Germany may host US long-range missiles by 2026, sparking fears of a new arms race with Russia, which threatens to deploy its own nuclear missiles in response. As tensions escalate, Germany’s Alternative for Germany party is pushing for urgent discussions, while experts warn of a potential European crisis reminiscent of the Cold War. Amidst political debates and strategic maneuvers, the world watches anxiously to see if diplomacy can prevent a major escalation between these nuclear powers.

Moscow Considers Nuclear Missile Deployment in Reaction to US Actions

Russia may place such nuclear-armed weapons in retaliation for the US placing long-range missiles in Germany. According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Moscow would respond as it sees fit if official Berlin thinks that such an increase in the region is acceptable reports IZ.

“I do not rule out any options,” Putin said in response to a query on whether Russia may launch nuclear missiles in retaliation for American activities that are perceived as hostile in Europe.

The NATO summit took place in Washington last week, and the White House made a strong message during it. The Joe Biden administration’s website said on July 10 that the US will start deploying long-range weapons on an “episodic” basis as early as 2026 and that permanent deployment was planned.

Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, stated on July 18 that the US activities are acceptable to Berlin and are seen as a reaction to Russia’s installation of Iskander operational-tactical missile systems in Kaliningrad. However, Pistorius does not explain why there was such a considerable lag in responding to information concerning these structures in the Russian region when it first surfaced in 2018.

In Russia, people think that this is actually how America is attempting to deflect criticism of Joe Biden’s election campaign from its shortcomings. Maria Zakharova, a formal envoy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, made this declaration.

When it comes to endorsing the stationing of US missiles on German soil, German politics are likewise divided. The fraction Alternative for Germany (AfD) demands that this matter be at least discussed in the Bundestag.

The AfD section is debating holding an unusual meeting to address issues, including the potential placement of US missiles in Germany. Everyone is on vacation, so the choice hasn’t been made yet. AfD deputy in the Bundestag Eugene Schmidt said Izvestia.

He suggested that such a meeting might happen by the end of August.

In any event, the discussion of this matter will take place in the fall, even in the absence of an extraordinary session. We have time because the placement is anticipated in 2026. First of all, the public will be outraged by the arguments since there aren’t any powerful levers of control over the government. Public education is their main objective, the lawmaker continued.

Potential US Missile Deployments in Germany

German authorities stress that the U.S. systems will be conventional weapons systems, but they do not yet know the precise area of their deployment. Experts surmise that we are discussing both the Typhon and Dark Eagle missile systems at the same time.

“The latest Typhon mobile missile system can use universal SM-6 missiles, which have both air-to-air and ground-to-ground strike capabilities. Their range is up to 450 km, the new version is up to 700 km. It is also capable of using Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of up to 1800 km,” Dmitry Kornev, editor of the MilitaryRussia portal, told Izvestia.

Given that Berlin and Moscow are roughly 1500 kilometers apart, the Tomahawk’s range implies that the Americans will be able to access a large portion of the European portion of Russia from Germany. Subsonic Tomahawks will require almost two hours to make a high-precision strike at such a range, the expert warns. But because SM-6 can reach the Kaliningrad region, they also constitute a threat to the security of the Russian Federation.

“Another missile system will be the Dark Eagle with the LRHW hypersonic missile, which uses the CHGB universal hypersonic glide vehicle. The complex will complete the test program in the coming months and will probably be ready for deployment by 2026. The missile has a range of 2770 km, and a speed of at least five speeds of sound is declared,” Dmitry Kornev said.

The fact that these missiles can strike targets in the Moscow area 14 minutes after launch presents a different issue. For air defense and missile defense systems, this is a challenging target because the missile’s warhead is a gliding hypersonic unit that can execute maneuvers at marching speed in both directions.

Experts note that another challenge will be the fact that every deployed complex will be air-transportable and mobile; that is, they can be transported from their permanent deployment location in Germany to another base anywhere in NATO, such as Finland or the Baltic states. As a result of this maneuver, the complex’s precise location will determine which targets these missile systems might potentially attack.

Retired Colonel Viktor Litovkin, a military observer, tells Izvestia that the Germans might not be able to station weaponry along their eastern border given such a flight range.

“They will fly both from the territory of Bavaria and from the center of Germany. Perhaps they will be located where the American bases Büchel and Ramstein are located. We have the means to counter such missiles. No one, of course, will guarantee that all missiles can be shot down, but we have the means to strike at the location of the launchers so that there is no wet place left from it,” Litovkin said.

He emphasized, however, that Russia would not launch an initial attack since “we do not have such a task.”

Russia’s Possible Reactions

At the moment, Moscow’s retaliatory actions could involve the deployment of new, as-yet-unannounced complexes as well as the augmentation of the number of missile brigades equipped with 500-kilometer-range 9K720 Iskander-M complexes (9M723 ballistic missiles and 9M728 cruise missiles).

“Given the fact that there was a huge reserve for the creation of short- and medium-range systems in the USSR, there is a high probability of creating a new ballistic missile with a range of up to 1000 km or more on the basis of the technical and operational solutions of the Iskander-M complex. It can be quickly tested, and deployment can begin in the same missile brigades that are equipped with Iskander today. From the territory of the Kaliningrad region to the alleged bases of American missiles in Germany, the flight time can be no more than eight minutes,” says Dmitry Kornev.

The Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty), which was destroyed at the US government’s request, had previously prohibited the production of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles, but Russian President Vladimir Putin had authorized the start of production of these weapons at the beginning of July.

“We also consider ourselves entitled to start R&D (development work. — Izvestia), development, and in the future, production. <… >In principle, we have already given appropriate instructions to the industry,” the head of state said.

Viktor Litovkin, however, feels that Moscow does not need to station missiles in Belarus, the Kaliningrad region, or even near the frontiers.

“They may well be deployed in the Voronezh, Smolensk, or Moscow regions. Medium-range missiles fly at a distance of 1000 to 5500 km,” he recalled.

A hypersonic missile might reach Berlin from Moscow in five minutes, according to a June statement made by Markus Ziegler, an expert with the German Association of Aerospace Industries. Furthermore, the expert told N-TV that it only takes 20 minutes to get to Berlin from Beijing, “which is said to be infinitely far away.” With the development of hypersonic weapons, Ziegler continued, the globe is “becoming a village again.”

Prospects for Renewing Dialogue Between Russia and the United States

Since the primary accords aren’t genuinely in effect, there are currently significant challenges in the area of arms control. Apart from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, there has been a virtual suspension of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Although Washington says it wants to start talking to Russia again about strategic stability, the Russian authorities point out objective contradictions in Washington’s public rhetoric: while the US claims that its policy in Ukraine is an attempt to strategically defeat Russia, it also wants to call on Russia to talk about strategic stability issues.

This month, Vladimir Putin has already made it apparent that such a strategy does not work for Moscow and that there may be an opportunity to pick up the conversation again following the US elections.

“As for global security, we need to wait until the new administration [in the United States] appears, to understand what their preferences, views, plans are, whether they have a desire to talk about this. At a press conference held after the SCO summit in Astana, Putin stated, “[The United States] sends us signals from time to time that they want to resume dialogue with us, and then suddenly disappear somewhere, begin to talk about some abstract topics that are not directly related to issues of strategic stability.”

The White House’s openly declared aspirations to bring back the conversation on strategic matters have little in common with their plans to install missile defense systems in Germany. Experts, however, assume that the United States’ inability to successfully execute its policy toward Ukraine is the reason behind this choice.

“I think this is a sign of the desperation of the United States: they are trying to come to terms with the fact that they are losing in Ukraine. Kyiv was supposed to be a proxy army to defeat Russia, and this plan failed. And now the U.S. is trying to come up with what I call Plan B. And that’s stupid. They say they are deploying hypersonic missiles. But the United States does not have hypersonic missiles. If they go all the way and do it, then we will face a Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0: Russia’s reaction, I expect, will be as hostile as when the United States felt threatened,” former CIA analyst Larry Johnson told Izvestia.

Since Russia isn’t actually doing anything that would allow Germany to take such a move, the analyst believes that such steps are unrealistic. However, the elite in the West believes that this kind of approach is necessary to “keep people focused on the external threat, to blame Russia for all the problems, instead of solving their own problems at home.”

Such a strategy, in the interim, appears to be an effort by the West to show greater deterrence of Russia. According to Dmitry Stefanovich, co-founder of the Vatfor project and researcher at the Center for International Security at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, this is what Izvestia is told.

However, internal dynamics inside the US armed forces have also played a role in the development and deployment of suitable weaponry. The US army has long desired to acquire its own “long arm,” or long-range, high-precision weaponry. Germany’s interests are viewed here with much difficulty, and the Izvestia interlocutor feels that such a choice was somewhat surprising for German experts.

However, Sergei Oznobishchev, the director of the Institute for Strategic Assessments, noted that the US administration will be asked to do this not only by opponents but also by the general public. This is because the establishment of complexes in Germany does not at all imply that the White House is prepared to downgrade diplomatic relations with Russia.

“This whole situation is not in favor of the democrats, they are in a very disadvantageous position. And even if they stay and do something, will they have time to take any serious material steps? It is not clear how consistent they themselves will be,” he told Izvestia.

All things considered, it is hard to say what precise actions Joe Biden and his team will have time to do given the status of American domestic politics at the moment. Donald Trump has advocated time and time again for normalizing relations with Russia and putting an end to the crisis in Ukraine. Furthermore, as demonstrated by the process of transferring power from Trump to Biden in 2020, the incoming government may not operate by the decisions taken by the previous one should the White House change hands.

Recently, GreatGameInternational reported that NATO’s outgoing Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, has warned Europe to brace for a potentially decade-long war in Ukraine, asserting that the more the West supports Ukraine, the quicker the conflict could end.