Russia, US can make INF missiles in 2-4 yrs, if need be - analyst.

MOSCOW, February 20 (Itar-Tass) -- Should they achieve mutual
agreement to terminate the operation of the treaty that decades ago
eliminated their intermediate- and shorter range missiles, Russia and the
United States will be able to develop and manufacture new missiles of that
class again in two to four years' time, an adviser to the commander of
Russia's Strategic Missile Force, former chief of the Strategic Missile
Force General Staff, Colonel-General Viktor Yesin, told Itar-Tass on
Friday. He shared his opinion in the wake of reports Russia and the United
States might raise the theme of the INF treaty's future, once they have
signed a new strategic arms reduction treaty (START).
On February 17 a reliable military-diplomatic source in Moscow told
Itar-Tass, "Russia and the United States plan to get back to the question
of preserving or terminating the treaty to eliminate medium and shorter
range missiles after they have signed a new strategic arms reduction
treaty."
In his opinion, "preserving this bilateral treaty that outlawed
medium- and shorter-range missiles will make no sense at a time when many
countries are developing and building up this type of armaments," the
source said. "If the other countries refuse to join in, the
Russian-American Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty may be
terminated."
General Yesin believes that since both Russia and the United States
can crate new inter-continental ballistic missiles, they surely have the
potential to develop and manufacture shorter-range missiles.
"Roughly speaking, if the third-stage engine is removed from our
three-stage inter-continental ballistic missile Topol-M, one will have an
intermediate range missile. True, it will have to be equipped with a new
control system, and it will have to be tested, but for all this Russia
will need no more than 3-4 years."
"The United States can cope with this task still faster, because for
testing and tuning up its anti-ballistic missile defense it makes many
targets, which, in fact, are medium-range missiles," the analyst believes.
At the same time he speculated that before they may jointly terminate
the INF treaty, Russia and the United States should exert the maximum
effort to persuade the other countries having such missiles to join in.
"True, Russia at a certain point came out with the idea of making the
INF treaty universal. The United States welcomed that initiative. But that
was all. There has been no fundamental and thorough work with other
countries having medium-range missiles either within the United Nations'
first committee, or at the disarmament conference. There still is vast
room for efforts along these lines. One should not just sit and wait for
the others to say YES, but closely work with them," General Yesin said.
The treaty on medium and shorter-range missiles came into force on
June 1, 1988 to eliminate all ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles
with ranges from 500 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers and armed with either
nuclear and conventional warheads. Under the treaty the Soviet Union
scrapped its Pioneer ballistic medium-range missiles (SS-20) and Oka
mobile theatre ballistic missiles (SS-23), and the United States, the
Pershing-1 and Pershing-2 medium-range ballistic missiles.
At present several countries have intermediate and shorter-range
ballistic missiles at their disposal - China, Pakistan, India, Israel,
Iran, and North Korea

-0-str