6 Jan in 3:14
The National Interest
The S-400 Triumf surmounted a tortured development cycle to become one of the world’s leading missile defense systems and a pivotal Russian export product. The S-400 is an excellent system; it's not horrifically expensive, versatile in its deployment, and accurate enough to take down any NATO fighter, The National Interest writes in the article
The air defense system that eventually became the S-400 began as an advanced S-300 modernization project. The S-300PMU-3 was conceived in the early 1990s as a major iteration of the S-300 platform, replete with new missiles that improve the S-300’s performance and enable it to fill new roles. As with many 1990s military hardware projects, the S-300PMU-3 struggled for consistent funding in the wake of the Soviet collapse. The system ran into further technical troubles in the early 2000s, amid concerns that the S-300PMU-3’s performance was being throttled by aging holdover components from the 1970s S-300P.