind about the missile crisis because now we are witnessing a new crisis with similar features. We are talking about the termination of the INF Treaty. Let me remind you that the United States announced its intention to withdraw from the treaty on medium-range nuclear weapons (from a thousand to five and a half thousand kilometers).

If America and Russia are indeed playing some sort of underhanded game to limit Chinese missile ambitions, then it doesn't bear (special) fruit. But if the United States wants to revive the nuclear arms race, and if in the near future they begin to deploy missiles in European countries aimed at Moscow, then this is already a serious cause for concern. Of course, when we talk about deploying nuclear-capable missiles, it's hard not to think of Cuba.

The Caribbean Missile Crisis, as we know from sources today, did indeed bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. Fortunately, reason prevailed then, and a way out of the crisis was found. Soviet missiles were withdrawn from Cuba in the open, while the United States withdrew its missiles from Turkey without publicity (of course, the USSR knew about this, but allowed the Americans to win a “PR victory” in this fight).

Needless to say, the impact this crisis has had on Cuba, as well as on enduring American animosity towards it.

Perhaps the main architect of the then Soviet-Cuban relations was Ernesto Che Guevara. In addition, he played a key role in promoting the idea of ​​stationing Soviet nuclear ballistic missiles on the island.

When the crisis was nevertheless overcome peacefully, Che Guevara was extremely indignant, because he believed that the USSR had betrayed Cuba. Shortly after the crisis, he gave an interview to the British socialist publication The Daily Worker and said that if Cuba controlled the missiles, they would certainly take to the air. He was sure that this would be the most important step towards the liberation of the world from "imperialist aggression", although he understood that the victims would be in the millions. Che Guevara became disillusioned and was subsequently convinced that the two world superpowers, the US and the USSR, were in fact using Cuba as a pawn in their game. Later, he spoke disapprovingly of the USSR almost as often as of the United States.

Since then, the world has changed a lot. Large-scale ideological conflicts became a thing of the past with the 20th century, and at the time when the Caribbean Missile Crisis flared up, the current Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel (58), was only two years old.

Ideologies have changed, or rather disappeared, but something remains. The US and Cuba still exist. The Soviet Union no longer exists, but there is Russia. The geography has not changed, and some threats have also remained (although now they are already post-ideological).

The world map is still the same. If Russia is threatened with missiles, it will soon bring back to life its already dusty plans and decide that the threat can only be met with a counter threat.

All this is not mere speculation. Recently, Vladimir Shamanov, chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, said that the Russian response to the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty could be the restoration of Russian military bases in Cuba.

The new Cuban president, Diaz, is certainly not a sharp ideologue, unlike Che Guevara, and he is unlikely to rush to return Russian troops to the island. Shamanov also understands this, however, as he notes, “politics is a living matter, and Cuba has its own interests, Cuba itself suffers from US sanctions.”

Indeed, politics is a very living matter. Just a few years ago, Cuba and the United States experienced a massive normalization of relations. It seemed that the long-standing feud had come to an end. The normalization of relations with Cuba has become one of the most important achievements of the Obama administration in general. The embassies reopened, and Cuba was ready to make even greater concessions in terms of its already somewhat outdated economic and political model.

But Trump came, a man ready to believe everything that the dissidents from Miami tell him, a man who has long despised everything socialistic (and how else, because Trump is a living symbol of capitalism, like a little man from the Monopoly game!).

Instead of the expected further normalization of relations between Havana and Washington, there was again a strong cooling, new sanctions were introduced, and perhaps this is only the beginning.

In the early years, Cuba could at least rely on a few of its important allies and partners in Latin America, including Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay... Today, all this seems to be in the distant past. The left in Latin America has either failed or is preparing for it. The biggest blow came a few days ago when Jair Bolsonaro won in Brazil. The term "fascism" is indeed used too often, but Bolsonaro could be a fascist in the true sense of the word.

Yes, Shamanov, of course, is right when he says that politics is a living matter, and Cuba undoubtedly understands this today, which, even if it doesn’t like it, should again bet on strengthening ties with Moscow, since, judging by everything, nothing else is left for her.

Diaz and Putin met yesterday, and the Kremlin said the meeting discussed the current state of the Russian-Cuban strategic partnership, as well as international and regional issues.

“The atmosphere was friendly, businesslike and constructive. This is a distinctive feature of the Russian-Cuban dialogue. Our peoples are bound by strong ties of long-term friendship, mutual sympathy, respect and solidarity support,” President Vladimir Putin said after the meeting, speaking to reporters.

He promised to strengthen trade relations and Russian projects in Cuba, including the modernization of the Cuban railways, which will help speed up passenger traffic on the island by three times and freight by half. Preparations are also underway for the deployment of the Russian GLONASS system (the Russian version of GPS) in Cuba, which will provide Cuba with advanced satellite and telecommunications services.

"Russian business is ready to take an active part in the modernization of the Cuban economy," Putin said. According to him, cultural ties are also important. There are plans to open a branch of the Russian Museum in Cuba, which will become the first multifunctional center for the study of the Russian language, art and culture in the Latin American region. “Cuba has been and remains one of the most popular destinations for Russian tourists. Last year, about 100,000 Russians visited the republic,” Putin said.

The Cuban President, in turn, noted: “This visit symbolizes for us that, within the framework of a sense of continuation, continuity of the Cuban revolution, being faithful to the legacy of the Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, General of the Army Raul Castro Ruz, we are in the preservation and constant strengthening of relations between Cuba and Russian Federation. And this is a big enough reason to explain the importance, the significance of this visit, which, I am sure, will be a milestone in our negotiations today.”

“I am grateful for the readiness of President Putin from the beginning of my mandate to promote the industrial development of Cuba. All this is being implemented in Russia's participation in the projects of socio-economic development of Cuba until 2030 and beyond,” the Cuban president said and added that he invited Putin to visit Cuba next year, when it will be 5 years since his visit in 2014.

Joint statements are a formality, but what did the presidents actually agree on? The visit was definitely not devoted to expressing mutual sympathy. Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said that Russia and Cuba are close to signing an agreement to provide Cuba with a loan of 38 million euros so that it can buy Russian weapons with this money. The Kommersant publication writes that Cuba can buy tanks, armored personnel carriers, and possibly military helicopters.

In the event of such a deal, Russia would get "both honey and a spoon." Of course, all this is far from the times when Moscow provided assistance to Cuba in the form of billions of US dollars. And yet, as I have noted several times, we live in a post-ideological era (at least for now), which means that Cuba's expectations regarding Russia must be realistic. True, Cuba has understood this since 1991 and has already learned to live and survive in the new conditions.

On the other hand, it is in Russia's interest to pay close attention to the relationship with Havana and help it where possible, since the geostrategic importance of this relationship is probably even greater than Russia assumes.

Still, let's hope that October 1962 will never happen again, because Donald Trump is definitely not John F. Kennedy.

On February 24, 2017, US President Donald Trump, in an interview with the largest international news agency Reuters, recognized Russia's nuclear superiority. He called the START-3 treaty a "one-sided deal", which only legally consolidates the fact of the American backwardness.

Is Trump correct in his assessment of our balance of power? Yes. Right.

The last three years have been decisive in changing the military balance of power between Russia and the West, led by the United States of America. And not only in the field of strategic nuclear weapons. While the Americans were vociferously fighting the mythical “Russian threat” in the Baltics and eastern Ukraine, Russian new-generation cruise missiles quietly targeted not only the European capitals of the NATO countries, but also most of the American territory itself. NATO does not have air defense systems capable of intercepting such ultra-modern maneuvering targets and will definitely not have them in the next 10-15 years. At the same time, Washington is unable to detect the missiles themselves at their deployment points, or even prove their existence. And Moscow, looking at the futile attempts of American military experts to convict Russia of deploying a new superweapon, only keeps silent and smiles contemptuously.

However, about Russian miracle rockets - a little later. First, let's talk about geopolitics and military strategy.

All the guys: the jokes are over

On February 21, Russian Defense Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu made a keynote speech at MGIMO at the opening of the All-Russian Youth Forum. He said: “Relations between states are becoming more tense. The struggle for the possession of resources and control over the routes of their transportation is escalating. Attempts by the West, led by the United States, to slow down the process of establishing a new and more just world order lead to growing chaos, anarchy and are rejected by many states...

Military force is becoming the main instrument for solving international problems. A serious factor is the threat of international terrorism. Increasingly, the information space is being used by extremists to spread their ideas and recruit new members of terrorist groups... Under these conditions, it is necessary to unite the efforts of state and public institutions to promote and protect national interests, strengthen the defense of our country...”

And the next day, entering the State Duma on February 22, Shoigu announced the creation of a new kind of troops - "troops of information operations." He declared: “The new troops are much more effective and stronger than the administration that was called counter-propaganda. Propaganda must be smart, competent and effective…”

General Shamanov, chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, explained the words of his former boss as follows: “Information defense troops will be able to solve the tasks of cyberattacks. Today, a number of challenges have been transferred to the so-called cyber sphere, and, in fact, today there is an information confrontation as an integral part of the general confrontation. Based on this, Russia has made efforts to form structures that deal with this matter.

That is, our new troops provide for combining the capabilities of cyber warfare with information warfare, computer hacking and electronic warfare with propaganda and agitation. It is impossible to overestimate the significance of this news: according to Shoigu and Shamanov, it turns out that in the Russian Armed Forces - for the first time in the world - a hybrid of hackers and agitators, unprecedented in its effectiveness, has been created! And this hybrid, especially against the backdrop of Western hysteria about "Russian interference in American (French, German, etc.) elections" - will certainly cause a new wave of cries and groans in the West about "Russian aggression", "hybrid war" and " Putin's cunning.

If we briefly translate all of the above into ordinary language, it turns out that Shoigu warned the West something like this: “That's it guys! You don't understand normal words. Therefore, the jokes are over: from now on, military force is our main argument!

The patient is more dead than alive...

Meanwhile, Washington is in a fever. The US state machine creaks and groans, its most important gears are waging an internecine political struggle for life and death. The largest American (yes, American - world) media are hitting Trump "from all trunks", not embarrassed in terms. CNN, The New York Times and many other publications have turned into a kind of collective "Echo of Moscow", only instead of the "bloody gebni" they have the administration of the US President, and instead of the "darkest" always-everywhere-in-everything-to blame Putin - Donald Trump.

Here are just a couple of examples from the past 10 days: The international US-British magazine The Week writes: “President Trump, who imagines himself to be a businesslike and tough leader like Putin, is actually dumber than all other American presidents. He thinks he can negotiate with Putin. He thinks the Russians will help America fight Islamic terrorism. But these are stupid thoughts. And our president is a fool…”

And the Portuguese "Publico" in the article "American locomotive derailed" states: “The parallels between Trump and Hitler have already become commonplace. But he can be compared not only with Hitler, but also with Stalin. There is one key detail that makes Trump look like Stalin: no one knows exactly what he wants. No one can explain the meaning of his words. Any relationship with Trump inevitably turns into guessing attempts, which are undertaken first by his aides in the White House, then by Congress and judges, and then spread among journalists and commentators. In the end, every single citizen and resident of the United States is tormented by conjectures. But the whole world cannot wait for the Americans to put their locomotive on the rails ... "

And here Stalin is impossible to understand, but the message of the article is extremely clear: Trump is terrible, unpredictable, incompetent, uncontrollable ...

But the anti-Trump media frenzy is only half the trouble. The second and main half of it lies in the fact that a huge "fifth column" has settled inside Trump's own administration, in comparison with which our liberals are just children. For it is headed by the largest US intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, the FBI, etc.

Judge for yourself. The sensational resignation of Trump's national security aide Michael Flynn (which took place 3 weeks after his appointment to this key position) was due to the fact that representatives of the FBI, in fact, blackmailed Trump, threatening that they would release the results of a secret wiretap of Flynn's telephone conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

And what about leaks to the press of the contents of Trump's telephone conversations with the leaders of Russia, Australia, Canada?! This is absolutely unprecedented! The content of such negotiations should be a state secret, guarded more strictly than all nuclear secrets combined. And now, if you please: the very officials of the administration who are supposed to protect this secret, without hesitation leak it into the media! Looks like America has gone haywire.

By the way, many inside the country understand this. The Daily Collar quotes veterans of the security services:

Colonel James Vorishak - 30 years of service in military intelligence and the National Security Council: “Never before have we seen the intelligence services on such a scale use the intelligence apparatus and special tactics for political purposes against a member of the current administration.”

Frederick Rastman - 24 years in the leadership of the elite covert ops unit of the CIA: “The blades are exposed. The press, with the help of leaks from the special services, set the task of removing Trump. I wouldn't be surprised if this vendetta keeps Trump from serving until the end of his first term. The Flynn story is just a vendetta."

There are many more such quotations in the publication, but I think these two will suffice for us.

Will Trump be able to prevent the collapse? Will he be able to implement his political strategy? And does he have it? These are all unanswered questions today.

Yes, he is a successful businessman. And he appointed Rex Tillerson, another successful businessman, as his Secretary of State. But all over the world, big business and big politics are very different, albeit closely intertwined things. From a person, they often require completely different knowledge, skills and talents. The history of Russia, for example, does not know a single case of a successful transition from business to politics.

True, the United States is not quite a state. Rather, it is a joint venture, a giant financial and industrial corporation. As long as the profits of this corporation grew, everything was fine. But as soon as the growth stopped - and the purchasing power of the average American wage for major groups of goods today fell back to the level of 1957 - all internal contradictions were exposed. And whether the joint venture "United States of America" ​​will survive in the new conditions is not yet clear ....

Washington in sight, normal flight...

But back to the "invisible" Russian missiles with which we started this article. How many of these missiles Moscow has already deployed and where - the generals in the Pentagon do not know. Moreover, they do not know how to find out!

For a long time, Washington hid its failure from the American public. All data on the new Russian super-missiles lay in the bowels of the Pentagon under the heading "top secret". Only sometimes military officials of far from the first rank timidly and indistinctly stated that the Russians were violating certain agreements, and we, of course, will not forgive them for this ...

But now, finally, the secret has become clear! On February 14, 2017, one of the most influential US newspapers, The New York Times, published an article in which, citing high-ranking representatives of the US administration, it was alleged that Russia, in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, allegedly deployed ground-based launchers of strategic cruise missiles . This message from The New York Times was immediately reprinted by many Western media. And among professional NATO Russophobes, it caused a real panic.

So, the Polish military review Defense24 stated: “Reports that the Russian army is testing new ground-based cruise missiles have already been in print in 2014 and 2015. The alarm should have been sounded then. However, this did not happen because it would be proof of the ineffectiveness of the administration of President Barack Obama. It is now clear that mobile rocket launchers with missiles with a range of more than 2,000 km have appeared in the Russian armed forces. The US military knew this. But the United States is trying to soften the situation by deliberately downplaying the number of rocket launchers that have appeared in the Russian army. Self-propelled launchers of cruise missiles may already be in the Crimea, in the Kaliningrad region and even in Syria, and not just in Central Russia ... "

Western strategists are right to worry. Indeed, Russia has made a powerful breakthrough in the creation of a new generation of cruise missiles. And Moscow hardly hides this. First of all, we are talking about the 9M729 long-range cruise missile, developed by the Novator design bureau in Yekaterinburg for the 9K720 Iskander-M missile system.

Until recently, the Iskander-M complex used several modifications of ballistic missiles and the 9M728 cruise missile, the official range of which does not exceed 500 kilometers. And now the complex has received a new long-range missile 9M729, which, most likely, is a ground-based version of the famous Caliber sea-based missile, which in its nuclear version is capable of hitting a target at a distance of up to 2,600 kilometers. However, some experts consider the 9M729 to be a ground-based version of the Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile, with a range of up to 5,500 km. Be that as it may, the Moscow State Research Institute of Instrument Engineering, which is responsible for creating a control system for these missiles, announced back in 2015 about "completion of state tests of the 9M729 missile and its improved version."

Yes, here's another thing ... To complete the picture, one more important feature of the new Russian cruise missiles must be said. They can easily fit in a standard shipping container. In one such container a package of 4 missiles is placed, in the other - a command center with control equipment. Millions of such containers are constantly traveling around the world. They are transported in large quantities by sea, rail and road transport. And each of these containers can now contain a deadly filling of our strategic cruise missiles, capable of hitting any enemy target at a distance of several thousand kilometers.

Who knows where, in what warehouses, in what ports and countries such missile containers are already lying, waiting for the coveted command to deploy and use? In Syria? Or maybe in Cuba? After all, there are only 1820 kilometers from Havana to Washington, and Calibers hidden in containers can easily overcome this distance in a couple of hours. Who can say with certainty what Putin decided about this in his Kremlin office? In any case, the Pentagon generals and NATO strategists now have something to think about ...

Yes, all this, of course, violates the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (the so-called INF Treaty), signed with America by the Soviet Union in 1987. According to this treaty, neither Russia nor the United States can develop, test, manufacture and deploy land-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a maximum range of 500 to 5,500 km. This agreement is open-ended, but there are no real mechanisms for checking its compliance for a long time. If earlier, until the year 2000, both we and the Americans had the right to conduct up to 20 inspections annually on the spot, at those points on each other’s territory that arouse suspicion, then for the last 16 years, any inspection can be carried out only by “national surveillance systems and intelligence”, i.e. satellites from space or reconnaissance ships from neutral waters, without the right to conduct inspections directly on the spot. It is clear that in this mode it is simply impossible to detect and, moreover, to document the presence of cruise missiles with characteristics prohibited by the INF Treaty.

Realizing that there was no point in hiding this strategic failure any longer, the problem was discussed in the United States at the highest level. Even Trump, in a recent interview with Reuters, said that he is extremely concerned about the superiority of the Russians in the nuclear field and is unhappy with the START-3 treaty, which limits US capabilities in this area. And he intends to raise the issue of violations of the INF Treaty with Putin "at the very first meeting." However, at the risk of receiving a hefty package of counter-accusations, because for the past 20 years Washington has not bothered too much to comply with international treaties in the field of arms limitation.

What will come of all this is unclear. As they say, wait and see. In the meantime, let Western strategists in NATO and the United States guess: when and from which side will the “fiery Russian greetings” fly to them on the wings of a new generation nuclear “Caliber” ...

Konstantin Dushenov, military analyst, director of the Rus Pravoslavnaya agency

State Duma deputies Valery Rashkin and Sergey Obukhov propose to return Russian missile systems to Cuba and resume the work of the electronic intelligence center in Lourdes. According to RIA Novosti, they have already sent a corresponding appeal to President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

The parliamentarians' initiative was a reaction to recent information from Reuters about the US intention to mark HIMARS-type missile launchers in southeastern Turkey in May. The authors of the appeal note the fact that these installations allow the use of missiles with a range of up to 500 km. Which, in their opinion, poses a potential threat to Russia's allies in the CSTO. First of all, Armenia.

In this regard, the deputies call on the country's leadership to take comparable response measures. It is assumed that a decision on this matter can be formalized within the framework of the current Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the USSR and Cuba.

Question: how realistic is all this in today's conditions, when there is a clear trend towards rapprochement in relations between Washington and Havana?

Of course, it would be nice to have an electronic intelligence center in Lourdes, admits military expert Mikhail Khodaryonok. - But I believe that the deputies did not consult with the Cuban leadership on this matter. And there were no requests from the Cuban side in this regard either.

Is it really possible for us to return to Lourdes at all?

I think that in the current geopolitical situation, when, indeed, there has been an obvious rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, this is a very big question. This can be discussed. But only in terms of hypotheses.

As for the deployment of missiles in Cuba, it seems to me that this is still a certain consequence of the imagination. Firstly, the Cuban side will never agree to any placement of weapons at home. And, for the most part, we don't need it.

- Even "in order to protect the interests of Russia and the CSTO allies"?

If we recall 1962, then it was about the deployment of medium-range missiles in Cuba. Medium, because in the combat and strength of the Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN), we did not then have a sufficient number of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

That is, Khrushchev's decision on Soviet missiles in Cuba can still be justified from a military point of view. But now there is no such military need to deploy missiles with warheads anywhere. Because we will get anyone from our own territory, anywhere and at any time. This is one moment.

Second... Let's assume that all this happened. We already have a nasty relationship with the United States right now. And here we will create such an irritant for them ... It is clear that these relations will completely go beyond.

This should not be the general direction of our foreign policy in order, in the end, to quarrel with everyone and put Russia on the brink of nuclear war.

Therefore, I do not think that the proposal of the deputies is imbued with realism and corresponds to the national interests of the Russian Federation.

That is, regarding Lourdes, the question can still be raised hypothetically. And rockets are no good.

- Leaving Lourdes in 2001, do you think it was a mistake?

Of course it's a mistake. Because a base abroad - even without taking into account the specifics of the center in Lourdes - is, in any case, a useful thing. It was necessary to conclude some kind of interstate agreements on its further functioning. And now it will be extremely difficult to return to this issue, given today's geopolitical realities - i.e. obvious thaw in relations between Cuba and the United States. Undoubtedly, it will continue and deepen. Since this is in the interests of Cuba, and there is a certain interest of the United States there. Still, it will be very difficult for us to influence the situation over many thousands of kilometers.

Despite the fact that we have rather bad relations with the West, they, it seems to me, have not yet reached a level where we have to play with our muscles, - says military historian Yuri Knutov - And, so frankly. Although I would support the idea of ​​restoring the work of the base that we had in Lourdes and was engaged in electronic intelligence. Because this base allows you to intercept radio data from almost the entire territory of the United States and track the actions of Americans at their training grounds. In particular, even training at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. There is a desert. They build layouts around some object. And pilots are trained to automatism, so that the pilots can work out strikes against objects that are planned to be bombed in the near future to a fraction of a second.

And if we analyze this situation with the help of radio intelligence, we can determine what operation the Pentagon is preparing and where it will strike.

Of course, such an object is needed. And if the Cuban government agreed, it would be worth returning to the base in Lourdes.

- But missiles in Cuba are an old idea ...

Yes, indeed, at one time the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba led the Americans to remove their missiles from Turkey, Italy and partly from Germany. But then the situation was different.

If we take such a step today, it will only aggravate the sanctions that are applied against Russia. In addition, I doubt that the Cuban government would agree to aggravate relations with the United States at the moment when a certain warming began.

That is, the proposal of the Duma members does not seem to me to be sufficiently balanced. Because it, in general, runs the risk of unleashing another round of confrontation with the West. Which may result in increased economic pressure on our country. Up to the freezing of accounts and bonds that we bought from the Americans at one time. We will only make things worse for ourselves.

- What then can we oppose to the plans of the Americans in Turkey?

It is necessary to negotiate with the Americans, with NATO, where this issue should be raised, tying it to compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Under this treaty, we always have disputes with the Americans, but here we have a trump card. Here we can really squeeze them. And no one bothers, as a last resort, to mark similar complexes in Armenia.

Researcher at the Russian State Humanitarian University, specialist in Latin America Mikhail Belyat called the abandonment of the electronic tracking station in Lourdes hasty:

Unfortunately, when all this was liquidated, we left everywhere, often even slamming doors. But it is difficult for me to assess whether - and how much - we need the station in Lourdes now. After all, the means of tracking compared to the last century, when it arose, have become simply immeasurably more perfect. Perhaps we are achieving the same without such serious steps.

But I am definitely against missiles.

- Explain?

We already went through this in 1962, when there was a Cuban Missile Crisis. When the whole world stood on the brink of nuclear war. And they were not even a step away, but a few centimeters from the edge of this abyss. It seems to me now completely unnecessary to repeat this experiment.

Moreover, medium and short-range missiles are those missiles that the United States will not frighten in any way. Here are our winged "Caliber", which from the waters of the Caspian Sea accurately hit targets in Syria more than a thousand kilometers away, they can certainly get on the nerves of the Americans. But this does not require rocket installations in Cuba, which can only provoke a new round of the arms race. And in general, very serious things in the world.

- Does Havana itself need to aggravate the situation like that? Especially now, when the States have announced their intention to build relations with Cuba in a new way.

Havana, in principle, is not afraid of aggravating relations with the Americans when it is in Havana's interests. Cuban leaders have repeatedly stated that they regard the interests of Cuba and the Cuban people as higher than the prospects for developing relations with the United States that now loom before them. They will not sacrifice ideological values ​​to please Washington. They will not compromise their achievements in the field of social policy, etc.

America goes for rapprochement with Cuba for a reason - it has its own reasons for this. This is not just an altruistic good move on the part of the United States - this is the pursuit of quite serious goals on the continent. Namely, the creation of an all-American free trade zone. What they have been dreaming about for two decades and cannot achieve because of the serious opposition of Latin American countries. And one of the most serious reasons for this opposition is the attitude of the United States towards Cuba. blockade of Cuba.

Now this blockade, in words, seems to be lifted. Although it will be a long time before serious steps are taken to lift sanctions against Cuba. But I do not think that Russian missile bases on its territory would now meet the interests of the country. In the interests of its security or economy.

Therefore, it seems to me that the Cubans will take this issue very seriously. That is, the gestures that were in 1962 are unlikely to be allowed now.