STRATFOR DAILY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY, 3 APRIL 2007—U.S./IRAN:
U.S. attacks against Iran would not lead to a decisive military defeat of Tehran and would be a political mistake, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky said. He added that it is possible for the United States to damage Iran’s military, but not to win a conflict outright.
STRATFOR INTELLIGENCE BRIEF, 7 SEPTEMBER 2007
— Cooperation between the Russian Federal Security Service and Iran’s Interior Ministry will enhance Iran’s border security, First Deputy Director-General of Russian Federal Security and Border Services Viktor Shlyakhtin said, according to an IRNA report. Shlyakhtin is in Iran to inspect Iranian-Russian projects in areas of Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province that border Afghanistan and Pakistan.
RED OCTOBER: RUSSIA, IRAN, AND IRAQ
— STRATFOR
Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 17 September 2007—Copyright © Strategic Forecasting Inc.
— …The Americans need the Russians not to provide fighter aircraft, modern command-and-control systems, or any of the other war-making systems that the Russians have been developing. Above all else, they want the Russians not to provide the Iranians any nuclear-linked technology.
Therefore, it is no accident that the Iranians claimed over the weekend that the Russians told them they would do precisely that.
…[Russian president Vladimir] Putin can align with the Iranians and place the United States in a far more complex situation than it otherwise would be in. He could achieve this by supporting Syria, arming militias in Lebanon, or even causing significant problems in Afghanistan, where Russia retains a degree of influence in the North…
STRATFOR INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY, 25 OCTOBER 2007, © STRATFOR INC.
— During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Oct. 16 visit to Tehran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked him to order Russian experts to help Iran figure out how Israel jammed Syrian radars prior to the Sept. 6 air raid, a Stratfor source in Hezbollah said. Iran wants to rectify the problem associated with the failure of Syrian radars because Iran uses similar equipment, the source added.
RUSSIA, IRAN: THE NEXT STEP IN THE DIPLOMATIC TANGO
— STRATFOR
Global Intelligence Brief, 30 October 2007, © 2007 Stratfor, Inc. — …Russia has a fine-tuned strategy of exploiting its Middle Eastern allies’ interests for its own political purposes. Iran is the perfect candidate. It is a powerful Islamic state that is locked into a showdown with the United States over its nuclear program and Iraq. Though Washington and Tehran are constantly battling in the public sphere with war rhetoric, they need to deal with each other for the sake of their strategic interests.
Russia, meanwhile, has its own turf war with the United States that involves a range of hot issues, including National Missile Defense, renegotiating Cold War — era treaties, and Western interference in Russia’s periphery. By demonstrating that Moscow has some real sway over the Iranians, Russia gains a useful bargaining chip to use in its dealings with the United States…
ALTAY OPTICAL–LASER SOURCEBOOK, 28 December 2007
— The Scientific Research Institute of Precision Instrument Engineering [of the Russian Federation] has established a branch satellite tracking facility called the Altay Optical-Laser Center (AOLS) near the small Siberian town of Savvushka. The center consists of two sites, one of which is now operational and the other of which is intended to go into operation in or after 2010.
The present site has a laser rangefinder for precision orbit determination, and, for the first time in Russia, a telescope (60 cm aperture) there has been equipped with an adaptive optics system for high-resolution imaging of satellites. The second site will be equipped with a 3.12-meter satellite-imaging telescope generally similar to the one the United States operates in Hawaii.
…Successful implementation of the AOLS 3.12-meter system would allow satellites to be imaged with a resolution of 25 cm [9.8 inches] or better out to a range of 1,000 km [621 miles].
PROLOGUE
Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
“Stand by…ready…ready…begin climb, now,” the ground controller radioed.
“Acknowledged,” the pilot of the Russian Federation’s Mikoyan-Gurevich-31BM long-range interceptor responded. He gently eased back on his control stick and began feeding in power. The twin Tumanski R15-BD-300 engines, the most powerful engines ever put on a jet fighter, barked once as the afterburners ignited, then quickly roared to life as the engines’ fuel turbopumps caught up with the massive streams of air flooding inside, turning air and fuel into raw power and acceleration.
The pilot’s eyes darted back and forth from the power gauges to the heads-up display, which showed two crossed needles with a circle in the middle, similar to an Instrument Landing System. He made gentle, almost imperceptible control inputs to keep the crossed needles centered in the circle. His inputs had to be tiny because the tiniest slip or skid now, with his nose almost forty degrees above the horizon and climbing, could result in a disruption of the smooth airflow into the engine intakes, causing a blowout or compressor stall. The MiG-31, known as “Foxhound” in the West, was not a forgiving machine — it regularly killed sloppy or inattentive crewmembers. Built for speed, it required precise handling at the outer edges of its impressive flight envelope.
“Passing ten thousand meters…Mach two point five…fifteen thousand…forty degrees nose-high…airspeed dropping off slightly,” the pilot intoned. The MiG-31 was one of the few planes that could accelerate while in a steep climb, but for this test flight they were going to take it higher than its service ceiling of twenty thousand meters, and its performance dropped off significantly then. “Passing twenty K, airspeed below Mach two…passing twenty-two K…stand by…approaching release speed and altitude…”
“Keep it centered, Yuri,” the MiG’s backseater said over intercom. The needles had drifted slightly to the edge of the circle. The circle represented their target tonight, transmitted to them not by the MiG-31’s powerful phased-array radar but by a network of space tracking radars around the Russian Federation and fed to them by a nearby data relay aircraft. They would never see their target and would probably never know if their mission was a success or failure.
“It’s getting less responsive…harder to correct,” the pilot breathed. Both crewmembers were wearing space suits and full-face sealed helmets, like astronauts, and as the cabin altitude climbed, the pressure in the suit climbed to compensate, making it harder to move and breathe. “How…much…longer?”
“Ten seconds…nine…eight…”
“Come on, you old pig, climb,” the pilot grunted.
“Five seconds…missile ready…tree, dva, adeen…pazhar! Launch!”
The MiG-31 was at twenty-five thousand meters above Earth, one thousand kilometers per hour airspeed, with the nose fifty degrees above the horizon, when the ship’s computer issued the launch command, and a single large missile was ejected clear of the fighter. Seconds after ejection, the missile’s first-stage rocket motor ignited, a tremendous plume of fire erupted from the nozzles, and the missile disappeared from view in the blink of an eye.