Russia Adv – 1ac

a2 Russia First Strike

The Combination of Russian nuclear deterioration and U.S. modernization proves the US would win
Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, and Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, “The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Primacy,” INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, v 30 n 4, Spring 2006, p. 7-8. http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/is3004_pp007-044_lieberpress.pdf
In the last fifteen years, however, the strategic nuclear balance has shifted profoundly. Part of the shift is attributable to the decline of the Russian arsenal. Compared with the Soviet force in 1990, Russia has 58 percent fewer intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 39 percent fewer bombers, and 80 percent fewer ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs).16 Furthermore, serious maintenance and readiness problems plague Russia’s nuclear forces. Most of Russia’s ICBMs have exceeded their service lives, and a series of naval accidents— highlighted by the sinking of the attack submarine Kursk in 2000— reºect the severe decay of the ºeet.17 Budgetary constraints have also dramatically reduced the frequency of Russia’s submarine and mobile ICBM patrols, increasing the vulnerability of what would otherwise be the most survivable element of its arsenal. Since 2000, Russian SSBNs have conducted approximately two patrols per year (with none in 2002), down from sixty in 1990, and apparently Russia often has no mobile missiles on patrol.18 Finally, Russia has had difªculty maintaining satellite observation of U.S. ICBM ªelds, and gaps in its radar network would leave it blind to a U.S. submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) attack from launch areas in the Paciªc Ocean.19 While the Russian strategic arsenal has eroded, the United States has continued to modernize its weapons. U.S. strategic forces have shrunk in number since the end of the ColdWar, but they have become more lethal. The U.S. submarine force has undergone nearly continuous improvement over the past ªfteen years. The deployment of the highly accurate Trident II (D-5) SLBM was a Cold War decision, but the United States stuck with the deployment plans and has steadily reªtted its entire SSBN ºeet to carry the new missile.20 Furthermore, the United States has signiªcantly increased the lethality of the original Trident II missile against hard targets such as missile silos: the navy replaced nearly 400 of the 100-kiloton W76 warheads on these missiles with the more powerful 455-kiloton W88 warhead, creating an incredibly lethal combination of accuracy and warhead yield. Other upgrades to Trident II include a more accurate reentry vehicle (RV) and other improvements to increase the missile’s accuracy.21 The United States has also been upgrading its land-based missiles and strategic bombers. Although the United States ªnished dismantling the MX Peacekeeper ICBM in 2005 in accordance with its arms control commitments, the key elements that gave the MX exceptional lethality are being preserved. The nuclear warheads and advanced RVs from the MX are beginning to replace the lower-yield warheads and less accurate RVs on 200 Minuteman III ICBMs. In addition, the Minuteman guidance systems have been upgraded to roughly match the accuracy of the retired MX.22 In another example of U.S. force modernization, the B-2 bomber has been given upgraded avionics that allow it to avoid radar by ºying at extremely low altitude.23 At ªrst glance, this seems like a strange capability to give the B-2: the aircraft is so stealthy that it seems hard to justify the risks of very low altitude ºight (e.g., crashing into the ter-rain) to reduce the bomber’s exposure to radar. However, against an adversary with an extremely sophisticated air defense network (e.g., Russia today or China in the future), very low-level ºight may be necessary to penetrate enemy airspace.
Russia will resort to asymmetric warfare in space to defeat the US not conventional

Smith 11 – 1^st lieutenant Milstar Payload Engineer, 4th Space Operations Squadron and BA in Astronautical Engineering (Justin, The Age of Asymetric Warfare, http://www.schriever.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070906-083.pdf)
This notion came to stark relief on 11 January 2007, when China successfully tested an antisatellite (ASAT) weapon on one of its own satellites.3 Suddenly, space assets which had operated without credible threats for years suddenly had become potential targets. This test did more than demonstrate the ability of a foreign power to destroy on-orbit systems; it may have very well ended the golden age of undisputed space supremacy that America has enjoyed since the Cold War, demanding change to current doctrine and revealing a critical vulnerability in the realm of asymmetric space warfare. Sun Tzu’s quote (below) reveals a very simple, yet important lesson. The US has developed a certain sense of inevitable complacency over its unchallenged superiority to date in space. The comfort with our current posture is a product of many influences, but one is particularly significant. Consider our only credible enemy in the history of space warfare, the former Soviet Union. Early on, the USSR sought to win the space race, intending to attain the ultimate high ground and use it as a force multiplier to accomplish its regional and global objectives. Both the US and USSR researched and tested ASAT capabilities to thwart the other, but soon abandoned the programs due to cost and an important strategic fact: if satellites are blown into numerous pieces, they then become a hazard for all other satellites in nearby orbits. The kinetic ASAT is a discriminate killer; the debris it creates is not. Thus in the Cold War, space was determined to be too valuable of an asset to be rendered useless to all parties by cluttering it with harmful satellite remnants. The US evolved and adapted to these unspoken rules of space warfare. America had won the last competition in space after a very rocky start and spent several unchallenged years building further dominance. How, then, could any new threat even begin to challenge? Space adds significant value to our nation’s defense by allowing seamless integration of the joint application of force projected globally on any adversary. This global reach defines not only a space capability, but a wartime philosophy. No other military has the capability to take a fight and deliver combat effects anywhere in the world as quickly and effectively as the US Space bolsters this capability by allowing the warfighter to master unfamiliar terrain, to coordinate attacks down to the second, to gather valuable intelligence, to put bombs within inches of a target, and much more. In a sense, it maximizes efficiency allowing a relatively small force to inflict an awesome amount of damage in a very short time. Although highly valuable to military applications, space is also important for commercial use. The commercially driven global telecommunications industry alone earned an estimated $1.21 trillion in revenue in 2005. By 2010, US investment in space is expected to be $500 - $600 billion— approximately equal to all current US investments in Europe.4 The global positioning system (GPS) provides all weather targeting capability, but also provides timing that allows automatic teller machines to work. Imaging satellites scout enemy positions, but also survey hurricane damage allowing relief efforts to be concentrated accordingly. Weather satellites project forecasts for both air strikes and weekend vacations. Television, communications, and global commerce in general—all depend on space. Whether analyzed from a commercial or military perspective, space is a cornerstone on which modern day living in this country depends. With such an invaluable role for commercial and military application, why isn’t everyone occupying the ultimate high ground? At present, space is an elite club with a cover fee that only few nations can afford. In a battlefield without borders, naturally limited access based on cost and technical complexity, then, is a defense of its own. With only a few nations with the financial and technical prowess to put a system on orbit, space is, at least for now, naturally fortified. Furthermore, once on station, destroying an enemy’s satellite is potentially a death sentence for friendly satellites in nearby orbits. These two facts have been the general concept of defense in this arena for years, but no longer appear to hold true.
The US would win a war with Russia – strategic weakness

Freidman 9, George, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of STRATFOR [“The Coming Conflict With Russia,” Fall, The Journal of International Security Affairs]
On the northern European plain, no matter where Russia’s borders are drawn, it is open to attack. There are few significant natural barriers anywhere on this plain. Pushing its western border all the way into Germany, as it did in 1945, still leaves Russia’s frontiers without a physical anchor. The only physical advantage Russia can have is depth. The farther west into Europe its borders extend, the farther conquerors have to travel to reach Moscow. Therefore, Russia is always pressing westward on the northern European plain, and Europe is always pressing eastward. Russia had its guts carved out after the collapse of Communism. St. Petersburg, its jewel, was about a thousand miles away from NATO troops in 1989. Now it is less than one hundred miles away. In 1989, Moscow was twelve hundred miles from the limits of Russian power; today, it is about two hundred miles. In the south, with Ukraine independent, the Russian hold on the Black Sea is tenuous, and it has been forced to the northern extreme of the Caucasus. The Americans occupy Afghanistan, however tentatively, and Russia’s anchor on the Himalayas is gone. If there were an army interested in invading, the Russian Federation is virtually indefensible. Russia’s strategic problem is that it is a vast country with relatively poor transportation. If Russia were simultaneously attacked along its entire periphery, in spite of the size of its forces, it would be unable to easily protect itself. It would have difficulty mobilizing forces and deploying them to multiple fronts, so it would have to maintain an extremely large standing army that could be predeployed. This pressure imposes a huge economic burden on Russia, undermines the economy, and causes it to buckle from within. That is what happened to the Soviet state. Nor is protecting its frontiers Russia’s only problem. The Russians are extremely well aware that they are facing a massive demographic crisis. Russia’s current population is about 145 million people, and projections for 2050 are for between 90 million and 125 million. Time is working against it. Russia’s problem will soon be its inability to field an army sufficient for its strategic needs. Internally, the number of Russians compared to other ethnic groups is declining, placing intense pressure on Russia to make a move sooner rather than later. In its current geographical position, it is an accident waiting to happen. Given Russia’s demographic trajectory, in twenty years it may be too late to act, and its leaders know this. It does not have to conquer the world, but Russia must regain and hold its buffers—essentially the boundaries of the old Soviet Union.
US would win the war—has nuclear weapons dominance and could destroy Russia with a single strike

Artyukov and Trukhachev, 06 [Oleg and Vadim—Centre for Research on Globalization”  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2154]

For the first time in the last 50 years the USA is on the verge of attaining ultimate domination with regard to nuclear weapons. This means that Russia is no longer able to keep up with the United States. If a conflict were to break out, the USA would be able to quickly and with impunity attack Russian territory, and Russiawould have no means to mount a response. This is roughly the message of an article published in the latest edition of the American journal Foreign Affairs. Its authors calculated that in comparison with theUSSR, the amount of strategic bombers at Russia’s disposal has fallen by 39%, intercontinental ballistic missiles by 58% and the number of submarines with ballisticmissiles by 80%. “However the true scale of the collapse of the Russian arsenal is much greater than can be judged from these figures,” they write. “The strategic nuclear forces now at Russia's disposal are barely fit to be used in battle.” Russian radar is now incapable of detecting the launch of American missiles from submarines located in some regions of the Pacific Ocean. Russian anti-air defense systems might not manage to intercept B-2 stealth bombers in time, which could easily mean that they are able to inflict a strike with impunity on Russian nuclear forces. If Russian missile forces continue to decrease at the current rate, then in about 10 years only isolated missiles, which the American anti-missile defense is capable of intercepting, will be able to deliver a retaliatory blow. “It will probably soon be possible for the USA to destroy the strategic nuclear potential of Russiaand China with a single strike,” says the article.
Nuclear strikes between the US-Russia will not cause extinction

Nyquist 99 (J.R. Nyquist, author of Origins of the Fourth World War, May 20, 1999, “Is nuclear war survivable?”, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19722)

On their side, Russian military experts believe that the next world war will be a nuclear missile war. They know that nuclear weapons cannot cause the end of the world. According to the Russian military writer, A. S. Milovidov, "There is profound error and harm in the disoriented claims of bourgeois ideologues that there will be no victor in a thermonuclear world war." Milovidov explains that Western objections to the mass use of nuclear weapons are based on "a subjective judgment. It expresses mere protest against nuclear war." Another Russian theorist, Captain First Rank V. Kulakov, believes that a mass nuclear strike may not be enough to defeat "a strong enemy, with extensive territory enabling him to use space and time for the organizations of active and passive defense. ..." Russian military theory regards nuclear war as highly destructive, but nonetheless winnable. Russian generals do not exaggerate the effects of mass destruction weapons. Although nuclear war would be unprecedented in its death-dealing potential, Russian strategists believe that a well-prepared system of tunnels and underground bunkers could save many millions of lives. That is why Russia has built a comprehensive shelter system for its urban populace. On the American side as well, there have been studies which suggest that nuclear war is survivable. The famous 1960 Rand Corporation study, "On Thermonuclear War," says, "Even if 100 metropolitan areas [in the USA] are destroyed, there would be more wealth in this country than there is in all of Russia today and more skills than were available to that country in the forties. The United States is a very wealthy and well-educated country." The Rand study states that even if half the U.S. population were killed, "the survivors would not just lie down and die. Nor would they necessarily suffer a disastrous social disorganization."