RUSSIA'S INDUSTRIAL BASE OBSOLETE?

No matter how the Ukraine war turns out, Russia will never again be a superpower capable of fighting a modern conventional war

In the 1980s the US launched a major effort to stop the Soviet Union from getting high technology for its military programs. I was privileged to lead that effort in the Pentagon. With help from Richard Perle, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Dr. Fred Ikle, Undersecretary for Policy, we launched a new organization called the Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA). DTDSA’s mission was twofold, to organize an effort in our own government to halt transfers of sensitive technology to the USSR and its then-Warsaw Pact allies and to convince our allies and friends to support embargoes either through COCOM, the secretive Coordinating Committee consisting of most of our NATO allies plus Japan, or outside of NATO by means of bilateral understandings and deals. Thankfully, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger supported us even when our colleagues in the government and our opposite numbers in COCOM tried to fight us off.

I am proud to say that DTSA is still around thirty seven years later. But for a long time DTSA has not been doing its job. The evidence is the loss of vital technology to China, setting up the danger of a military confrontation in Asia.

When it came to the Soviet Union the mission we had was to prevent that country from augmenting its military buildup with American and other western technology, especially (but not exclusively) computers and microelectronics.

The Soviets created a special closed city, Zelenograd as its center for microelectronics. While Zelenograd was founded in the 1950s, it was two American spies, Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant (Iozef Veniaminovich Berg and Philip Georgievich Staros) who started building microcomputers and integrated circuits there, initially under the patronage of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.

We began to actually see the results coming from Zelenograd in Soviet military equipment, some of which was recovered and exploited by the CIA and by the US Navy’s Captain Harry Price (see my “Tribute to a Hero” in my book, Essays in Technology Security).

Both the Defense Department and the CIA were alarmed. Russia was in the middle of a massive military expansion, and if Russian equipment could be computerized then it would become more accurate and devastating. That applied across the board to everything from ICBMs to aircraft, to tanks and artillery, to smart weapons (then emerging), and to the surface and underwater navy of the Soviet Union.

We designed our export control strategy and COCOM effort to block high tech equipment, manufacturing hardware and know-how, and technical data from reaching Russia and its then eastern block allies. Some of them, such as Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany were either building systems and subsystems for Russian weapons, or were helping Russia build up its industrial infrastructure by infusing it with Western high technology.

To our everlasting satisfaction, the export controls we imposed started to work. Russia failed to establish a workable computer industry and its access to advances in microelectronics fell to near zero.

Surprisingly, we can still see some of that in play today.

A great example is Russia’s ERA cryptophone system. ERA was Russia’s effort to field a secure tactical radio for its soldiers. ERA is almost entirely based on American-origin technology. ERA is actually an adapted ruggedized cellular phone based on the Russian-made MIG C55V smartphone, which was developed for Russia’s intelligence agencies. Technically, the C55V has an 8-core Qualcomm processor, a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels and a shock-resistant covering.

Its operating system runs on Android’s 7.1 version, which is widely known for its massive security shortcomings. Unlike regular cellular phones that have both analog and digital channels, it appears the MIG C55V uses the data channel for voice communications – like commercial apps such as WhatsApp and Signal, both of which claim to be secure.

The MIG C55V is a glued together version of a commercial cellphone. Android, of course, is Google’s operating system used on cellular phones. Qualcomm is an American multinational company based in San Diego.

ERA was a battlefield failure. It required at least an operating 4-G network to function, and the Russian army destroyed most of Ukraine’s cellular network in the early days of the war, one of the reasons that Elon Musk’s Starlink system became so important to Ukraine’s ability to launch and coordinate combat operations.

We have seen many other indications Russia is missing a competent electronics industry. Russia’s cheaply built Orlan drones, for example, are stuffed with electronics that come from the US, Europe and Asia (Taiwan and China particularly) and early models even used off the shelf Canon SLR cameras.

Russia’s aircraft also are missing targeting pods, making them ineffective, and many are flying without any GPS, meaning they have to eyeball their targets supposing they reach them.

These shortcomings are also impacting Russia’s ability to replace destroyed equipment. France, for example, made a big business out of sending modern electronics to Russia before the Ukraine war, including aiming systems for tank guns. Russia has lost an astonishing number of tanks since February, 2022 and most of the French electronics are gone too. While Putin is demanding stepped up production of war goods, including tanks, where will Russian industry get its supplies?

The truth of the matter is that Russian industry has not progressed very far in electronics. Its three semiconductor companies are doing poorly and cannot produce the types of integrated circuits, microprocessors and specialized chips (such as gate arrays, video cards) the Russian military needs. Some of this surely is the legacy of past restrictions on technology going to Russia. Some of it is the lack of investment dollars available through the state and the paucity of private investment due to Russia’s lack of transparency and failure to have a system operating under the rule of law, essential for investor confidence.

Today Russia is in deep trouble, and no matter how the Ukraine war turns out, Russia will never again be a superpower capable of fighting a modern conventional war.