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Options for the Strategic Deterrent
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16166 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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6 / 1989 |
3,307 Words |
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James T. Hackett
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For 40 years, the national security of the Untied States has been based on the concept of nuclear deterrence. Central to that concept is the belief that, to deter effectively, the United States must maintain a credible and survivable second-strike force.
The nuclear triad that has preserved the peace and protected the West consists of land-based nuclear missiles, long-range strategic bombers, and submarine-launched nuclear missiles. During the Reagan years, the air and sea legs of the triad were modernized with the addition of B-1 bombers and Trident submarines, and by the deployment of air-launched cruise missiles on all 196 of the B-52 bombers that are equipped for strategic missions. Further improvements in the strategic air and sea forces are well under way with the development of the air-launched Advanced Cruise Missile, the new D-5 submarine ballistic missile, sea-launched cruise missiles, and the B-2 "Stealth" bomber.
But the modernization of the land-based leg of the triad has stalled. At issue is how to make the land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that form the backbone of the U.S. nuclear deterrent more survivable, and thereby assure that nuclear deterrence continues to work in the 1990s.
The Reagan administration made substantial improvements in U.S. strategic forces but never solved the problem of ICBM survivability, deferring first to politicians from western states who opposed a "racetrack" design for a rail-mobile ICBM because it would involve digging up large areas of their states, and later to the preference of the Air Force for more MX missiles regardless of the basing mode.
In 1983, President Reagan ordered the development of a small mobile ICBM that came to be known as Midgetman, but the Air Force, viewing this as a threat to its preferred MX program, was cool to the idea. Congress embraced Midgetman and tried to promote ICBM mobility, but the Air Force fought for more silo-based MXs. The result was delays in both the MX and Midgetman programs that hurt the modernization effort.
The Soviet threat
Meanwhile, the Soviets methodically expanded and modernized their land-based nuclear weaponry, creating a massive offensive force that holds at risk the entire U.S. land-based deterrent, U.S. missile submarines in port, and bombers on the ground. Combine that offensive force with heavy Soviet air defenses against those U.S. bombers that manage to get airborne and strategic defenses that protect Moscow and the Soviet elite, and the result is a significant Soviet first-strike capability.
Soviet strategic forces now number some 11,000 nuclear warheads, four times more than Moscow's total at the time of the signing of the 1972 SALT I accords and twice the number in place when SALT II was signed "to cap the arms race" in 1979. More than 6,000 of those nuclear warheads sit atop Soviet ICBMs and more than 3,000 have the combination of yield and accuracy needed to destroy U.S. missiles in their silos. And all of America's land-based nuclear missiles are in silos.
With its present force, Moscow can target three of its most accurate ICBM warheads against each U.S. ICBM silo and still have 3,000 ICMB
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