WE WILL TEACH THE AMERICANS TO SHOOT DOWN OUR MISSILES Foreign Affairs News Keywords: RUSSIA, US, CHINA, MISSILE DEFENSE Source: Kommersant-DAILY Published: September 28, 1999, p. 2 Author: Ilya Bulavinov Posted on 10/02/1999 03:11:37 PDT by Jolly In 1997, the US Navy organized a contest for a new target missile similar to the supersonic Moskit anti-ship guided missile which China had bought from Russia. The McDonnell Douglas company won the contest and merely tried to buy the Moskit itself from Russia instead of bothering with making new designs. Official Moscow vetoed the deal. Their first attempt thwarted, the Americans evidenced lively interest in the X-31A anti-ship missile designed and assembled by the Zvezda-Strela company in the Moscow region. Its flight parameters imitate those of the Moskit perfectly and the missile itself turned out to be quite simple (it can be fitted to any American aircraft) and fairly cheap ($550,000 per unit). The tests of MA-31 target missiles, created on the basis of the X-31A, at Point Mugu, California, confirmed that the choice was correct. In late 1997 and early 1998, Washington bought a total of 13 missiles. It was then that the Russian military interfered. The Defense Ministry suspected Boeing (the McDonnell Douglas company is one of its structural elements) of intending to simply buy several Russian target missiles, copy them, and then terminate cooperation with the Russian military-industrial complex. The military - which knew perfectly well that the deal could not be pulled off without its consent - demanded a maximum decrease in the parameters of the exported missiles and a contract for at least 100 target missiles (the Americans planned to buy a small amount of targets every year). Zvezda-Strela seethed. Its General Director, Sergei Yakovlev, was frequently quoted as saying, rather rhetorically and plaintively: "We sell the X-31A to India, China, and Vietnam, and the military is happy. So why worry about the sale of a non-combat MA-31 without the combat bloc, without the homing system, and with the altered aerodynamic design of the bow streamliner?" The enterprise's unhappiness was understandable. In the first place, the American contract promised some considerable money to the enterprise; in the second, the fact itself of cooperation with Boeing is a perfect commercial. Yesterday, John Reiley, Director of the Department for Supersonic Unmanned Target Programs of the corporation, officially announced that the ill-fated contract had finally been signed. Viktor Anoshkin, a manager of the Boeing Moscow office, says that the Americans will buy 100 MA-31 missiles over the next five years: 20 missiles a year. Yakovlev also confirmed the signing of the contract. A source in the Defense Ministry says that all demands, concerning both the quantity of missiles and their parameters, were met. Everybody is happy. The Americans have a chance to learn to intercept Chinese Moskits (the first Sovremenny-class destroyer is being built in St. Petersburg now, and it will be delivered to the Chinese Navy in 2000), Russian military prevented a drain of high technologies and landed a lucrative contract for the military-industrial complex, and Zvezda-Strela and related enterprises will get almost $50 million, which will be spent, among other things, on designing new missiles.
