Washington and Tehran continue to lobby Moscow regarding the possible sale of Russia’s advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran. Russian officials have been weighing the costs and benefits of proceeding with the sale for their relations with Iran, the United States, and Israel. They are also considering the value to the Russian defense industry of implementing the sale now that the Chinese are offering to provide Iran with their own knock-of version of the S-300.
On December 26, 2007, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar stated that Moscow would supply several dozen S-300 systems to Tehran in 2008. Russian military sources subsequently confirmed the report. The Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service, the Russian government agency charged with overseeing foreign weapons sales, defended Moscow’s right to sell any weapon to Iran that was not prohibited by international law or other agreements. The Russian business daily Kommersant then published an article reporting that Russia planned to sell Iran five batteries of S-300 surface-to-air missiles for $800 million. Shortly thereafter, however, the Russian government officially repudiated the story. The Iranian Foreign Ministry then had to issue an embarrassing retraction of Najjar’s statement.
A similar episode arose in late December 2008. Again, Iranian sources reported the imminent sale of the S-300s. The deputy head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission claimed that Moscow and Tehran had finally reached an agreement on the issue. When asked about the sale the following day, the apparently surprised Russian Foreign Ministry simply replied that it was investigating the issue. At a subsequent news conference, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov dismissed the entire affair as a rumor concocted by the Western media.
Yet, a spokesperson for Rosoboronexport, the Russian state agency that enjoys a monopoly of Russian weapons exports, simply insisted that all Russian arms sales to Iran were legal since they conformed to Russian regulations and international law. He also stressed that Russia only gave Iran “defensive weapons” that did not threaten other states.
On February 17, Kommersant again confirmed that Russia and Iran had signed a contract for the delivery of five batteries of S-300s to Iran in exchange for $800 million, but that the Russian government had yet to ratify the deal. According to paper, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, then visiting Moscow in quest of the weapons, that the Russian government had decided to delay delivering the S-300 to Iran to avoid disrupting a hoped-for improvement in relations with Washington under the new American President.
In these episodes, Iranian officials obviously hoped to prompt the sale by announcing that the transactions would occur. But the confused reaction of the different Russian government agencies to the announced sale has never been adequately explained.
One possibility is that some Russian officials had used media leaks to gauge the international reaction to such a sale. If the foreign response had proved less hostile, Russia might have proceeded with the deal. When the international reaction proved negative, Moscow retreated, to Tehran’s embarrassment.
Another possibility is that Russian officials had encouraged the Iranians to describe the sale as imminent in order to remind foreign audiences that Russia had the power to affect their vital security interests through such a transaction. In this way, Moscow might have hoped to remind Washington of the costs of confronting Moscow over Georgia, missile defense, and other important issues.
These incidents also suggest that the Russian national security community is divided regarding the wisdom of providing the S-300s to Iran. Members of the Russian defense establishment as well as strategists favoring a “Eurasian” policy—which would align Russia with Iran, China, and ideally India against the West—seem most eager to make the sale. The transaction could potentially garner Russia’s military industrial complex a billion dollars if one considers the probable post-sale maintenance agreements. It would also increase the prospects of future Russian arms sales to Iran as well as additional Iranian orders for Russian nuclear reactors. Providing Iran with S-300s could also make Tehran more comfortable continuing its confrontational polices towards the West, which Russian Eurasianists see as strengthening Moscow’s bargaining leverage with Washington.
In contrast, Russians eager to improve relations with the United States, Israel, and other Western countries which have lobbied against the S-300 transaction. Some of these opponents hope to persuade the Obama administration not to carry out the plans of the Bush administration to deploy missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. Others, concerned about Russia’s ability to overcome the global financial crisis, which has hurt Russia especially severely, want to avoid actions that will impede Russian-Western economic cooperation.
President Obama apparently discussed the S-300 issue with President Medvedev at their meeting last month in London. Thus far, the Russian government has neither completed the sale nor renounced any intention of doing so. The two presidents will likely discuss the issue further when they meet in Moscow in July.
One wild card is that the Iranian press is now reporting that Iranian leaders, annoyed at Moscow’s procrastination, is prepared to purchase an air defense system from China that “borrows” heavily from the S-300 technology that China purchased from Russia in the 1990s. One wonders how long the Russian leadership will continue to abstain from selling S-300s to Tehran now that they risk losing the coveted Iranian arms market to the Chinese.
Richard Weitz - PhD, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC.
