Russia s S-400: The Air Defense System NATO Fears Most?
Over the past decade, the Kremlin has succeeded in inking a slew of major S-400 export contracts. It has a long list of high-profile customers such as China, Turkey, and India; moreover, Iraq, Egypt, Vietnam, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are among those that have expressed interest in purchasing the system in recent years.
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 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 t