the strategic impact of russian arms sales and technology

Copyright Anthony H. Cordesman, all rights reserved

CSIS_______________________________Center for Strategic and International Studies

1800 K Street N.W.Washington, DC 20006

(202) 775-3270Fax: (202) 466-4740Internet: CSIS.ORG

The Strategic Impact ofRussian Arms Sales andTechnology Transfers

Anthony H. Cordesman

Co-Director, Middle East Program andSenior Fellow for Strategic Assessment, CSIS

April 5, 1999

Strategic Impact of Russian Arms Sales 9/4/00 Page


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Table of Contents

THE PROBLEM OF US STRENGTHS AND VULNERABILITIES .................................................................................... 2

THE CURRENT TRENDS IN ARMS TRANSFERS ....................................................................................................... 6

Trends in Russian, Chinese, and North Korean Arms Exports vs. Total Exports: 1986-1996 ...................... 8

Russian and Chinese New Arms Agreements as a Percent of Total of All Developing World..................... 9

THE TRENDS IN RUSSIAN ARMS TRANSFERS ...................................................................................................... 10

Trends in Russian Arms Exports vs. Total Exports: 1986-1996................................................................ 15

Russian Arms Production: 1990-1996 ...................................................................................................... 16

Trends in Russian Arms Exports: 1986-1996 ........................................................................................... 17

Russian Deliveries of Actual Major Weapons: 1987-1997........................................................................ 18

Russian Deliveries of Tactical Missiles: 1983-1997 ................................................................................. 19

Trends in Russian Arms Deliveries and New Agreements with Developing World: 1990-1997................ 20

Percentage of Russian New Agreements Going to Given Regions of the Developing World:

1990-1997................................................................................................................................................ 21

CHINESE ARMS IMPORTS AND EXPORTS ............................................................................................................. 22

Trends in Chinese Arms Exports and Imports versus Total Exports: 1986-1996....................................... 29

Trends in Chinese Arms Exports and Imports: 1986-1996........................................................................ 30

Trends in Chinese Arms Deliveries and New Agreements with Developing World: 1990-1997................ 31

Percentage of Chinese New Agreements Going to Given Regions of the Developing World:

1990-1997................................................................................................................................................ 32

Chinese Deliveries of Actual Major Weapons: 1987-1997 ....................................................................... 33

Chinese Deliveries of Tactical Missiles: 1983-1997................................................................................. 34

NORTH KOREAN ARMS IMPORTS AND EXPORTS ................................................................................................. 35

Trends in North Korean Arms Exports and Imports versus Total Exports: 1986-1996 .............................. 37

Trends in North Korean Arms Exports and Imports: 1986-1996............................................................... 38

GULF ARMS IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.................................................................................................................. 39

Major Supplier Share of Gulf Arms Agreements and Deliveries: 1987-1997............................................ 40

The Arms Orders of “Stabilizing” versus “Destabilizing States” in the Gulf ............................................ 41

IRANIAN ARMS IMPORTS AND EXPORTS ............................................................................................................. 42

Iranian Arms Imports– 1986-1996 ........................................................................................................... 48

Value of Iranian Arms Deliveries............................................................................................................. 49

Russian Arms Agreements and Deliveries with Iran: 1987-1997 .............................................................. 50

igureour ................................................................................................................................................... 54



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Iranian Dependence on Decaying Western Supplied Major Weapons....................................................... 54

Iranian Dependence on Decaying Western Supplied Major Weapons....................................................... 56

Russian Activities That Impact on Iranian Proliferation ........................................................................... 57

IRAQI ARMS IMPORTS AND EXPORTS ................................................................................................................. 62

Iraqi Arms Imports– 1986-1996............................................................................................................... 69

Russian Arms Agreements and Deliveries with Iraq: 1987-1997 .............................................................. 70

Iraqi Dependence on Decaying, Obsolete, or Obsolescent Major Weapons .............................................. 71

The Iraqi Cumulative Arms Import Deficit Enforced by UN Sanctions .................................................... 73

LIBYAN AND SYRIAN ARMS IMPORTS AND EXPORTS........................................................................................... 74

Libyan Arms Imports– 1986-1996 ........................................................................................................... 77

Russian Arms Agreements and Deliveries with Libya: 1987-1997 ........................................................... 78

Syrian Arms Imports– 1986-1996 ............................................................................................................ 79

Russian Arms Agreements and Deliveries with Syria: 1987-1997 ............................................................ 80

POSSIBILITIES AND PROBABILITIES: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME.................................................................. 81


Since 1990, the break-up of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the US

victory in the Gulf, sanctions, and the economic difficulties in many radical states have

combined to make dramatic changes in the flow of arms and in virtually every aspect the

military balance. These changes involve massive declines in the role that states like Russia,

China, and North Korea play in world arms transfers. This is true regardless of whether such

transfers of arms and technology are measured in terms of a percent of total world transfers, the

dollar value of deliveries and new orders, or in the rate of actual weapons transfers.

At the same time, these recent trends offer no guarantees for the future. Russian new

agreements are on the rise. The process of technology transfer is changing from reliance on the

purchase of major weapons to the purchase of technology for indigenous production and dual

use items. Equally important, the developing nations that most threaten the US and its allies are

shifting their investment in arms away from a conventional arms race, and toward asymmetric

warfare and weapons of mass destruction.

The trends involved are highly complex, and it is all to easy to either exaggerate the

impact of any given transfer of arms or technology or to declare that it is unimportant relative to

the overall flow of arms and modernization in given nations. There are also severe limits to the

unclassified data made available by reliable sources like the US intelligence community, and

there are masses of poorly structure estimates from various private groups that do more to plead

a given cause than explain what is really happening.

The coverage of some key countries like North Korea is particularly poor, the

unclassified data lag two-to-three years behind the present. Most reporting focuses on the major

weapons systems that shaped the conventional military balance of the 1980s, and not on the new

military balance of the 21st Century which is dependent on precision-guided weapons, electronics

sensors and computerized battle management systems, and the proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction.

There are, however, important sources of data that do provide a broad picture of the

trends in Russian arms sales and technology transfer that are based on unclassified data provided

by the US intelligence community. There are also some private organizations like the



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International Institute for Strategic Studies which provide reliable data on the military balance,

and the Department of Defense and other US sources have provided important further insights

into the developments taking place in critical countries like Iran.

The result of a study of these sources does not reveal that Russia has deliberately targeted

transfers of arms and technology in ways that currently threaten US forces and interests and

America’s friends and allies. It does, however, indicate that US forces have growing

vulnerability to such transfers and that Russia has the potential to make transfers that are deeply

destabilizing in terms of the areas where the US plans for possible major regional contingencies.

Russian transfers to China and Iran have already had an important impact on some aspects of

their war fighting capability. Like all advanced military powers, Russia has the potential to

provide far more threatening transfers to nations like China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and

Syria in the future.

The Problem of US Strengths and VulnerabilitiesThere is no question that the US is now the world’s preeminent superpower. This

advantage, however, comes largely from the collapse of its major potential opponents and from

its advantages in deployed technology. The US has benefited from the power vacuum created by

the collapse of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. It has benefited from the shattering defeat of

Iran in the Iran-Iraq War, the defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War, the self-inflicted economic collapse

of North Korea, and the military impact of UN sanctions on Iraq and Libya.

These trends have played a major role in compensating for something approaching 40%

cuts in the number of major conventional weapons deployed in US forces, and the readiness

problems the service chiefs have warned the Congress about in detail. The US is only spending

an average of $40 billion a year on military procurement when the Joint Chiefs have set the

requirement as at least $60-65 billion. The US has also been able to draw on the legacy left by

creating the best trained and highest quality military personnel in its history, in spite of the fact

the US military are underpaid and grossly over-deployed. It has been able to reduce its national



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defense spending to the lowest percentages of the GNP and federal budget since the height of

American isolationism and the Great Depression.

The US Conventional Edge

The US has also emerged out of the Cold War and its victory in the Gulf War with a

unique “edge” in terms of tactics, technology, and training. Whether or not this deserves to be

called a military revolution is moot. The following developments give the US a new set of

advantages over every major current opponent:

• Professional military forces - Unity of command,

• Combined operations, combined arms, and the "AirLand Battle,”

• Emphasis on maneuver,

• Emphasis on strategic/tactical innovation,

• Realistic combat training and use of technology and simulation,

• Emphasis on forward leadership and delegation,

• Heavy reliance on well trained NCOs and enlisted personnel,

• High degree of overall readiness,

• Technological superiority in many critical areas of weaponry; superior access to resupply,

• "24 hour war" - Superior night, all-weather, and beyond visual range warfare,

• Near real-time integration of C4I/BM/T/BDA,

• Integration of space warfare,

• New tempo of operations,

• New levels of sustainability,

• Exploitation of beyond visual range air combat, air defense suppression, air base attacks, and airborneC4I/BM,

• Focused and effective interdiction bombing.

• Expansion of the battle field: "Deep Strike,” JSTARS. MLRS-ATACMs, etc.

• Integration of precision-guided weapons into tactics and force structures.

The Weakness of Most Potential Opponents

Put differently, the US is able to exploit major weaknesses in the military capabilities and

conventional warfighting potential of practically every major opponent – including Iraq, Iraq,



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and North Korea -- and in nearly every developing state that is not dependent on US arms. These

weaknesses a virtual mirror image of US strengths and they include:

• The lack of FSU military support, arms transfers, and aid following the end of the Cold War,.

• The severe economic problems, and resulting lack of military modernization and investment common to thestate-dominated economies of virtually every major potential opponent,

• Limited recent investment in new arms, and critical new military technologies,

• Political leadership in most confrontation states that has highly politicized military forces; undercut much ofthe military effort to modernize and create professional military forces,

• Over-centralization and politisation of the command structure,

• Lack of strategic assessment capability,

• Weaknesses in battle management, command, control, communications, intelligence, targeting, and battledamage assessment,

• Lack of standardization and interoperability,

• Lack of cohesive force structure and quality,

• Inadequate emphasis on combined (joint) operations, combined arms, and the AirLand Battle,

• Poor manpower quality and career development,

• Failure to properly train leadership and allow it initiative,

• Lack of strong NCO, and technician cadres,

• Weak combat training; failure to create aggressor squadrons and conduct realistic large-scale exercises,

• Slow tempo of operations,

• Lack of adequate sustainability, recovery, and repair; failure to create realistic standards of readiness andmethods of achieving them,

• Inability to fight modern night and all-weather warfare,

• Shallow defensive and offensive battlefield,

• Misuse and maldeployment of reserves,

• Small unit-oriented, static infantry operations,

• Limited ability to exploit rough terrain warfare,

• Static pre-planned armored operations; technical limitations in armor, fire control, long-range engagementcapability, night warfare,

• Slow, area-fire oriented artillery operations. Lack of mobility and effective BVR targeting systems. Over-emphasis on area fire versus precision fire,

• Inability to prevent US air superiority; lack of key aspects of modern air combat technology,

• Problems in air-to-air combat training and endurance,

• Problems in integrating land-based air defense; poor overall technology,



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• Lack of effective survivable long-range strike systems, and

• Insufficient conventional air and missile power to conduct intensive interdiction and strategic bombing.

It is important to note that both of these lists show that the US draws its advantages from

a synergistic mix of technology, tactics, and training and not from technology per se. At the

same time, its potential opponents cannot hope to overcome most areas of US superiority in

conventional war fighting without major imports of new arms and/or new supporting

technologies. Limiting arms and technology transfer alone will not guarantee US ability to deter

or win, or that the US and its allies will suffer minimal casualties, but even the most cursory

review of the previous two lists shows that it will help.

Continuing US Vulnerabilities

The opposite side of this coin is that the transfer of the technologies most critical to

restructuring the forces of potential threat countries can often have an impact on their ability to

challenge the US or a US-led coalition in ways that have little to do with the dollar cost of a

given item or their impact on total weapons numbers. Furthermore, potential opponents are not

obligated to fight on US terms or to fight the kind of conventional war between organized

military forces the US won during the Gulf War.

It is important to note that the US was fought to a draw in Korea, won its battles and

decisively lost in Vietnam, and has to withdraw from Lebanon and Somalia. The US has

weaknesses of its own that opponents can exploit:

• Over-extended active force structure, problems in calling up and deploying many reserves,

• Limited recent military modernization,

• Growing manpower problems in terms of both numbers and quality,

• Limits in sustainability and basic numbers of many high technology systems and smart munitions; decliningforce-wide readiness,

• Long-standing problems in coping with the political and tactical problem of guerrilla and low intensitywarfare,

• Uncertain political support for operations involving US casualties,

• Political backlash from inflicting casualties,

• Policy problems in combat involving civilian losses and collateral damage,



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• Lack of tactical and technological advantage in urban and built-up area warfare,

• Limited tactical and technological advantage in warfare in mountains, forested, or jungle areas,

• Hostage taking and terrorism,

• Sudden or surprise attack before US power projection can deploy,

• Political difficulties in obtaining support for extended deterrence and in sustained battles of intimidation,

• Problems in dealing with ecological and environmental warfare,

• Limits of UN/cooperative/Coalition warfare,

• Problems in sustaining extended conflict and in occupying an opponent’s territory,

• Vulnerability to missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and

• Uncertain willingness to sustain large military effort, maintain forces and presence

We must never confuse being lucky with being strong. The fact that we live in a more

favorable military time window than any other in our military history is no guarantee that this

time window will stay open beyond the near-term. Even today, we are acutely vulnerable to any

successful use of weapons of mass destruction from terrorism to theater-wide conflict, to many

other forms of terrorism, to over-extension beyond a single major regional contingency. We are

vulnerable to any strategic miscalculation that commits US forces to a contingency where we

cannot sustain domestic political support or which produces hostile world opinion.

The Current Trends in Arms TransfersIt is highly unlikely that we can count on preserving our present “edge” with anything

like the ease that has been possible during the previous decade. On the one hand, we no longer

has the vast pool of resources left over from our military modernization during the Cold War,

and which no longer is needed for NATO. We face the consequences of underfunding

manpower, modernization and readiness. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that our present

and future major potential opponents will face similar problems in terms of arms transfers,

technology transfer, and proliferation.

Figure One shows just how much we have benefited from the end of the Cold War,

sanctions, and other constraints on the arms imports of our major opponents over the last decade.

It shows the precipitous decline in Russian arms transfers following the end of the Cold War and



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the break up of the Soviet Union. The drop in Chinese arms exports following the end of the

Iran-Iraq War and the beginning of sanctions on Iraq, and the steady growth in the West’s

(NATO Canada, US, and Europe’s) share of total arms deliveries.

At the same time, Figure Two shows that these trends in deliveries are not matched by

the size and flow of new agreements – the contracts for buys of weapons and new military

technology that will shape the future. The sudden surge in US exports that took place during and

immediately after the Gulf War is over. Russian sales have begun to recover their market share,

and Chinese sales are again important. The “power vacuum” in arms sales is already over.



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Figure One

Trends in Russian, Chinese, and North Korean Arms Exports vs. Total Exports: 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 9394 95 96

North Korea

Russia

NATO

World

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

90000

North Korea

China

Russia

US

NATO

Developing

World

North Korea 340 527 890 512 246 247 186 192 63 30 50

China 1630 2503 3813 3294 2339 1575 1204 1174 755 650 600

Russia 29210 30440 27960 23670 16960 6975 2737 3414 1563 3769 3300

US 19020 23590 22240 20980 24440 28690 27050 25070 22510 22620 23500

NATO 34780 40020 36910 33040 39840 40690 38440 34840 32900 33130 35060

Developing 53110 58330 52700 44060 40470 27430 22980 21190 20330 24860 23670

World 75880 84390 80610 67740 63360 52490 45470 42120 38520 40640 42630

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Source: Adapted by Anthony H. Cordesman from US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers,, GPO, Washington, various editions.



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Figure Two

Russian and Chinese New Arms Agreements as a Percent of Total of All Developing World

9091

9293

9495

9697

China

Russia

US0

10

20

30

40

50

60

China 6.72 2.74 3.31 2.12 3.69 1.26 5.05 8.73

Russia 32.76 32.84 9.27 5.52 18.01 34.13 22.43 19.2

US 37.1 32.05 15.95 56.26 27.04 17.85 29.33 13.3

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

0 = less than $50 million or nil, and all data rounded to the nearest $100 million.Source: Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Developing Nations, Congressional Research Service, various editions..



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The Trends in Russian Arms TransfersThere is no way to quantify Russian arms sales and technology transfer with any

precision, and it is important to note that they can take at least ten major forms:

• Formal arms sales authorized by the Russian government and/or related technical and advisoryassistance.

• Licensing or sale of military technology by the Russian government and/or related technical andadvisory assistance.

• Licensing or sale of military production equipment and technology by the Russian government.

• Legal sale of dual-use equipment, technology, and/or production equipment and/or related technicaland advisory assistance.

• The legal sale of advisory services relating to any of the above categories of technology transfer inthe form of individuals working within a foreign country.

• Similar semi-legal activities by some element of the Russian government, which may or may nothave the tacit knowledge and approval of the central government.

• Clearly illegal and unauthorized activities by an element of the Russian government, a statecorporation, and/or state laboratory or institute without the tacit knowledge and approval of thecentral government.

• Clearly illegal and unauthorized activities by private individuals of goods or services without thetacit knowledge and approval of the central government.

• The sale of advisory services within a foreign country by element of the Russian government, a statecorporation state laboratory or institute, and/or group of Russian citizens with the tacit knowledgeand approval of the central government.

• The sale of advisory services within a foreign country by element of the Russian government, a statecorporation state laboratory or institute, and/or group of Russian citizens without the tacit knowledgeand approval of the central government.

In many cases, it may be impossible to determine what role the government is or is not

playing, particularly since it is unclear that there is a central government in the normal sense of

the term. Russia is in a state of bureaucratic chaos, and filled with competing factions serving

under a president incapable of effective government. It is also in the process of near-economic

collapse, and conversion from an economy where military expenditures consumed nearly 50% of



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a central government budget of well over $80 billion in constant 1997 US dollars to well under

40% of a state budget of no more than $25 billion.

It is important to note that Russia currently does not seem able to execute any kind of

coherent strategy or military reform. It has produced a great deal of literature calling for reform

of the Russian army, and many reforms tailored to produce a more professional force similar to

the US. In practice, all it has accomplished is a steady loss of readiness. Financial pressures are

forcing the Russian military to devolve in virtually every area. There is no coherent area of force

improvement in any Russian military service, in any mission area, or in any front. There is no

question that the Russian military has great technical and strategic capabilities, but Russia as a

unified Russia currently does not exist. The question is always who, with what power and

resources, and for how long? It is a question that no one in Russia can answer in any important

area.

These problems and tensions affect every aspect of Russia’s military technology and

industrial base. They also can produce deeply contradictory trends. At one level, Figure Three

shows that Russian exports shifted away from military exports during the period before Russia’s

near-economic collapse in 1997. At another level, it is important to understand that Russia’s civil

exports were shaped largely by energy exports. These have been hit hard by the recent collapse

of oil prices and their current volume is only possible because of the collapse of Russian

industrial demand for oil and gas and the end of subsidized exports to Eastern Europe. Russia

remains desperate for hard currency exports of any kind. Likewise, any kind of money is a

desperate issue in every Russian institute, factory, and military city.

Furthermore, Russian domestic demand for military production has nearly collapsed. The

Russian official defense budget is filled with contradictory statistics, and based on Rubles that

are impossible to convert into comparable figures from year to year. There is also no way to

know what money was actually spent and on what. Close to one-third of the Russian military

budget is actually spent by other ministries in other parts of the national budget. It is possible to

use Russian budget numbers to prove anything and nothing, and independent estimates are both



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unreliable and lack any real detail on R&D and procurement spending. The IISS, for example,

estimates that real Russian military spending dropped by 50% during 1993-1997, but this is an

intelligence “guesstimate” – not a hard number.

Figure Four, however, does provide a reasonably accurate picture of just how much

pressure Russian military industries are under. It presents an incredible drop in annual output

since the end of the Cold War. It also shows the explosive pressure on Russia -- and particularly

on Russian military research institutes and military industry – to sell anything, anywhere, at any

price. These pressures are compounded by the fact that Russia has no real free market as yet to

support the conversion of its defense industry. Worse, an incredible amount of Russian military

production is organized in military cities and complexes where there is no alternative

employment, and where dedicated plant and equipment is highly specialized and would not be

cost-effective to use in a market economy even if Russia had evolved a market economy.

The most surprising aspect of Russian arms exports and technology transfer is not that

there have been abuses, but that they so far have been limited. Figure Five shows the massive

decline in Russian arms exports since the Cold War, and the level since 1991 is extraordinarily

low. Figure Six shows that the same trends apply if transfers are measured in terms of actual

weapons, and Figure Seven shows this is also true of categories like tactical guided missiles.

Figure Eight, however, shows that this trend is no guarantee for the future. New

agreements are on the rise, and they will inevitably include far more advanced weapons

technologies than those the former Soviet Union delivered in the 1980s. Figure Nine also shows

that Russian transfers to the developing world have shifted in character, with a major rise in the

percentage going to Asia, and to China in particular. This trend partly reflects a sharp decline in

Iranian purchases, and the impact of sanctions on Iraq and Libya, but it also reflects an important

improvement in Russian and Chinese relations and in technology transfer to China.

It is also important to note that the value of Russian exports and technology transfers

cannot be measured simply in terms of the trends shown in these charts. Conventional arms sales



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may have dominated technology transfer to the developing world a decade ago, but today they

are only part of the story. Proliferation makes the transfer of dual-use items and direct transfers

of the components for weapons of mass destruction at least as important. With the exception of

Libya, every other major potential threat to the US and its allies also has a major industrial base.

This means that nations like China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Syria can now produce or

modify even complex military equipment. Every one of these nations can also now produce

long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

The most critical transfers of technology may take the form of “invisible” sales of

designs, industrial techniques, specialized production equipment, and advisory services. These

can occur at virtually any level and may be proportionally more damaging than conventional

weapons transfers. One rogue scientist may do far more in terms of potential threats than the

transfer of 100 advanced tanks or fighters. Similarly, the divisions within the Russian

government can lead some elements to turn a blind eye to the activities of given institutes or

factories. A disorganized government may simply be unable to monitor the activity of 100,000s

of scientists and technicians whose useful knowledge can lead to technology transfers of vast

importance that may only be detected when that technology is shown in prototype in the buyer

country, or actually enters the force structure.

This compounds the difficulties in determining Russia’s official intentions in a given

transfer of technology. Worse, in many cases, buyers also go to other countries and also have

extensive purchasing and intelligence networks in the West. China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North

Korea, and Syria all buy Western technology that may be transferred from other countries. China

buys from Russia, and North Korea from China. Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Syria all buy from Russia,

China, and North Korea. Even if a Russian is caught transferring a given technology, this may or

may not affect the overall development of a buyer country capability. Such patterns of transfer

obscure the true origin of a product and it may never be possible to know whether the key to a

given weapons development in the Third World came from Russia, China, France, the US, or



14

some indigenous scientist. Unfortunately, this is most true where it is most important – in the

development of weapons of mass destruction.



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Figure Three

Trends in Russian Arms Exports vs. Total Exports: 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Arms Exports

Arms Exports

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

160000

Arms Exports 29210 30400 27960 23670 16960 6975 2737 3414 1563 3769 3300

Total Exports 131900 141900 140700 133400 118100 76500 46430 62090 69400 78440 88700

Arms Exports 1630 2503 3813 3294 2339 1575 1204 1174 755 662 600

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96




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Figure Four

Russian Arms Production: 1990-1996

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

SRBMs 0 0 80 105 55 45 35 30

ICBMs/SLBMs 2 3 1 1 0 1 1 0

Submarines 12 6 6 4 4 3 2 2

Major Surface Ships 2 3 1 1 0 1 1 0

Helicopters 450 350 175 150 100 95 75 70

Transport aircraft 70 60 60 60 35 30 15 0

Fighters/FGA 430 250 150 100 50 20 25 35

Bombers 40 30 20 10 2 2 1 0

SP Artillery 500 300 200 100 85 15 20 10

AIFVs 3400 3000 700 300 380 400 250 350

Tanks 1600 850 500 200 40 30 5 5

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

Source: Adapted by Anthony H. Cordesman data provided in the IISS, Military Balance, various editions.



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Figure Five

Trends in Russian Arms Exports: 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 8990 91 92

93 9495

96

ACDA

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

ACDA 29210 30400 27960 23670 16960 6975 2737 3414 1563 3769 3300

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96




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Figure Six

Russian Deliveries of Actual Major Weapons: 1987-1997

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

18000

Submarines 7 9 4 4

Combat Ships 141 77 0 31

Other Combat 80 90 0 20

Supersonic Combat 1140 440 70 200

OAFVs 6550 6150 1960 2710

Artillery 4855 3820 830 1310

Tanks/SP Guns 3020 3860 970 140

1983-1986 1987-1990 1991-1994 1994-1997

0 = less than $50 million or nil, and all data rounded to the nearest $100 million.Source: Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Developing Nations, Congressional Research Service, various editions.



19

Figure Seven

Russian Deliveries of Tactical Missiles: 1983-1997

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

Atni-Ship 495 530 60 0

Surface-to-Air 10025 1860 150 0

Surface-to-Surface 13130 9910 940 1680

1983-1986 1987-1990 1991-1994 1994-1997




20

Figure Eight

Trends in Russian Arms Deliveries and New Agreements with Developing World: 1990-1997(Constant $1997 Millions)

9091

9293

9495

9697

Deliveries

Agreements

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

Deliveries 15180 6854 2802 2069 1383 3027 2249 2000

Agreements 12790 8225 1569 1416 4150 5367 4088 3300

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

0 = less than $50 million or nil, and all data rounded to the nearest $100 million.Source: Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Developing Nations, Congressional Research Service, various editions..



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Figure Nine

Percentage of Russian New Agreements Going to Given Regions of the Developing World:1990-1997

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Africa 15.46 3.79 3.66 14.58 5.04 7.14

Latin America 12.89 6.82 1.83 11.08 6.72 2.38

Near East 28.69 25 14.63 31.63 36.82 32.14

Asia 42.96 64.39 79.88 42.71 50.42 58.33

Agreements:

87-90

Agreements:

91-94

Agreements:

94-97

Deliveries: 87-

90

Deliveries: 91-

94

Deliveries: 94-

97




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Chinese Arms Imports and ExportsAny assessment of Russian transfers of arms and technology must consider the impact of

such transfers on given target countries as well as the overall scale of Russian activity. There are,

after all, only a comparatively small number of countries that now represent serious potential

threats to the United States. There are also only a small number of such countries which are

more likely to seek Russian arms and technology than buy on the world arms market. This list

includes three current threats to US forces: Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. It includes Syria, the

primary threat to Israel; Libya, which is both a terrorist states and a large scale buyer of arms,

and China, which is not a present threat to the US but its an emerging major regional power.

The Chinese case is also interesting because China currently obtains over 90% of its

military imports from Russia. While China also obtains massive imports of dual technology from

the West, the modernization of its forces is now heavily dependent on its ability to obtain whole

weapons systems from Russia. Furthermore, China is not simply an importer of arms, it is a

major exporter of arms and missile technology. These trends are shown in Figures Ten through

Twelve, and it shows that China has again begun to increase its military exports after much cuts

during the early 1990s. China is a particularly important supplier to Iran and has been a major

supplier to Iraq in the past. Any Russian transfers of advanced military technology are likely to

eventually pass on to potentially hostile states once China absorbs them and begins to produce

similar equipment or weapons.

It is, however, important to keep these trends in perspective. While China may be a threat

to Taiwan, there is no sign of any military build-up against Japan, Korea, or Southeast Asia.

India’s claims that it has tested nuclear weapons partly because of the Chinese threat ring almost

completely hollow. If anything, it is China that suddenly finds two new nuclear powers near its

borders. Furthermore the dollar value of Russian arms sales to China is not particularly dramatic

when one considers US estimates of the value of these transfers or their impact to date on

China’s force structure. During the mid to late 1990s, US experts estimate that China imported



23

only about $1.5 billion a year worth of arms from all sources and a total of around $5 billion

from Russia. This annual total is about 75% of the average imports of Taiwan.

The key issue is the technology content of Russian sales and their impact on current and

future Chinese war fighting capabilities. Russia has sold China some 48 multi-role Su-27

fighters in two configurations ($1.7 billion), and one A-50/Phalcon airborne early warning

aircraft with an option on three more ($750 million?). According so some reports, it has also

licensing the assembly of, and production technology for, a variant of the SU-27 at a cost of $1.5

to $2.0 billion. China has also bought M-17 transport helicopters, production technology for the

RD-33 (AL-31) jet engine, and is reported to be negotiating the purchase of 40-50 Su-30 MK

fighters – a longer-range, two-seat version of the Su-27. At the same time, Russia has so far

transferred less than 50 modern combat aircraft to a force with over 4,000 air force and naval air

fixed wing combat aircraft. Russian and Israeli efforts to support Chinese production of a

modern F-10 fighter have so far done little to overcome China’s problems and the production

date has slipped to 2003 and beyond. The status of the FC-1 (modeled in part on the MiG-33

with some aspects of the Lavi) is unclear.i

Russian sales also include some modern systems like the Sovremenny-class destroyer

with “Sunburn” anti-ship missiles. It has sold four submarines, including two 636-class (Kilo -

$200 million) submarines. The two older EKM-877 Kilos ($100 million) Russia has sold are

harder to operate and less capable. In total, Russia has two destroyers to a navy with 51 principal

surface combatants and 188 missile patrol boats, and only a few classes of Chinese-made ships

like the Luhu-class destroyer are modern by US standards. It has sold four submarines to a force

with 61 submarines. China has only enough amphibious lift for one division, and its 400 LCMs

and LCUs, 50-odd Yukan and Shan-class LSMs, and Yuliang, Yuling, and Yudao-class LSMs

and LSTs are all obsolete or aging. It has new Zhousan and Qiongsha-class LSTs and

amphibious assault ships entering service, but these will take years to pose any kind of threat to

Taiwan’s more than 400,000 man army.



24

The vast majority of China’s combat aircraft and navy ranges from obsolete to mediocre

at best, and the most recent estimates by the IISS show that China’s ground forces and land-

based air defenses are also largely obsolete. China has a massive army with over 2,000,000 men,

some 8,500 tanks, 6,700 OAFVs, and 15,000 artillery weapons. It has no truly modern tanks by

Western standards, however, and only 400 T-80s and 400 T-85IIs that approach the status of

modern main battle tanks. Its 1,200 light tanks are all obsolete or obsolescent and almost all of

its artillery consists of towed weapons with limited maneuver capability. Even most of its anti-

tank weapons are first and second generation systems that are difficult to operate and which have

only moderate lethality.

At present, the most China can hope for in the near to mid term is to modernize elements

of 2-3 of its 24 Group Armies ( including the 38th with three divisions, the 15th Airborne Army)

and then elements of the 54th, 21st, 13th, and some other group armies. So far, Russia has only

sold China a limited number of land systems like 45 2S23 Nova-SVK gun mortar systems.

Although the 15th Airborne Army is supposed to be China’s major power projection force, its

training experience is limited and it has been used largely for internal security purposes.

The vast majority of China’s surface-to-air missiles are obsolete variants of the Russian

SA-2 and unguided anti-aircraft guns. China has bought eight batteries of S-300s (SA-10s or

Grumbles --$1 billion), and four are reported to be deployed around Beijing. It is important to

note, however, that it would take several hundred batteries to fully modernize China’s air

defenses, and that the versions of the S-300 China is reported to have on order seem to have

moderate tactical ballistic missile defense capabilities with a relatively small footprint of

defensive area coverage.

China is already producing some impressive anti-ship missiles and short and medium-

range ballistic missiles. It has several hundred such missiles deployed opposite Taiwan,

including the new DF-15s tested near Taiwan in 1995 and 1996. China probably now has several

hundred DF-15s (CSS-4/M-9 – 600 kilometers and 500 kilogram payload) in the vicinity of

Taiwan, and they offer an important compensation for China’s inability to penetrate Taiwan’s



25

air defenses. Moreover, the DF-15 is only part of the Chinese development program. Its other

new missile programs include the DF-21 (1,200 kilometers and now in production), DF-21X

(3,000 kilometers and in development), DF-25 (in development, 1,700 kilometers), DF-31

(8,000 kilometer solid fuel for SLBM launch), and DF-41 (12,000 kilometer mobile

IRBM/ICBM in development) ballistic missiles will radically change its conventional and theater

nuclear war fighting capabilities.

They will do so, however, without any clear evidence of major Russian support. In fact,

the transfer of US W-88 weapons technology has eased China’s problems in designing and

manufacturing Chinese theater nuclear missile warheads in ways which may prove notably more

important that any Russian technology transfers since 1990. Nevertheless, most of its deployed

ICBMs, and most of its deployed IRBMs, are dated.

The past, however, is not necessarily the prelude to the future. Some Russian technology

transfers are already important and Russia could provide China with a wide variety of far more

advanced weapons that could dramatically increase its warfighting capabilities against the US or

its allies. These include:

• Fully modern battle tanks like the T-80 through T-90, and conversions of older tanks to use new guns,fire control systems, and sensors.

• Modern armored infantry fighting vehicles like the BMP-3 and BTR-80.

• Advanced third and fourth generation anti-tank weapons that are far easier to operate and which havedemonstrated that they can kill modern tanks like the Israeli Merkava.

• Modern self-propelled artillery like the 2S23 Nova-SVK gun mortar system, multiple rocket launcherswith highly lethal submunitions like the “Smersh”, long-rage target systems, advanced counterbatteryradars, and modern fire control systems.

• Modern attack helicopters like the Mi-26, Mi-28, Mi-28N, Ka-50, and Ka-52 with modern avionics andtarget acquisition systems and a claimed capability to launch fire and forget missiles similar to theApache Longbow.

• Advanced battle management, sensors, counterbattery radars, night vision devices, and UAVs to providelong-range targeting capability, night and poor weather warfare capability, and greatly improved battlemanagement and tactical intelligence capabilities.

• Modern short-range radar and infrared guided land-based air defense weapons.



26

• Highly advanced air, cruise missile, and tactical ballistic missile defense systems like the S-300 and S-400.

• Modern air defense fighters with long-loiter capabilities like the MiG-29M, MiG-31, MiG-31M, Su-30 orSu-34, excellent dogfight capability, supersonic cruise capability, advanced avionics and sensors andlong-range, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles like the R-77 (an AMRAAM equivalent) withmultiple engagement capability.

• Modern airborne warning and air control aircraft, and electronic counter-measures and electronic supportmeasures ranging from pods and on-board avionics to dedicated aircraft. High speed, long-range anti-radiation missiles like the Kh-25P and Kh-31.

• Modern long-range multi-role strike fighters (Su-27SM, Su-30, Su-35, MiG-29 SM, MiG-33 with range-payload superior to the light and medium bombers of the past, excellent low-altitude penetration andstand-off precision launch capability, advanced avionics and sensors, and long-range air-to-groundmissiles and smart ordinance like the Kh-29T Kh-59, and KAB-500R.

• Modern airborne warning and air control aircraft like the Beriev A-50/Phalcon (“Mainstay”) airborneearly warning aircraft, and electronic counter-measures and electronic support measures ranging frompods and on-board avionics to dedicated aircraft.

• Modern amphibious ships and support systems.

• Advanced conventional and nuclear submarines – there are reports Russia(ns) is helping China go beyondits Han-class SSN.

• Supersonic long-range anti-ship missiles with countermeasures and remote target designation capabilitysuch as the “SS-N-22 Sunburn” missiles on the Sovremenny-class destroyers. Russia is also developingthe Novator Alpha (110 NM, Mach 2), Yakhont Alpha (160 NM, Mach 2), and Mashinostroyenia Alfa(150 NM, Mach 3).

• Smart long-range, high-speed, self-homing torpedoes.

• Smart mines capable of rising from the bottom and homing on given types of ships at preset intervals.

• Cruise and ballistic missiles roughly equivalent in technology and lethality to any deployed US system.

• Advances in SLBM technology beyond the Juilang-2 or NX-4 – the Russian SS-NX-28 being a keyexample.

• Stealth technology of any kind.

• Advanced space-based intelligence sensors.

There are several factors to be considered here. One, China does face serious near-term

economic problems, but it is still able to spend more on arms, technology, and military

production than ever before. Second, China faces massive block obsolescence in every aspect of

its force structure and virtually must replace many of its systems. Third, China must also

modernize most parts of its defense industry if it is to sustain and increase the volume of its arms

sales. Fourth, China now has a much more modern industrial base and can gain its greatest

comparative advantage by importing technology for weapons designs, manufacturing techniques,



27

and critical upgrades of existing weapons. All of these factors give China a motive to import

advanced weapons.

This gives China the same incentive to buy or steal military technology from Russia that

it does to do so from the US, Europe, and nations like Israel. It also means that China has a

major reason to buy weapons and equipment it can use as prototypes, and buy the services of

Russian scientists or research centers. This helps explain why reports have surfaced that China

has bought advanced computer simulation technology from Russia for missile nuclear warhead

design, is reported to have shown an interest in SS-18, SS-24, and SS-25 ICBM technology. It

also explains some of the past US concerns with Chinese contacts with Minatom (Russia’s

nuclear weapons design bureau) and why China had some of its scientists expelled from the

Ukraine for trying to penetrate the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, a key part of the SS-18 design

team, in January 1996.

China can also “cherry pick” much of what it buys to supplement the dual use technology

broadly available in the West, or to evade Western technology controls by buying only the

supplemental technology and production capabilities needed to overcome Western controls.

Once again, it is important to note that China may have far more access to Russian technology

that is apparent from major arms buys or than Russia intends. It can buy “synergistically” by

combining purchases from a wide range of sources, and does not face any urgent threats that

force it to rush forward in ways that are highly visible.

All of these facts do not mean that China is intending to do this or is in the process of a

major Chinese military build-up that threatens the US or its interests. In fact, Chinese

manufactures and arms imports remain a fraction of the levels required to offset the steadily

growing technical and tactical obsolescence of its existing force structure. The problem is major

technology transfers in any of the above areas do allow China to begin to replace or supplement

quantity with quality. Large-scale transfers do mean that China can. carry out a military build-up

that threatens the US or its interests.



28

As Figures Twelve to Fifteen show, the issue also goes far beyond what happens in

China. China is still a major arms exporter, with many of its exports going to nations like Iran

and Syria. It needs high production volumes to reduce the cost of high technology items and

high levels of exports to keep its defense industries alive. Russian exports will almost certainly

trigger Chinese exports – often to potential threats.



29

Figure Ten

Trends in Chinese Arms Exports and Imports versus Total Exports: 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Arms Imports

Total Exports

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

160000

Arms Imports 883 955 623 671 409 382 1423 640 281 789 1500

Arms Exports 1630 2503 3813 3294 2339 1575 1204 1174 755 662 600

Total Exports 42040 51960 60390 64100 71650 80900 93010 97050 126100 151600 151200

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Source: Adapted by Anthony H. Cordesman from US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers,

, GPO, Washington, various editions.



30

Figure Eleven

Trends in Chinese Arms Exports and Imports: 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 9394 95 96

Arms Imports

Arms Exports

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

Arms Imports 883 955 623 671 409 382 1423 640 281 789 1500

Arms Exports 1630 2503 3813 3294 2339 1575 1204 1174 755 662 600

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96





31

Figure Twelve

Trends in Chinese Arms Deliveries and New Agreements with Developing World: 1990-1997(Constant $1997 Millions)

9091

9293

9495

9697

Agreements

Deliveries

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

Agreements 2630 685 560 544 851 209 920 1500

Deliveries 2391 1599 1121 1198 745 626 613 1000

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97




32

Figure Thirteen

Percentage of Chinese New Agreements Going to Given Regions of the Developing World:1990-1997

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Africa 4.5 4.76 15.15 4.44 5 11.48

Latin America 0 0 3.03 0 0 1.64

Near East 68.47 33.33 39.39 84.44 40 18.03

Asia 27.03 61.9 42.42 11.11 55 68.85

Agreements:

87-90

Agreements:

91-94

Agreements:

94-97

Deliveries: 87-

90

Deliveries: 91-

94

Deliveries: 94-

97




33

Figure Fourteen

Chinese Deliveries of Actual Major Weapons: 1987-1997

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

5000

Submarines 2 0 0 0

Combat Ships 35 34 27 33

Other Combat 90 0 0 0

Supersonic Combat 95 140 70 80

OAFVs 1190 500 535 90

Artillery 1410 2340 1815 210

Tanks/SP Guns 1590 230 140 170

1983-1986 1987-1990 1991-1994 1994-1997




34

Figure Fifteen

Chinese Deliveries of Tactical Missiles: 1983-1997

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

Anti-Ship 175 210 90 180

Surface-to-Air 1010 160 80 0

Surface-to-Surface 350 530 100 510

1983-1986 1987-1990 1991-1994 1994-1997




35

North Korean Arms Imports and ExportsNorth Korea is a far more direct threat to the US and its interests than China, and is a

more dangerous exporter of the technology and weapons used for proliferation. At the same

time, Figures Sixteen and Seventeen show that it helps to have enemies that still believe in

Stalinism and communism. North Korea has not been a major importer of arms from anyone in

recent years. US estimates show it imported less than $200 million worth of arms from all

sources during 1992-1997, and no modern Russian weapons have appeared anywhere in its order

of battle.

Given North Korea’s history it has almost certainly sought technology from Russia and

China and some aspects of its missile programs raise important questions about the role of

Russia and China in providing such technology. There have also been numerous unconfirmed

reports of efforts to recruit Russian scientists and experts. For example,

• South Korea is reported to have negotiated a loan with Russia in August 1990 that seems to haveinvolved Russia’s agreement to cancel a contract for the services of Russian missile experts workingin North Korea. North Korea is reported to have approached a Russian physicist, Anatoli Rubtsov, inApril 1991, as part of a broader recruiting drive to obtain Russian physicists. Some 60 Russianphysicists from Miass in the Chelyabinsk region are reported to have gone to North Korea in April1992.ii

• The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service is said to have reported that Russian physicists have beenprevented from going to North Korea in August and October 1992. The Russian Foreign IntelligenceService did report in 1993 that North Korea was actively trying to recruit Russian and otherspecialists for its missile and other programs although North Korea supposedly assured RussianDeputy Foreign Minister Gregory Kundaze that it would halt such employment efforts in January1993. Russian civilian Condor aircraft is reported to fly North Korean Scud C missile parts to Syriaon August 4, 1993.

• On October 22, 1993, a secret Russian report is said to have found 160 Russian scholars helped theNorth Korean missile and nuclear program since the mid-1980s. Russia is reported to have soldNorth Korea some 12 Golf-II submarines for scrip in November 1993. The Russian ForeignIntelligence Service detains three North Korean embassy employees in Moscow in September 1994for trying to get samples of new Russian weapons. Russia is reported to have failed to persuadeNorth Korea to allow it to inspect the dismantling of the Golf submarines in May 1994. Three moreNorth Koreans are detained for spying in Primorskoye in June 1994.



36

It is virtually certain that some of this activity has taken place. The General Bureau and

seven Machine Industry Bureaus of North Korea have always found it easier to buy, borrow,

copy, or steal military technology than invent it. At the same time, there is little tangible

evidence of any major North Korean success after 1993.



37

Figure Sixteen

Trends in North Korean Arms Exports and Imports versus Total Exports: 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 9495 96

Arms Imports

Total Exports

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

Arms Imports 571 553 1271 732 234 101 164 128 135 122 0

Arms Exports 340 527 890 512 246 247 186 192 63 30 50

Total Exports 2310 2701 3050 2763 2362 1153 1423 1302 1292 829 811

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96





38

Figure Seventeen

Trends in North Korean Arms Exports and Imports: 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 9394 95 96

Arms Exports

Arms Imports

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Arms Exports 340 527 890 512 246 247 186 192 63 31 50

Arms Imports 571 553 1271 732 234 101 164 128 135 122 0

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96





39

Gulf Arms Imports and ExportsAny analysis of Russian arms transfers to the Gulf must begin with a broader perspective.

Figures Eighteen and Nineteen show that new agreements in the Northern Gulf from all sources

have fallen precipitously since the Gulf War, and that new agreements in the Southern Gulf are

reaching average levels far lower than those made during a similar period before the Gulf War.

It is also clear that the drop in new arms sales has been much sharper than the drop in deliveries.

New arms orders have dropped from $ 72.0 billion in the four-year period from 1987-1990 to $

46.4 billion in 1991-1994, and $ 26.2 billion in 1994-1997. Recent new orders are less than

10% of the volume of new orders at the end of the Iran-Iraq War and before the Gulf War.

Southern Gulf arms imports have also dropped. They shrank from $ 51.3 billion in the

four-year period from 1987-1990 to $ 42.7 billion in 1991-1994, and $ 24.6 billion in 1994-

1997. Saudi new orders totaled only one-third of the amount during 1994-1997 that they did

during 1987-1989.

Even so, Figure Nineteen shows an incredible drop in the “market share” of potential

threats to the US and its allies. US power projection forces have unquestionably drawn immense

benefits from this fact. There are no guarantees for the future, but there is also no way that Iran

or Iraq can quickly overcome a new decade of limited arms transfers and the near obsolescence

of a good part of their force structures.



40

Figure Eighteen

Major Supplier Share of Gulf Arms Agreements and Deliveries: 1987-1997($Current US Billions)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

All Others 4.8 1 2.5 4.6 0.7 0.7

China 7.5 0.4 1.1 7.3 1.4 0.9

Russia 7 2.2 1.4 8.8 2.8 1.8

All Other Europe 5.8 0.7 1.8 6 1.9 4.4

Major West Europe 29.5 17 14.1 21.4 15.4 22.2

US 17.4 25.1 5 7.5 14 17.5

Agreements:

87-90

Agreements:

91-94

Agreements:

94-97

Deliveries:

87-90

Deliveries:

91-94

Deliveries:

94-97




41

Figure Nineteen:

The Arms Orders of “Stabilizing” versus “Destabilizing States” in the Gulf(New Agreements in $Current Millions)

Before the Gulf War: 1987-1990

Qatar

0 %

Iran

14%

UAE

2 %

Saudi Arabia

43%

Yemen

4 %

Bahrain

1 %

Kuwait

2 %

Oman

1 %

Iraq

33%

PERCENT OF TOTAL

REGIONAL ARMS SALES

DURING 1987-1990

IRAN = 14%

IRAQ = 33%

IRAN & IRAQ = 47%

After the Gulf War: 1994-1998

Qatar

8%

Iran

6%

UAE

19%

Saudi Arabia

52%

Yemen

3%

Bahrain

1%Kuwait

9%

Oman

2%

Iraq

0%

PERCENT OF REGIONAL ARMS SALES

IN 1994-1997

IRAN = 6%

IRAQ = 0%

IRAN & IRAQ = 6%

Source: Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Developing Nations, Congressional ResearchService, various editions.



42

Iranian Arms Imports and ExportsIran has partially recovered from its defeat in the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, and is again a

major military power by Gulf standards. Iran is slowly replacing he massive infantry-artillery

dominated forces it had during the Iran-Iraq War with new forces that focus on specific

missions. It has developed a substantial capability to threaten shipping through the Straits of

Hormuz and the rest of the Gulf, and has developed a substantial capability for unconventional

warfare that it can project into the Gulf and throughout the region. It has begun to rebuild its air

force and land-based air defenses, and can put up a far more effective defense than in 1988. It

has restructured its regular forces and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps to improve the

defense of its Southern Gulf coast and create a far more effective ability to attack naval forces,

tanker traffic, offshore facilities, and targets along the Southern Gulf coast.

Iran, however, is scarcely a modern military power by the standards of the US and post-

Gulf War arms imports have been far smaller than most analysts predicted. Figures Twenty and

Twenty-One show the patterns in Iran’s arms imports since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988,

and arms deliveries have declined sharply since that time:

• Iran took delivery on $10.2 billion worth of arms during the four year period between 1987-1990 --the time between the final years of the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. It did not receive anysignificant military imports from the US and only received $500 million from its major WesternEuropean suppliers. In contrast, Iran received $1.1 billion in deliveries from Russia, $2.5 billionfrom China, $1.9 billion from other European states (mostly Eastern Europe), and $1.8 billion fromother countries (mostly North Korea). Virtually all of these deliveries were the product of agreementsthat had been signed during the first four years of the Iran-Iraq War. While some deliveries helpedcompensate for Iran’s losses during the last year of the Iran-Iraq War, most were low quality systemsand many were land weapons whose value was restricted to the kind of grinding war of attrition thatIran was fighting with Iraq, and not modern maneuver warfare. The deliveries from Russia, China,East Europe, and North Korea not only lacked standardization and interoperable with Iran’s holdingsof Western weapons, they often differed enough in design and caliber so that they were not fullystandardized and/or interoperable with each other. iii

• The volume of arms deliveries to Iran dropped sharply during the four year period from 1991-1994,and Iran took delivery on only $3.9 billion worth of arms.iv Despite some reports of a massive Iranianmilitary build-up during the 1990s, the total volume of arms deliveries during 1991-1994 was onlyworth one quarter of the values of the deliveries that were received during the previous four years,even measured in current dollars. Iran still could not obtain any military imports from the US and



43

only received $100 million worth from Western Europe. Many of Iran’s deliveries were still theresult of orders it had placed during the Iran-Iraq War. However, Iran was able to shift its limitedresources to concentrate them on the higher quality arms it obtained from Russia. Iran received atotal of $1.2 billion in deliveries from Russia, $400 million from China, $100 million from otherEuropean states (mostly Eastern Europe), and $900 million from other countries (mostly NorthKorea).v

• Iran only received $1.9 billion during 1994-1997. These deliveries included $700 million fromRussia, $800 million from China, $100 million from West Europe, $100 million from other Europeanstates (mostly Eastern Europe), and $200 million from other countries (mostly North Korea). Onceagain, Iran received no deliveries from the US and $100 million worth from Western Europe. Thismeant Iran now had had no major replacements or modernization of most of its western suppliedweapons for nearly two decades. Even in current dollars, Iran’s deliveries were worth only aboutone-ninth of the value of the arms it had imported during similar period in the Iran-Iraq War. Theywere only worth about one-fifth of Iran’s imports during the four year period before the Gulf War.vi

Figures Twenty and Twenty-One show that Iran did not keep up its arms spending after

1988, in spite of the loss of nearly half its inventory of major land weapons in the final battles of

the war. It is clear from Figure Twenty-One that Iran took advantage of Iraq’s shattering defeat

in the Gulf War in 1991, and made further major cuts in its arms imports. Ironically, the US

sanctions that came years later not only had little impact on Iran’s arms imports, but Iran’s only

increases in arms imports have come since US sanctions have gone into force.

As Figures Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three show, however, this does not mean that

Iran’s conventional arms imports have not involved some significant purchases. Iran has

developed carefully focused military capabilities and those shown in bold have come from

Russia or the FSU. Iran turned to Russia after the Iran-Iraq War as a potential supplier of the

kind of advanced arms it could not get from the West. As a result, Russian deliveries increased

from $ 1.1 billion during 1987-1990 to $2.4 billion in 1991-1994. Iran was able to import first

line tanks like the T-72 and aircraft like the MiG-29 and Su-24 from the Russian Republic. Iran

has been able to obtain nearly $3.4 billion worth of deliveries from Russia, including two Kilo

submarines, about 120 T-72S tanks, up to 48 MiG-29 fighters, and 200 Strela 3 man-portable

surface-to-air missiles. One estimate also indicates that Iran received extensive artillery

deliveries from Russia, including 100 M-46s and 300 D-30s.vii



44

Iran’s shift to arms imports from Russia has also, however, had disadvantages as well as

advantages. Importing arms from Russia has meant Iran has had to convert to a third major

supplier of arms in the course of about 15 years. It has potentially forced Iran to move from

dependence on the West, to dependence on Asia and simultaneously to dependence on Russia,

creating serious problems in conversion and standardization.

Iran’s force structure is still heavily based on Western supplied equipment, which is not

directly interoperable with Russian and Asian equipment. While much of Iran’s military

equipment from China and North Korea is based on older Soviet designs, many parts, detailed

maintenance procedures, training, and some aspects of tactical operations are not standardized

with the newer Russian deigns that Iran has imported directly from Russia and Eastern Europe.

This sharply increases Iran’s problems in interoperability, sustainability, training, and

operations.

Further, Iran’s ability to obtain arms from Russia has proved highly uncertain. Russia has

a strong economic incentive to sell to Iran, but only if it can obtain oil or hard currency. As a

result, Iran’s economic problems seem to have been a key reason why new arms agreements

with Russia dropped from $2.5 billion in 1987-1990 to $1.2 billion in 1991-1994, and only $200

million during 1994-1997.

The US has put strong pressure on Russia not to make major arms sales to Iran, and

Russia has to consider the impact of every sale to Iran on its relations with the US. Russia agreed

not to make major or destabilizing sales to Iran in a meeting between Clinton and Yeltsin in

September, 1994. This agreement was formalized during a meeting between Vice-President

Gore and Viktor Chernomyrdin on June 29, 1995. Russia agreed to strengthen its controls on the

transfer of “dual-use” technology to Iran during the Clinton-Yeltsin summit meeting in Moscow

in May, 1995, and this issue has been a continuing subject of high level dialogue between the US

and Russia ever since.



45

This agreement has scarcely meant that Russia has cut off all sales and it certainly has not

halted deliveries. Russia has stated that any cut-off of exports only applies to new orders.

Although Iran only placed a total of $200 million in new orders with Russia during 1993-1996,

it did take delivery on $700 million worth of new Russian weapons.viii There also does not seem

to be any formal Russian-US agreement as to exactly what kind of items Russia will or will not

export to Iran, and there is considerable evidence that some Russian military institutes have sold

Iran critical technology for systems like long-range missiles.ix

Since Russia has never defined the nature of Iran’s existing orders, this leaves

considerable leeway as to what Russia may or may not deliver in the future. For example, there

have been repeated reports that Russia has actively discussed the sale of such advanced

technology as an SA-10/SA-12-based air defense system, and Russia and Iran have discussed the

sale of up to 1,000 T-72 Exports and a similar number of BMPs. Senior Russian sources

indicated in June, 1998, that Iran had placed orders worth over $590 million before Russia

reached an agreement with the US, and that this did include a total of 1,000 T-72s and 1,200

other armored vehicles.

There are important figures in Russia that advocate much larger sales to Iran. These have

included some of Yeltsin’s hard-line supporters like Oleg Soskovets, the Chairman of Yeltsin’s

re-election campaign, and a number of Yeltsin’s opponents. According to some reports, a

number of experts in Russia’s Foreign and Defense Ministries have advocated the use of arms

sales to Iran as a way of reasserting Russian influence in the Gulf, as well as of earning hard

currency. x

On a visit to Tehran in October, 1995, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev

announced, “Russia will allow no country to decide partners for Russia.” A Russian Ministry of

Foreign Trade official announced on February, 1996 that Iran was planning to buy $1 billion

worth of military related equipment during the next two years, and that Iran had accounted for

more than 85% of Russian sales to the Gulf in recent years. The spokesman indicated that Iran

had bought $437 million worth of exports in 1994, with $104 million in military technology and



46

arms and $330 million in equipment and services. She indicated that Russian military-related

sales might total $4 billion over the next decade. There are also many reports that Russian

military firms and institutes have sold highly sensitive nuclear and missile technology, although

possibly without the central government’s permission.xi

Russia has since indicated that Iran is seeking a long-term cooperation agreement on

arms and paid $380 million on its past debts to Russia in 1995 -- $250 million in oil and $150

million in cash. At the same time, President Yeltsin agreed to continue the limitations on

Russian sales in 1996 and 1997. He has done so at summit meetings with President Clinton, and

the Russian government reiterated its agreement at the meeting between Vice-Presidents Gore

and Chernomyrdin in September, 1996, and between Secretary of State Albright and Foreign

Minister Primakov in July, 1997.xii

Nevertheless, the Iranian arms purchases listed in Figure Twenty-Three only partially

offset the steadily growing obsolescence of its Western-supplied equipment reflected in Figure

Twenty-Four. Iran has given its economy a higher priority than arms ever since the end of the

Iran-Iraq War and has had only limited total imports of modern aircraft and armor. The US and

its allies have blocked many transfers of advanced arms to Iran, particularly from Europe and the

FSU and Russia has largely honored its agreement not to sell Iran major new shipments of

conventional arms.

The broader patterns in Iran’s ability to sign new arms agreements also show that it will

have growing problems in the future. According to declassified US intelligence estimates, Iran

signed new agreements worth $10.2 billion during the four-year period between 1987-1990 --

the time between the final years of the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. Iran’s new arms

agreements again dropped sharply during the four-year period following the Gulf War, and

totaled only $4.8 billion during 1991-1994. Despite some reports of a massive Iranian military

build-ups -- new agreements during 1991-1994 totaled only a quarter of the value of the

agreements that Iran had signed during the previous four years.



47

Iran signed only $1.6 billion worth of new arms agreements during 1994-1997 -- a period

heavily influenced by an internal economic crisis, low oil revenues, and problems in repaying

foreign debt. Iran ordered $200 million from Russia, $900 million from China, $100 million

from other European states (mostly Eastern Europe), and $300 million from other countries

(mostly North Korea). The drop in agreements with Russia reflected both Iran’s financial

problems and the result of US pressure that had led President Yeltsin not to make major new

arms sales to Iran. Iran’s new agreements with China and North Korea heavily emphasized

missiles and missile production technology. Similar trends took place in deliveries. Iran took

delivery on $7.8 billion worth of arms in 1987-1990, $$3.0 billion in 1990-1993, and $1.9

billion in 1994-1997.

Moreover, Iran is in the middle of considerable political change. The election of

President Khatami in May 1997, has revealed growing divisions between Iran’s “moderates,”

“traditionalists” and extremists. Iran has steadily improved its relations with its Southern Gulf

neighbors. There is at least some prospect that the US and Iran can reestablish diplomatic

relations over the next few years, although no one can predict the future course of the Iranian

revolution and how “moderate” Iran will really become.

Nevertheless, Russian transfers of arms and technology and Iran have almost exactly the

same potential to threaten US power projection capabilities and our friends in the Middle East as

similar transfers to China. While there is no evidence such transfers are underway, the risk

cannot be ignored. It is also clear that the election of President Khatami has not ended Iran’s

continuing focus on weapons of mass destruction and that Russia is at least indirectly involved in

some of these activities. These Russian activities are listed in Figure Twenty-Five. While it

cannot be stressed too firmly that Chinese, North Korean, and West European transfers of

technology have so far contributed as least as much to Iranian proliferation as those of Russia,

the Russian activities in Figure Twenty-Five still make an impressive list.



48

Figure Twenty

Iranian Arms Imports– 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

In Current Dollars

In Constant Dollars0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

In Current Dollars 2300 1700 2600 1800 1900 1600 850 1100 390 300 350

In Constant Dollars 3125 2240 3304 2196 2222 1800 931 1174 406 306 350

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96


GPO, Washington, various editions.



49

Figure Twenty-One

Value of Iranian Arms Deliveries(Constant $96 millions)

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

Arms Deliveries 4237 2941 3125 2240 3304 2196 2222 1800 931 1174 406 306 350 800

84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

US

SANCTIONS

GULF

WAR

UN ARMS

EMBARGO

END OF

IRAN-

IRAQ

Adapted by Anthony H. Cordesman from ACDA, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, various editions.



50

Figure Twenty-Two

Russian Arms Agreements and Deliveries with Iran: 1987-1997($Current Millions)

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

From Russia 2500 1200 200 1100 2400 700

Total 10200 2700 1600 7800 3900 1900

Agreements:

87-90

Agreements:

91-94

Agreements:

94-97

Deliveries: 87-

90

Deliveries: 91-

94

Deliveries: 94-

97




51

Figure Twenty-Three

Key Iranian Equipment Developments - Part One

LAND

• Russian, and Polish T-72 Exports. Reports indicate Iran has procured about 120 T-72Ss fromRussia, and 100 T-72M1s from Poland since 1990. Inventory of about 220 T-72s of various typesin mid-1996.

• Claims to be producing the Iranian-made Zolfaqar MBT, an M-48/M-60-like tank.• Has upgraded to T-54/T-54 called “Safir-74. Claims to have upgraded Iraqi T-54s captured in Iran-

Iraq War.• Purchased Russian BMPs. Inventory of 300 BMP-1s and 100 BMP-2s in mid-1996.• Russia may be licensing Iranian production of T-72 and BMP-2.• Domestic production of a Chinese version of the BMP called the Boragh.• Domestic production of an APC called the BMT-2 or Cobra.• Possible purchase of 100 M-46 and 300 D-30 artillery weapons from Russia.• Testing prototype of 122 mm self-propelled gun called Thunder.• Has shown a modified heavy equipment transporter called the “Babr 400.”• Russian and Asian AT-2s, AT-3s, and AT-4s. Does not seems to include 100 Chinese Red

Arrows.• Chinese and 15+ North Korean 146 mm self-propelled weapons• Has 60 Russian 2S1 122 mm self-propelled howitzers in inventory.• Growing numbers of BM-24 240 mm, BM-21 122 mm and Chinese Type 63 107 mm MRLs• Iranian Hadid 122 mm - 40 round MRL• Manufacturing Iranian Arash and Noor rockets (variants of Chinese and Russian 122 mm rockets)• Manufacturing Iranian Haseb rockets (variants of Chinese 107 mm rocket)• Manufacturing Iranian Shahin 1 and 2, Oghab, Nazeat 5 and 10 (may be additional versions), and

Fajr battlefield rockets

AIR/AIR DEFENSE

• Keeping up to 115 combat aircraft that Iraq sent to Iran during Gulf War. Seem to include 24 Su-4sand four MiG-29s.

• Has 30 MiG-29s with refueling in inventory, may be receiving 15-20 more from Russia• Has 30 Su-24s in inventory (probably Su-24D version), may be receiving 6 to 9 more from

Russia• May be negotiating purchase of AS-10, AS-11, AS-12, AS-14/16s from Russia• Has Su-25s (formerly Iraqi), although has not deployed.• May be trying to purchase more Su-25s, as well as MiG-31s, Su-27s and Tu-22Ms• Considering imports of Chinese F-8 fighter and Jian Hong bomber• Has 25 Chinese F-7M fighters with PL-2, PL2A, and PL-7 AAMs.• Has purchased 25 Brazilian Tucano trainers and 25 Pakistani MiG-17 trainers. Uncertain report has

bought 12 MiG-29UB trainers from Russia.• Has bought 12 Italian AB-212, 20 German BK-117A-3, and 12 Russian Mi-17 support and

utility helicopters.• Iran claims to have fitted F-14s with I-Hawk missiles adapted to the air-to-air role• Claims to produce advanced electronic warfare systems.• IRGC claims to be ready to mass-produce gliders.



52

Figure Twenty-Three

Key Iranian Equipment Developments - Part Two

LAND-BASED AIR DEFENSE• May be negotiating purchase of S-300, S-400, SA-14/16s from Russia• Reports has acquired four HQ-23/2B (CSA-1) launchers and 45-48 missiles, plus 25 SA-6, and 10-15

SA-5 launchers.• Has acquired Chinese FM-80 launchers and a few RBS-70s• More SA-7s and HN-5s man-portable missiles; may have acquired 100-200 Strelas.• Reports is seeking to modernize Rapier and 10-15 Tigercat fire units• May be modifying and/or producing ZSU-23-4 radar-guided anti-aircraft guns.• Claims to produce advanced electronic warfare systems.

SEA• Claims will soon start producing 6 multi-purpose destroyers.• Has taken delivery on three Russian Type 877EKM Kilo-class submarines, possibly with 1,000

modern magnetic, acoustic, and pressure sensitive mines.• Reports has North Korean midget submarines have never been confirmed• Has obtained 10 Hudong-class Chinese missile patrol boats.• US Mark 65 and Russian AND 500, AMAG-1, KRAB anti-ship mines• Reports that Iran is negotiating to buy Chinese EM-52 rocket-propelled mine• Iran claims to be developing non-magnetic, acoustic, free-floating and remote controlled mines. It

may have also acquired non-magnetic mines, influence mines and mines with sophisticated timingdevices.

• Wake-homing and wire-guided Russian torpedoes• Seersucker (HY-2) sites with 50-60 missiles - Iran working to extend range to 400 km.• Has 60-100 Chinese CS-801(Ying Jai-1 SY-2) and CS-802 (YF-6) SSMs.• Iran is developing FL-10 anti-ship cruise missile which is copy of Chinese FL-2 or FL-7.• Boghammer fast interceptor craft

MISSILES• Obtained up to 250-300 Scud Bs with 8-15 launchers• Up to 150 Chinese CSS-8 surface-to-surface missiles with 25-30 launchers.• Reports that China is giving Iran technology to produce long-range solid fuel missile• Iran-130 missile (?)• Has bought North Korean Scud Cs with 5-14 launchers• South Korea reports Iran has bought total of 100 Scud Bs and 100 Scud Cs from North Korea.• Developing Shahab 3 and Shahab 4 with some Russian assistance.• Reported to have a longer range missile based on the Russian SS-4, possibly the Shahab 5.• Iran may be planning to purchase North Korean No-Dong 1/2s• Iran also interested in North Korea’s developmental Tapeo Dong 1 or Tapeo Dong 2.• Claims will launch its first experimental satellite by 2000 with Russian aid.• Reports of tunnels for hardened deployment of Scuds and SAMs.

CBW• Chemical weapons (sulfur mustard gas, hydrogen cyanide, phosgene and/or chlorine; possibly Sarin

and Tabun)• Biological weapons ( possibly Anthrax, hoof and mouth disease, and other biotoxins)• Nuclear weapons development (Russian and Chinese reactors)



53

Source: Based on interviews, reporting in various defense journals, and the IISS, Military Balance, variouseditions.



54

Figure Twenty-Four

Iranian Dependence on Decaying Western Supplied Major Weapons - Part One

Military Service Weapon Comments Type Number

Land ForcesChieftain tank 240-260 Worn, under-armored, underarmed, and underpowered. Fire

control and sighting system now obsolete. Cooling problems.M-47/M-48 150-260 Worn, under-armored, underarmed, and underpowered. Fire

control and sighting system now obsolete.M-60A1 150-160 Worn, under-armored, underarmed, and

underpowered. Fire control and sighting system nowobsolete.

Scorpion AFV 70-80 Worn, light armor, underarmed, and underpowered.

M-114s 70-80 Worn, light armor, and underarmed, and underpowered

M-109 155 mm SP 150-160 Worn, Fire control system now obsolete. Growing reliabilityproblems due to lack of updates and parts.

M-107 175 mm SP 20-30 Worn, Fire control system now obsolete. Growing reliabilityproblems due to lack of parts.

M-110 203 mm SP 25-35 Worn, Fire control system now obsolete. Growing reliabilityproblems due to lack of parts.

AH-1J Attack heli. 100 Worn, avionics and weapons suite now obsolete. Growingreliability problems due to lack of updates and parts.

CH-47 Trans. heli. 35-45 Worn, avionics now obsolete. Growing reliability problemsdue to lack of updates and parts.

Bell, Hughes, Boeing,Agusta, Sikorsky helicopters 350-445 Worn, Growing reliability problems due to lack of updates

and parts.Air Force

F-4D/E FGA 55-60 Worn, avionics now obsolete. Critical problems due to lackof updates and parts.

60 F-5E/FII FGA 60 Worn, avionics now obsolete. Serious problems due to lackof updates and parts.

F-5A/B 10 Worn, avionics now obsolete. Serious problems due to lackof updates and parts.

RF-4E 8 Worn, avionics now obsolete. Serious problems due to lackof updates and parts.

RF-5E 5-10 Worn, avionics now obsolete. Serious problems due to lackof updates and parts. (May be in storage)



55

F-14 AWX 60 Worn, avionics now obsolete. Critical problems due to lackof updates and parts. Cannot operate some radars at longranges. Phoenix missile capability cannot be used.



56

Figure Twenty-Four

Iranian Dependence on Decaying Western Supplied Major Weapons - Part Two

Military Service Weapon Comments Type Number

Air Force - Continued

P-3F MPA 5 Worn, avionics and sensors now obsolete. Many sensors andweapons cannot be used. Critical problems due to lack ofupdates and parts.

Key PGMs - Remaining Mavericks, Aim-7s, Aim-9s, Aim-54s are all longpast rated shelf life. Many or most are unreliable orinoperable.

I-Hawk SAM 150-175 Worn, electronics, software, and some aspects of sensors nowobsolete. Critical problems due to lack of updates and parts.

Rapier SAM 30 Worn, electronics, software, and some aspects of sensors nowobsolete. Critical problems due to lack of updates and parts.

NavyBabar DE 1 Worn, weapons and electronics suite obsolete, many systems

inoperable or partly dysfunctional due to Critical problemsdue to lack of updates and parts.

Samavand DDG 5 Worn, weapons and electronics suite obsolete, many systemsinoperable or partly dysfunctional due to Critical problemsdue to lack of updates and parts.

Alvand FFG 3 Worn, weapons and electronics suite obsolete, many systemsinoperable or partly dysfunctional due to Critical problemsdue to lack of updates and parts.

Bytander FF 2 Obsolete. Critical problems due to lack of updates and parts.

Hengeman LST 4 Worn, needs full scale refit.

Source: Estimate made by Anthony H. Cordesman based on the equipment counts in IISS, Military Balance, 1995-1996, “Iran,” and discussions with US experts. Note that different equipment estimates are used later in the text.The IISS figures are used throughout this chart to preserve statistical consistency.



57

Figure Twenty-Five

Russian Activities That Impact on Iranian Proliferation

Delivery Systems

• The Soviet-designed Scud B (17E) guided missile still forms the core of Iran’s ballistic missile forces --largely as a result of the Iran-Iraq War.

• Russia has been a key supplier of missile technology.

• Some sources have indicated that Russian military industries have signed contracts with Iran tohelp produce liquid fueled missiles and provide specialized wind tunnels, manufacture modelmissiles, and develop specialized computer software. For example, these reports indicate that theRussian Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute is cooperating with Iran’s Defense IndustriesOrganization (DIO) and the DIO’s Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG). The Russian StateCorporation for Export and Import or Armament and Military Equipment (Rosvoorouzhenie)and Infor are also reported to be involved in deals with the SHIG. These deals are also said toinclude specialized laser equipment, mirrors, tungsten-coast graphite material, and maragingsteel for missile development and production. They could play a major role in help Iran developlong range versions of the Scud B and C, and more accurate variations of a missile similar to theNo Dong.

• The Israeli press reported in August, 1997 that Israel had evidence that Iran was receivingRussian support. In September, 1997, Israel urged the US to step up its pressure on Iran, andleaked reports indicating that private and state-owned Russian firms had provided gyroscopes,electronic components, wind tunnels, guidance and propulsion systems, and the componentsneeded to build such systems to Iran.

• President Yeltsin and the Russian Foreign Ministry initially categorically denied that suchcharges were true. Following a meeting with Vice President Gore, President Yeltsin stated onSeptember 26, 1997 that, “We are being accused of supplying Iran with nuclear or ballisticmissile technologies. There is nothing further from the truth. I again and again categoricallydeny such rumors.”

• Russia agreed, however, that Ambassador Wisner and Yuri Koptyev, the head of the Russianspace program, should jointly examine the US intelligence and draft a report on Russiantransfers to Iran. This report reached a very different conclusion from President Yeltsin andconcluded that Russia had provided such aid to Iran. Further, on October 1, 1997 -- roughly aweek after Yeltsin issued his denial -- the Russian security service issued a statement that it had“thwarted” an Iranian attempt to have parts for liquid fuel rocket motors manufactured in Russia,disguised as gas compressors and pumps.

• Russian firms said to be helping Iran included the Russian Central Aerohydrodynamic Institutewhich developed a special wind tunnel; Rosvoorouzhenie, a major Russian arms-export agency;Kutznetzov (formerly NPO Trud) a rocket motor manufacturer in Samara; a leading researchcenter called the Bauman National Technical University in Moscow, involved in developingrocket propulsion systems; the Tsagi Research Institute for rocket propulsion development; andthe Polyus (Northstar) Research Institute in Moscow, a major laser test and manufacturingequipment firm. Iranians were also found to be studying rocket engineering at the Baltic StateUniversity in St. Petersburg and the Bauman State University.



58

• Russia was also found to have sold Iran high strength steel and special foil for its long-rangemissile program. The Russian Scientific and Production Center Inor concluded an agreement aslate as September, 1997 to sell Iran a factory to produce four special metal alloys used in long-range missiles. Inor’s director, L. P Chromova worked out a deal with A. Asgharzadeh, thedirector of an Iranian factory, to sell 620 kilograms of special alloy called 21HKMT, andprovide Iran with the capability to thermally treat the alloy for missile bodies. Iran hadpreviously bought 240 kilograms of the alloy. Inor was also selling alloy foils called 49K2F,CUBE2, and 50N in sheets 0.2-0.4 millimeters thick for the outer body of missiles. The alloy21HKMT was particularly interesting because North Korea also uses it in missile designs. Inorhad previously brokered deals with the Shahid Hemat Industrial Group in Iran to supplymaraging steel for missile cases, composite graphite-tungsten material, laser equipment, andspecial mirrors used in missile tests.

• The result was a new and often tense set of conversations between the US and Russia in January,1998. The US again sent Ambassador Frank Wisner to Moscow, Vice President Gore calledPrime Minster Viktor Chernomyrdin, and Secretary of State Madeline Albright made an indirectthreat that the Congress might apply sanctions. Sergi Yastrzhembsky, a Kremlin spokesman,initially responded by denying that any transfer of technology had taken place.

• This Russian denial was too categorical to have much credibility. Russia had previouslyannounced the arrest of an Iranian diplomat on November 14, 1997, that it caught attempting tobuy missile technology. The Iranian was seeking to buy blueprints and recruit Russian scientiststo go to Iran. Yuri Koptev, the head of the Russian Space Agency, explained this, however, bystating that that, “There have been several cases where some Russian organizations, desperatelystruggling to make ends meet and lacking responsibility, have embarked on some ambiguousprojects...they were stopped long before they got to the point where any technology got out.”

• The end result of these talks was an agreement by Gore and Chernomyrdin to strengthen controlsover transfer technology, but it was scarcely clear that it put an end to the problem. As Koptevhas said, “There have been several cases where some Russian organizations, desperatelystruggling to make ends meet and lacking responsibility, have embarked on some ambiguousprojects.” Conditions in Russia are getting worse, not better, and the desperation that drives saleshas scarcely diminished.

• Prime Minister Chernomyrdin again promised to strengthen his efforts to restrict technologytransfer to Iran in a meeting with Gore on March 12, 1998. The US informed Russia of 13 casesof possible Russian aid to Iran at the meeting and offered to increase the number of Russiancommercial satellite launches it would license for US firms as an incentive.

• New arrests of smugglers took place on April 9, 1998. The smugglers had attempted to ship 22tons of specialized steel to Iran via Azerbaijan, using several Russia shell corporations as acover.

• On April 16, 1998, the State Department declared 20 Russian agencies and research facilitieswere ineligible to receive US aid because of their role in transferring missile technology to Iran.

• Iran tested the Shahab-3 on July, 21 1998, claiming that it was a defensive action to deal withpotential threats from Israel.

• The missile flew for a distance of up to 620 miles, before it exploded about 100 seconds afterlaunch. US intelligence sources could not confirm whether the explosion was deliberate, butindicated that the final system might have a range of 800-940 miles (a maximum of 1,240



59

kilometers), depending on its payload. The test confirmed the fact the missile was a liquid fueledsystem.

• Gen. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' air wingpublicly reported on August 2, 1998 that the Shahab-3 is 53-foot-long ballistic missile that cantravel at 4,300 mph and carry a one-ton warhead at an altitude of nearly 82,000 feet. He claimedthat the weapon was guided by an Iranian-made system that gives it great accuracy: “The finaltest of every weapon is in a real war situation but, given its warhead and size, the Shahab-3 is avery accurate weapon.”

• Other Iranian sources reported that the missile had a range of 800 miles. President MohammadKhatami on August 1, 1998 stated that Iran was determined to continue to strengthen its armedforces, regardless of international concerns: “Iran will not seek permission from anyone forstrengthening its defense capability.”

• Martin Indyck, the US Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs testified on July 28, that the USestimated that the system needed further refinement but might be deployed in its initialoperational form between September, 1998 and March, 1999.

• Iran publicly displayed the Shahab 3 on its launcher during a parade on September 25, 1998. Themissile carrier bore signs saying, “The US can do nothing” and “Israel would be wiped from themap.”

• There are some reports of a Shahab-3B missile with extended range and a larger booster.

• The resulting system seems to be close to both the No-Dong and Pakistani Ghauri or Haff-5missile, first tested in April 1998, raising questions about Iranian-North Korean-Pakistanicooperation.

• There have been growing reports that Iran might be using Russian technology to develop a long-rangemissiles with ranges from 2,000 to 6,250 kilometers.

• Israeli and US intelligence sources have reported that that Iran is developing the Shahab 4, with a rangeof 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), a payload of around 2,000 pounds, and a CEP of around 2,400 meters.Some estimates indicate that this system could be operational in 2-5 years. US Assistant Secretary forNear East Affairs testified on July 28, 1998, that the US estimated that the system still needed addedforeign assistance to improve its motors and guidance system.

• Some reports indicate that the Shahab 4 is based on the Soviet SS-4 missile. Others that there isa longer range Shahab 5, based on the SS-4 or Tapeo Dong missile. Reports saying the Shahab isbased on the SS-4 say it has a range of up to 4,000 kilometers and a payload in excess of oneton.)

• Iran may have two other missile programs include longer-range systems, variously reported ashaving maximum ranges of 3,650, 4,500-5,000, 6,250, or 10,000 kilometers.

• It seems clear that Iran has obtained some of the technology and design details of theRussian SS-4. The SS-4 (also known as the R-12 or “Sandal”) is an aging Russian liquidfuel designed that first went into service in 1959, and which was supposedly destroyed aspart of the IRBM Treaty. It is a very large missile, with technology dating back to the early1950s, although it was evidently updated at least twice during the period between 1959 and1980. It has a CEP of 2-4 kilometers and a maximum range 2,000 kilometers, which meansit can only be lethal with a nuclear warhead or a biological weapon with near-nuclearlethality.



60

• At the same time, the SS-4’s overall technology is relatively simple and it has athrowweight of nearly 1,400 kilograms (3,000 pounds). It is one of the few missile designsthat a nation with a limited technology base could hope to manufacture or adapt, and itsthrowweight and range would allow Iran to use a relatively unsophisticated nuclear deviceor biological warhead. As a result, an updated version of the SS-4 might be a suitable designfor a developing country.

• Su-24 long-range strike fighters with range-payloads roughly equivalent to US F-111 and superior toolder Soviet medium bombers.

Chemical Weapons

• No evidence of Russian support.

Biological Weapons

• No evidence of Russian support.

Nuclear Weapons

• Russia has agreed to build up to four reactors, beginning with a complex at Bushehr -- with two 1,000-1,200 megawatt reactors and two 465 megawatt reactors, and provide significant nuclear technology.

• Russia has consistently claimed the light water reactor designs for Bushehr cannot be used toproduce weapons grade Plutonium and are similar to the reactors the US is providing to North Korea.

• The US has claimed, however, that Victor Mikhaliov, the head of Russia’s Atomic Energy Ministry,proposed the sale of a centrifuge plant in April, 1995. The US also indicated that it had persuadedRussia not to sell Iran centrifuge technology as part of the reactor deal during the summit meetingbetween President’s Clinton and Yeltsin in May, 1995.

• It was only after US pressure that Russia publicly stated that it never planned to sell centrifuge andadvanced enrichment technology to Iran, and Iran denied that it had ever been interested in suchtechnology. For example, the statement of Mohammed Sadegh Ayatollahi, Iran’s representative tothe IAEA, stated that, “We’ve had contracts before for the Bushehr plant in which we agreed that thespent fuel would go back to the supplier. For our contract with the Russians and Chinese, it is thesame.” According to some reports, Russia was to reprocess the fuel at its Mayak plant nearChelyabinsk in the Urals, and could store it at an existing facility, at Krasnoyarsk-26 in southernSiberia.

• The CIA reported in June 1997 that Iran had obtained new nuclear technology from Russia during1996.

• A nuclear accident at plant at Rasht, six miles north of Gilan, exposed about 50 people to radiation inJuly, 1996.

• Russian Nuclear Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov and Russian Deputy Prime Minister VladimirBulgak visited in March, 1998. and Iran and dismissed US complaints about the risk the reactorswould be used to proliferate.

• Russia indicated that it would go ahead with selling two more reactors for construction at Bushehrwithin the next five years.

• The first 1,000 megawatt reactor at Bushehr has experienced serious construction delays. In March,1998, Russia and Iran agreed to turn the construction project into a turn key plant because the Iranian



61

firms working on infrastructure had fallen well behind schedule. In February, Iran had agreed to fundimproved safety systems. The reactor is reported to be on a 30 month completion cycle.

• The US persuaded the Ukraine not to sell Iran $45 million worth of turbines for its nuclear plant inearly March, 1998, and to strengthen its controls on Ukrainian missile technology under the MTCR.

• The control of fissile material in the FSU remains a major problem:

• US estimates indicate the FSU left a legacy of some 1,485 tons of nuclear material. This include 770tons in some 27,000 weapons, including 816 strategic bombs, 5,434 missile warheads, and about20,000 theater and tactical weapons. In addition, there were 715 tons of fissile or near-fissile materialin eight countries of the FSU in over 50 sites: enough to make 35,000-40,000 bombs.

• There are large numbers of experienced FSU technicians, including those at the Russian weaponsdesign center at Arzamas, and at nuclear production complexes at Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, andTomsk.

• These factors led the US to conduct Operation Sapphire in 1994, where the US removed 600kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the Ulba Metallurgy Plant in Kazakhstan at a time Iranwas negotiating for the material.

• They also led to Britain and the US cooperating in Auburn Endeavor, and airlifting fissile materialout of a nuclear research facility in Tiblisi, Georgia. There were 10 pounds of material at theinstitute, and 8.8 pounds were HEU. (It takes about 35 pounds to make a bomb.) This operation wasreported in the New York Times on April 21, 1998. The British government confirmed it took place,but would not give the date.

• Iran attempted to buy highly enriched fissile material from Khazakstan. The US paid between $20million and $30 million to buy 1,300 pounds of highly enriched uranium from the Ust-Kamenogorskfacility in Khazakstan that Iran may have sought to acquire in 1992. A total of 120 pounds of the material-- enough for two bombs -- cannot be fully accounted for.

• The Jerusalem Post reported on April 9, 1998 that Iran had purchased four tactical nuclear weapons fromRussian smugglers for $25 million in the early 1990s, that the weapons had been obtained fromKazakhstan in 1991, and that Argentine technicians were helping to activate the weapon.

• It quoted what it claimed was an Iranian report, dated December 26, 1991, of a meeting betweenBrigadier General Rahim Safavi, the Deputy Commander of the Revolutionary Guards and RezaAmrohalli, then head of the Iranian atomic energy organization.

• It also quoted a second document -- dated January 2, 1992 --- saying the Iranians were awaiting thearrival of Russian technicians to show them how to disarm the protection systems that wouldotherwise inactivate the weapons if anyone attempted to use them.

• The documents implied the weapons were flawed by did not indicate whether Iran had succeeded inactivating them.

• The US intelligence community denied any evidence that such a transfer had taken place.

Missile Defenses

• Seeking Russian S-300 or S-400 surface-to-air missile system with limited anti tactical ballistic missilecapability.



62

Iraqi Arms Imports and ExportsIraq has paid many prices for its invasion of Kuwait, but one price has clearly been the

inability to maintain and modernize its conventional arms imports. Iraq took delivery on $29.7

billion worth of new arms during the latter half of the Iran-Iraq War -- the period from 1984-

1988. These deliveries included $15.4 billion worth of arms from the former Soviet Union,

$0.75 billion from Poland, $0.65 billion from Bulgaria, $0.675 billion from Czechoslovakia, and

$2.8 billion from the People's Republic of China. Iraq obtained $3.1 billion from France, $0.37

billion from Italy, $0.03 billion from the UK, $0.675 billion from Germany, and $5.2 billion

from other countries.xiii

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, it was the dominant regional military power in the Gulf. It

had decisively defeated Iran during the spring and summer of 1988, in battles that cost Iran some

45-55% of its inventory of major land force weapons. Furthermore, the US and Britain had

inflicted major losses on the Iranian Navy in the “tanker war” of 1987-1988. Iraq had the only

modern, combat-effective armored and mechanized forces in the Gulf and an air force that was

emerging as combat-effective for the first time. It had massive missile forces and chemical

warfare capabilities, was beginning to deploy large numbers of biological weapons, and was

making substantial progress in developing a nuclear capability.

Iraq has rebuilt and reorganized its forces that survived the Gulf War. It still has some

2,700 main battle tanks in its active forces, and can still launch a force of five heavy divisions

against Kuwait with only limited warning. In spite of Desert Fox and the war of attrition that has

followed, it still has around 350 combat aircraft and significant land-based air defense assets.

Kuwait has only two light combat-ready brigades with an active strength of less than 174 tanks,

and 40 modern F-18A/B fighters. Saudi Arabia has an excellent air force with 315 modern F-15s

and Tornados, but it only has about 650 operational main battle tanks in its combat-capable main

divisions and its land-forces are scattered over much of the Kingdom.



63

At the same time, Iraq has only about half the land and air capability it had when Desert

Storm began. Many of its missile, chemical, biological, and nuclear capabilities have been

dismantled by UNSCOM and the IAEA, and its efforts to develop its military industries have

been severely limited by the impact of seven years of UN sanctions. Figures Twenty-Six and

Twenty-Seven show that Iraq has not had any significant imports of arms or military technology

since the summer of 1990, and has had no opportunity to change its forces to react to many of

the lessons of the Gulf War. In fact, Iraq’s arms imports have been reduced to levels that are so

low that US intelligence no longer releases an estimate.

Once again, however, any resumption of Russian (or French) arms exports could change

this situation in the same way as for North Korean and Iran. Iraq’s regime has not changed in

character and it remains a significant threat to all its neighbors. It is likely to be a revanchist state

as long as Saddam Hussein is in power, and will remain determined to rebuild its military power

as soon as it can do so.

Iraq will also be desperate to buy. Figure Twenty-Seven shows that Iraq now faces

massive problems in terms of military obsolescence. Figure Twenty-Eight shows that Iraq also

has built-up such a massive deficit in terms of new arms orders and deliveries that it will take

years to correct the situation. While it is impossible to make reliable estimates, it is difficult to

see how Iraq could fully recapitalize and modernize its forces for less than $35 to $50 billion

dollars and it will need both access to modern high technology weapons and cumulative

expenditures of at least $22 to $26 billion to begin to compete with a combination of US and

Southern Gulf capabilities.

The good news is that even if all sanctions stopped today, it would take at least half a

decade for Iraq to buy and receive deliveries on such orders. In the interim, Iraq has no choice

other than to smuggle what it can, seek to transform its military industries from centers of

vainglorious rhetoric into centers of actual production, and obtain what it can.



64

The bad news is that this kind of conventional weakness acts as a major incentive to proliferate.

Iraq has already succeeded in smuggling in missile guidance platforms from Russia, and there

are reports it is acquiring dual-use items relating to biological and chemical weapons. On

November 10, 1995, Jordan intercepted a major shipment of missile guidance components and

manufacturing equipment.xiv This shipment made it clear that Iraq set up a clandestine import

program to obtain missile guidance systems and furnaces to make missile components for Scud-

type missiles following the Gulf War. The shipment was worth nearly $25 million, and had been

purchased by a front group in Amman headed by a Palestinian named Weamma Gharbiyeh. It

included 115 gyroscopes bound for Iraq, and a total of 10 crates worth of equipment that were

air freighted from Moscow to Amman on November 10, 1995. The shipment included entire

guidance canisters, although these guidance systems would have required massive reengineering

to be used with the much slower reacting missiles Iraq had developed at the time of the Gulf

War. Rolf Ekeus, the Chairman of UNSCOM referred to this effort as, “a large shipment of

high-grade missile components.”xv.

UNSCOM inspectors found additional gyroscopes in a canal of the Tigris on December

9, 1995. The gyroscopes had been smuggled from Russia. They were taken from dismantled

Russian SS-N-18 or “Stingray” SLBM warheads. The SS-N-18 is an advanced system that

entered Russian service in 1977, and which was three variations, with a throwweight of 16,500

kilograms, ranges of 6,500-8,000 kilometers, 1-7 MIRV’d warheads, and CEPs ranging from

900-1,400 meters.

The first detailed report on this Iraqi smuggling effort was isused by the PIR-Center for

Policy Studies on April 12, 1998. It stated that the smuggled gyroscopes had first come to light

after UN weapons inspectors received a tip and fished 10 of the gyroscopes out of the Tigris

River near the Iraqi capital Baghdad. According to the PIR, the gyroscopes came from the

Research and Testing Institute of Chemical and Building Machines, a defense plant in Sergiyev

Posad, a town near Moscow. The plant is involved in the dismantling long-range strategic

missiles, and the gyroscopes were part of the guidance systems for the RSM-50 submarine-



65

launched intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of 5,000 miles. The missiles were

dismantled under the START-1 arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia.

The PIR report indicated that Gharbiyeh initially procured a batch of 10 samples, which

were ultimately found in the Tigris River, the report said. He then received the main shipment of

800 missile componnents, dubbed “micromotors'' in official documents that passed through

Russian customs at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and on to Jordan. Hussein Kamel al-Majid,

the son-in-law of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the head of Iraq's weapons program,

allegedly ordered the gyroscopes, but defected to neighboring Jordan in the summer of 1995.

Gharbiyeh went to Baghdad in a bid to complete the deal, but was arrested and charged with

“working for an enemy state'' because of his connection to al-Majid, who was branded a traitor

by Iraq. Al-Majid was killed shortly after he returned to Iraq in 1996 and Gharbiyeh has

remained jailed in Iraq ever since.

The report stated that the Russian government investigated the sales but closed the case

and never prosecuted anyone at the military plant that allegedly sold the sophisticated devices to

a Palestinian. The PIR report indicated that the Russian Criminal Code was not enforced because

“Russian lawmakers and the government failed to notice its serious flaws.” The report indicated

that the most relevant section of Russian criminal law dealing with export controls only barred

the sale of weapons of mass destruction. It does not specifically prohibit the transfer, however,

of key missile components, such as the gyroscopes, which are used to guide missiles to their

targets.

More details were provided in a report by David Hoffman in the Washington Post on

October 18, 1998. This report was based on joint work by the PIR Center for Policy Studies in

Russia and the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the US. It indicated that the

gyroscopes were only part of a much larger series of shipments, and were the result of a

purchasing effort by a group of top Iraqi missile experts during trip to Russia in late 1994. They

signed a letter of intent to buy orders for missile engines, technology and services in spite of UN

sanctions. This report confirms that the Iraqis used Gharbiyeh as a purchasing agent. In addition



66

to the gyroscopes, Iraq signed contract to buy a 5,000-liter fermentation vessel that could be

used to produce biological weapons.

According to the PIR Center for Policy Studies and the Monterey Institute report,

Gharbiyeh was given a major order in August 1994 from the Ibn Al Haythan Missile Center in

Iraq. The Center agreed to pay him $3.9 million for key missile components and technology,

including precision guidance instruments. Gharbiyeh then brought a delegation of Iraqi missile

specialists to Russia in November, 1994. These experts included representatives from the Ibn Al

Haythan center and from Karama, a large Iraqi aerospace and defense firm. They met with

senior officials at Russian missile design and production facilities.

The investigation found that the Iraqis and Russians discussed dozens of protocols and

letters of intent for the purchase missile components, technology and services. “The Russians

would supply missile engines, missile design, training, technology, manufacturing and testing

for engines, airframes, and guidance and control systems.” These included “the most advanced

technologies, and eager to work out specific offers as soon as possible, as long as payment was

assured.”

One of the letters of intent was signed with the Scientific Production Association

Energomash, a huge Russian producer of rocket engines based in Moscow. The company agreed

to provide “complete technology transfer,” including production equipment for two types of

liquid-fueled missile engines. “Energomash agreed to provide a complete rocket engine of four-

ton thrust as well as design calculations, final design, and five complete samples of a propulsion

system for a ‘communications satellite’ whose size matched the payload specifications for an

intermediate-range Scud-derived missile…The Russians agreed to train the Iraqis in the design,

production, and testing of modern rocket engines, and to enter into a project to jointly design a

rocket engine,” the investigators reported. “Energomash officials assured the Iraqis that they

could go ahead with these deals even without the approval of their government by paying bribes

to the appropriate people.”



67

Energomash has denied these activities, but the investigation reports Gharbiyeh remained

in Moscow to finish the contracts and returned to Baghdad in early 1995 to negotiate deals with

his Iraqi contacts worth more than $65 million.

The PIR Center for Policy Studies and the Monterey Institute also found that Gharbiyeh

returned to Russia to purchase the gyroscopes from a missile destruction factory in Sergiyev

Posad, a town north of Moscow. He had the gyroscopes tested and certified at a special facility

in Moscow, and arranged for the air shipment of 800 sensitive missile gyroscopes and

accelerometers from Moscow to Amman.

It was these components that were seized in November 1995 in Amman. They included

240 strategic missile gyroscopes and 240 accelerometers. However, only 120 gyroscopes and

120 accelerometers were seized in Jordan. UNSCOM inspectors found an additional 33

gyroscopes and 26 accelerometers in the Tigris River in Baghdad on December 9, 1995. These

seizures, however, leave about 180 gyroscopes and accelerometers—enough for 30 missile

guidance systems—still to be accounted for.

The Center for Policy Studies in Russia concluded that most of the other were never

delivered because of work by the Russian security services and Gharbiyeh’s arrest in 1995. The

Center also concluded, however, “it is hard to imagine that the Russian authorities at some level

were not aware of his (Gharbiyeh’s) activities.”

Other sources indicate the guidance platforms were taken illegally from a Russian facility

called the Scientific Testing Institute of Chemical Machine Building at Sergiyev Posad. These

sources report they were part of a shipment of 30 gyroscopes that had been air freighted to

Jordan as “electrical measuring equipment” by a company called TASM, located in Moscow and

head by a former Russian general. The reports indicate that the deal was negotiated during 1993-

1994 by a Lebanese middleman. The gyroscopes were roughly the size of a paperback novel,

and were easy to smuggle. They evidently ended up in the Karama research center near

Baghdad.



68

It is not yet clear why the guidance platforms were dumped in the river or how the

UNSCOM inspectors managed to find them. Some US experts estimate, however, that they were

simply too advanced for Iraq and became a potential political embarrassment without offering

Iraq any technology it could adapt or weaponize.xvi

In biological technology, however, detection is more difficult. It is virtually impossible

to locate small, dispersed biological facilities, and suitable research can be carried out under a

number of different cover stories. There are also questions about technology transfer. It is

possible, for example, that Russia may have given Iraq a strain of Anthrax that has been

genetically modified to the point where the US vaccine for Anthrax would no longer be

effective.xvii Certainly, Russia seems to have been remarkably careless about controlling its

biological equipment exports – such as fermentation vessels – as late as February 1998.xviii

Like Iran and many other potential threats, Iraq has little near to mid-term chance of

winning a conventional battle. Its only practical choices are to try to find some form of

asymmetric warfare than can exploit US weaknesses or to try to use weapons of mass destruction

and long-range missiles to deter the use of US conventional forces or act as an “equalizer” in

actual war fighting. This makes any Russian legal or black market transfer of technology

threatening, and it is hardly necessary to point out that the direct transfer of fissile material or of

any of Russia’s most lethal forms of biological weapons could have devastating effects.



69

Figure Twenty-Six

Iraqi Arms Imports– 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

In Current Dollars

In Constant Dollars

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

In Current Dollars 6100 5900 5600 2500 3000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

In Constant Dollars 8288 7774 7117 3050 3508 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98





70

Figure Twenty-Seven

Russian Arms Agreements and Deliveries with Iraq: 1987-1997($Current Millions)

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

18000

From Russia 4100 0 0 7400 0 0

Total 10500 0 0 16600 0 0

Agreements:

87-90

Agreements:

91-94

Agreements:

94-97

Deliveries: 87-

90

Deliveries: 91-

94

Deliveries: 94-

97




71

Figure Twenty-Eight

Iraqi Dependence on Decaying, Obsolete, or Obsolescent Major Weapons

Land Forces• 600-700 M-48s, M-60s, AMX-30s, Centurions, and Chieftains captured from Iran or which it obtained in

small numbers from other countries.• 1,000 T-54, T-55, T-77 and Chinese T-59 and T-69 tanks• 200 T-62s.• 1,500-2,100 (BTR-50, BTR-60, BTR-152, OT-62, OT-64, etc• 1,600 BDRM-2, EE-3, EE-9, AML-60, AML-90• 800-1,200 towed artillery weapons (105 mm, 122 mm, 130 mm, and 155 mm).• Unknown number of AS-11, AS-1, AT-1, crew-portable anti-tank-guided missiles.• More than 1,000 heavy, low-quality anti-aircraft guns.• Over 1,500 SA-7 and other low-quality surface-to-air guided missile launchers & fire units.• 20 PAH-1 (Bo-105); attack helicopters with AS-11 and AS-12, 30 Mi-24s and Mi-25s with AT-2 missiles,

SA-342s with AS-12s, Allouettes with AS-11s and AS-12s.• 100-180 worn or obsolete transport helicopters.

Air Force• 6-7 HD-6 (BD-6), 1-2 Tu-16, and 6 Tu-22 bombers.• 100 J-6, MiG-23BN, MiG-27, Su-7 and Su-20.• 140 J-7, MiG-21, MiG-25 air defense fighters.• MiG-21 and MiG-25 reconnaissance fighters.• 15 Hawker Hunters.• Il-76 Adnan AEW aircraft.• AA-6, AA-7, Matra 530 air-to-air missiles.• AS-11, AS-12, AS-6, AS-14; air-to-surface missiles.• 25 PC-7, 30 PC-9, 40 L-29 trainers.• An-2, An-12, and Il-76 transport aircraft.·

Air Defense• 20-30 operational SA-2 batteries with 160 launch units.• 25-50 SA-3 batteries with 140 launch units.• 36-55 SA-6 batteries with over 100 fire units.• 6,500 SA-7s.• 400 SA-9s.• 192 SA-13s

Navy• Ibn Khaldun.• Osa-class missile boat.• 13 light combat vessels.• 5-8 landing craft.• Agnadeen.• 1 Yugoslav Spasilac-class transport.• Polnocny-class LST.



72

Source: Estimate made by Anthony H. Cordesman based discussions with US experts.



73

Figure Twenty-Nine

The Iraqi Cumulative Arms Import Deficit Enforced by UN Sanctions

(Measured in $US 97 Constant millions)

5969

11938

17907

23876

29845

35814

41783

47752

3333

6666

9999

13332

16665

19998

23331

26664

15003000

45006000

75009000

10500 12000

2700

5400

8100

10800

13500

16200

18900

21600

0

5 0 0 0

1 0 0 0 0

1 5 0 0 0

2 0 0 0 0

2 5 0 0 0

3 0 0 0 0

3 5 0 0 0

4 0 0 0 0

4 5 0 0 0

5 0 0 0 0

9 1 9 2 9 3 9 4 9 5 9 6 9 7 9 8

I m p o r t s R e q u i r e d t o S u s t a i n P r e - G u l f W a r A n n u a l A v e r a g e ( 1 9 8 5 - 1 9 9 0 ) I m p o r t s R e q u i r e d t o S u s t a i n 1 9 9 0 L e v e l

I m p o r t s R e q u i r e d t o S u s t a i n P o s t G u l f W a r F o r c e

I m p o r t s R e q u i r e d t o S u s t a i n P o s t G u l f W a r F o r c e a n d R e a c t t o L e s s o n s o f t h e G u l f W a r

Source: Adapted by Anthony H. Cordesman from US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World MilitaryExpenditures and Arms Transfers, 1995, GPO, Washington, 1996.



74

Libyan and Syrian Arms Imports and ExportsFigures Thirty through Thirty-Three show that Libya and Syria are additional countries

where the problem is potential Russian transfers, and not recent arms sales. Libya does pose a

potential threat in terms of chemical weapons, but it has had almost no arms imports in recent

years and no major transfers of new military technology. It is one case where at least the military

aspects of UN sanctions have worked, although equal credit must be given to Qadhafi’s

monumental ego and utter military and economic incompetence. Libya’s military forces have a

massive inventory of weapons, but they do little more than form a vast parking lot. Even its best

forces involve technologies at least a decade old. The 20th century has had few such self-

disarming dictators. It could have used more of them.

Syria is a far more serious threat. It has massive conventional forces, including 4,600

main battle tanks, 3,010 other armored fighting vehicles, 1,500 armored personnel carriers,

1,630 towed artillery weapons. 450 self-propelled artillery weapons, 480 multiple rocket

launchers, 589 combat aircraft, and 72 armed helicopters. It can produce its own long-range

Scud C missiles, and has cluster munitions with VX gas and possibly biological weapons.

Syria’s long-range missiles, however, come from North Korea, and there is no evidence that

Russia has played a major role in any aspect of Syria’s proliferation.

There have also been radical changes in Russia’s role as an arms supplier since 1990.

Figures Thirty Two and Thirty Three show the patterns in Russian deliveries to Syria clearly

reflect the combined impact of the end of the Cold War, Syria’s continuing problems in meeting

its past arms debt to Russia, Russia’s insistence on cash payments for arms, reductions in outside

aid to Syria, and Syria’s inability to control its balance of payments deficit.

Syria was able to use Russian arms transfers to modernize some of its tanks and aircraft

during the early 1990s -- largely because of aid Syria received during the Gulf War. Syria now

has some 1,500 T-72s and T-72Ms, 60 BMP-2s and some BMP-3s, 450 2S1 and S23 self-

propelled artillery weapons, 200 modern AT-4 and AT-5 anti-tank guided weapons launchers,

and possibly some AT-14 Komets. It has 20 Su-24 strike fighters, 20 MiG-29 air defense

fighters, and 49 Mi-25 armed helicopters.



75

Syria, however, faces major economic problems in buying from Russia. Figures Thirty-

Two and Thirty-Three show Syria has limited resources, and it has accumulated a total debt to

Russia for past arms deliveries totaling between $13 billion and $16 billion. When Syria sought

another $2 billion deal with Russia in 1992, the deal collapsed because of Russia’s insistence on

cash payments. The deal would have included 24 more MiG-24 fighters, 12 Su-27 fighter-

bombers, 300 T-72 and T-74 tanks, and an unspecified number of SA-16 and SA-10 missiles.xix

Syria has been able to continue to buy some arms since the mid-1990s, but outside aid has

dropped from an average of $800 million per year during 1973-1993, to an average of $55 million a

year since 1993. Syria has not been able to obtain major new sources of aid since the Gulf War.

In fact, wartime promises of aid for a major new steel mill and phosphate fertilizer plant have

been kept in the tender stage ever since the war because of a lack of Gulf aid.

These developments are slowly crippling the development of Syria’s conventional forces.

Syria’s new arms agreements have dropped from a total of 5,600 in the period between 1987-

1990, to 300 between 1993-1996. Syria is gradually reforming its fiscal institutions to improve

its borrowing capability, but it has had to reschedule its past civil debts to limit its arrears on

payments due on past loans to $400 million. Its current account balance has dropped from a

surplus of $1.7 billion in 1990, and $700 million in 1991, to a surplus of $55 million in 1992,

and a deficit of $607 million in 1993, $930 million in 1994, and $875 million in 1995.xx

There recently have been new reports that Russia will resume massive deliveries of arms.

At least to date, however, there is not evidence of major transfers after the period immediately

after the Gulf War. Syria has no tanks more modern that the T-72M, no aircraft more modern

than the MiG-29 and Su-24, and no modern surface-to-air missiles.

The only major recent delivery of conventional arms to Syria has been Ukrainian

upgrades of some of Syria’s T-55s – upgrades which serve as a warning that Russia is scarcely

the only potential supplier of arms. Syria has upgraded about 200 T-55s to the T-55MV, most of

which are deployed in units near the Golan. The T-55MV is a Ukrainian upgrade with a Bastion

9M-117 laser-guided projectile that can be fired through its 100 mm gun. It carries a high

explosive anti-tank warhead that the Ukraine claims can penetrate up to 550 mm of armor at a



76

maximum range of 4,000 meters and a version with a tandem warhead is believed to exist. The

T-55MV also has upgraded running gear, a Volna computerized fire control system, and napalm

protection. It is unclear whether the tanks have Kontact 5 explosive reactive armor. Some

analysts believe that the Bastion can defeat the frontal armor of the Merkava, and the T-55MV

has protection that can now defeat the US M829 APFSDS 120 mm depleted uranium round used

in the M-1A2 and Merkava.xxi



77

Figure Thirty

Libyan Arms Imports– 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

In Current Dollars


200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800



86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96





78

Figure Thirty-One

Russian Arms Agreements and Deliveries with Libya: 1987-1997($Current Millions)

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

From Russia 3000 0 0 2000 400 0

Total 3500 200 100 2900 500 0

Agreements:

87-90

Agreements:

91-94

Agreements:

94-97

Deliveries: 87-

90

Deliveries: 91-

94

Deliveries: 94-

97




79

Figure Thirty-Two

Syrian Arms Imports– 1986-1996(Constant $1996 Millions)

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

In Current Dollars


500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000



86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96





80

Figure Thirty-Three

Russian Arms Agreements and Deliveries with Syria: 1987-1997($Current Millions)

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

From Russia 5300 500 0 5000 1000 100

Total 5600 900 300 5200 1400 300

Agreements:

87-90

Agreements:

91-94

Agreements:

94-97

Deliveries: 87-

90

Deliveries: 91-

94

Deliveries: 94-

97




81

Possibilities and Probabilities: The Shape of Things to ComeIn conclusion, it is important to stress that Russian transfers of arms and military

technology do not currently pose a major direct threat to the US, and that the previous analysis

has focused on the possible impact of Russian transfers and not on clear probabilities. Equally

important, there is no evidence to date of any deliberate Russian effort to use the transfer of arms

and military technology to increase the strategic threat to the US. Indeed, it is important to

reiterate that it is far from clear that this Russian government is capable of any sustained

coherent strategic approach to anything.

Many of the most serious threats to date may also be the product of the lack of any full

central control over arms and military technology transfers within Russia, and of the sauve qu’il

peut character of Russian scientific institutions and military production centers. The desperate

search for money is almost certainly a more serious current threat than any deliberate strategy.

Similarly, the fact that no analysis can ignore the issue of China does not mean that there

is any material evidence of a massive Chinese build-up against the US. It is at least as credible

that China’s massive military obsolescence and overall inferiority to the US (and even the

deployed technology in Taiwan) is pushing it towards limited modernization. At present, it is

only China’s missile development programs, which are not clearly dependent on any recent

Russian technology transfers, which seem to be successful enough to offset its obsolescence.

Russian is also scarcely the only source of military technology and arms in the world.

The US, Europe, China, North Korea, and Israel all interact with Russia in providing a complex

mix of dual-use and military technology exports that any power can exploit against the US and

its allies. It also is only natural that our potential opponents will focus on buying those Russian

weapons and technologies that they feel will offer them the best hope of deterring or defeating

the US and its allies. The fact that sellers often end up selling the most threatening arms and

technologies is more likely to represent a conspiracy on the part of the buyer than one on the part

of the seller.



82

At the same time, it is equally clear that there have been important Russian transfers of

arms and technology to potentially hostile states. It is clear that Russia is almost certain to have

strong incentives to maximize its sales of arms and technology for at least the next decade, and

that Russian sales can be just as dangerous when they are not legal or the result of any hostile

strategy. The US has every possible incentive to seek arrangements with Russia to limit such

transfers as much as possible. It also has every reason to monitor them in detail, to examine their

impact on foreign force structures and war fighting capability, and to improve US and allied

capabilities in response when such transfers cannot be halted.



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i The major sources for this analysis of trends in China are the IISS, Military Balance; Jane’s Defense Weekly; andJane’s Intelligence Review.ii For full details, see Greg J. Geradi and James A Plotts, “An Annotated Chronology of DPRK Missile Trade andDevelopments,” Monterey, Monterey Institute of International Studies, November 1, 1994.iii Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1986-1993, Washington, CongressionalResearch Service, CRS-94-612F, July 29, 1994, p. 57, and Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to theThird World, 1987-1995, Washington, Congressional Research Service, CRS-95-862F, August 4, 1995, pp. 57-58,67-69.iv Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1987-1995, Washington, CongressionalResearch Service, CRS-95-862F, August 4, 1995, pp. 57-58, 67-69.v Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1986-1993, Washington, CongressionalResearch Service, CRS-94-612F, July 29, 1994, p. 57, and Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to theThird World, 1987-1995, Washington, Congressional Research Service, CRS-95-862F, August 4, 1995, pp. 57-58,67-69.vi Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1986-1993, Washington, CongressionalResearch Service, CRS-94-612F, July 29, 1994, p. 57, and Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to theThird World, 1988-1995, Washington, Congressional Research Service, CRS-96-667F, August 15, 1996. 0 = dataless than $50 million or nil. All data are rounded to the nearest $100 million. Major West European includes Britain,France, Germany, and Italy.vii Jane’s Sentinel: The Gulf States, 1996, Jane’s International Defense Review, 7/1996, pp. 23-25,viii Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1983-1990, Washington, CongressionalResearch Service, CRS-9 1-578F, August 2, 1991, Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1984-1991,Washington, Congressional Research Service, CRS-92-577F, July 20, 1991, Conventional Arms Transfers to theThird World, 1987-1994, Washington, Congressional Research Service, CRS-95-862F, August 4, 1995;Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1988-1956, Washington, Congressional Research Service, CRS-96-667F, August 15, 1996; and , Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1989-1996, Washington,Congressional Research Service, CRS-97-778F, August 13, 1997.ix New York Times, August 22, 1997, p. A-1; Associated Press, August 25, 1998, 1548.x Jane’s Defense Weekly, November 4, 1995, p. 4, February 7, 1996, p. 15, March 27, 1996, p. 14; Reuters, October17, 1995, 0617, February 14, 1996, 1054; Defense News, January 29, 1996, pp. 1, 29.xi New York Times, August 22, 1997, p. A-1; Associated Press, August 25, 1998, 1548; Jane’s Defense Weekly,November 4, 1995, p. 4, February 7, 1996, p. 15; Reuters, October 17, 1995, 0617, February 14, 1996, 1054;Defense News, January 29, 1996, pp. 1, 29xii Jane’s Defense Weekly, February 7, 1996, p. 15; New York Times, August 22, 1997, p. A-1; Associated Press,August 25, 1998, 1548, 0617, February 14, 1996, 1054; Defense News, January 29, 1996, pp. 1, 29.xiii Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1989,Washington, GPO, 1990, p. 117.xiv Washington Post, December 15, 1995, p. A-30; Jane’s Defense Weekly, January 3, 1996, pp. 17-18.xv Reuters, December 18, 1995, 0342.xvi Washington Post, September 12, 1997, pp. A-1, A-33.xvii Washington Times, January 14, 1998, p. A-6.xviii Washington Post, February 12, 1998, p. A-1.xix United Press International, November 5, 1992, BC Cycle.xx Conversations with World Bank experts, Middle East Economic Digest, September 20, 1995, pp. 10-11.



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xxi Jane’s Defense Weekly, August 20 ,1997, p. 3.

the strategic impact of russian arms sales and technology

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