Air University Review, January-February 1978

There should be little doubt in the minds of most thoughtful individuals that laser weapon technology has the potential to revolutionize the art of warfare during the next quarter-century or two. Recently, various television shows and movies, such as "Star Trek" (with its main phasers delivering lethal photon torpedoes) and Star Wars, have popularized the image of death rays. Prior to the advent of high-energy laser technology, this image of target destruction through intense laser irradiation seemed much too exotic to be more than suggestive of twenty-first century possibilities. The purpose of this article is to separate technological reality from emotional imagery in an initial attempt to understand better the feasibility, desirability, and complex implications of future laser weapons.¹

Donald Brennan has related the revealing anecdote about a distinguished physicist who, in 1956, stated that the development of a coherent source of light would never be possible:

The laser, which is exactly such a source, was invented in 1958, and the first operating model was achieved in 1960. By 1962, people were modulating laser beams for communications and bouncing laser beams off the moon. The laser provides a uniquely concentrated source of radiant energy;

Fifteen years ago, or possibly even ten, one might have asked a representative scientist just which of the technical devices appearing in the Buck Rogers comic strip was least likely to be achieved in the near future. If I am not mistaken, most [such respondents] (certainly I myself) would have pointed to the disintegrator ray gun. It would have been a bad choice, as the invention of the laser in 1958 made apparent.²

This passage was published before Edward Gerry announced his invention of the gas-dynamic laser, which opened the door for high-energy laser (HEL) technology. Public disclosures about rapidly advancing HEL technology, which now includes electric discharge lasers and chemical lasers, suggest that the U.S-Soviet competition to weaponize these technologies is well under way.

Following the advent of gas-dynamic laser technology in the late 1960s, various news reports have been published regarding the military potential of high-energy laser weapons. For example, in 1973 an Associated Press story stated that:

The British government is exchanging information with the United States on a laser "death ray" both nations are developing to destroy aircraft and missiles at long range, the Defense Ministry said today. A spokesman said work on a powerful, long-range laser gun has been going on for some time.³

More recently, an article appearing in the New York Times boasted a headline implying that high-energy laser weapons would become part of American and Soviet arsenals in the not-too-distant future.⁴ What formerly had been considered an exotic weapon possibility has now become a conventional topic of popularized articles appearing in news stories and in science-oriented magazines.⁵

How much money is being spent to develop laser weapons (i.e., to weaponize high-energy laser technology)? Rumor has it that the Soviet Union may be spending as much as $1 billion each year on laser weapon research and development (R&D).⁶ American expenditures, according to publicly released figures, were $187 million in FY 1977 and are estimated to be $150 million in FY 1978. Table I provides a historical breakdown of these funding levels for the three services and for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), while Figure 1 indicates the management structure for the DOD's high-energy laser program.

Table I. DOD high-energy laser funding ($ millions)

The objective of the DOD-wide HEL program is to develop laser weapons that are capable of engaging and destroying selected military targets.⁷ The HEL technology program is structured to provide the necessary feasibility tests to support full-scale engineering development decisions for laser weapons in the early 1980s. If prototype laser weapons are successfully demonstrated by the mid-1980s, operational weapon systems might become available in the late 1980s for selected tactical applications emphasizing the defense of aircraft, ships, and ground-based assets.

Hypothetical laser weapon systems consist of three basic components. The laser device (beam generator) generates the high-energy beam of electromagnetic radiation. The fire-control subsystem acquires the target, selects the aimpoint, and aims the weapon. Finally, the beam-control (optical) subsystem expands the beam and projects it to the target.

In view of the central requirement to prepare for prototype decisions in the early 1980s, the three services are engaged in a series of technology demonstrations involving the broad spectrum of HEL issues as illustrated in Figure 2. The Army tested is the Mobile Test Unit, consisting of an electric laser mounted on an USMC LVTP-7 tracked vehicle, which was retired recently after accomplishing its remaining milestones. The Navy is conducting a unified field test program at the San Juan Capistrano facility near Camp Pendleton, California, which places emphasis on integration of an advanced beam-control system with chemical lasers. Finally, the testbed for the Air Force HEL program is the Airborne Laser Laboratory (ALL), a highly instrumented NKC-135 aircraft.

Figure 1. High-energy laser R&D program management

One of the best unclassified summaries of the DOD high-energy laser program is given in a three-part series of articles by Philip J. Klass. Among the important HEL development programs discussed by Klass, the Airborne Laser Laboratory is probably the most significant for USAF applications:

To investigate high-altitude propagation problems and the inherent difficulties of installing a high-energy laser and its aiming-tracking system in an airborne platform, USAF has outfitted a Boeing KC-135. The aircraft, called the Airborne Laser Laboratory (ALL), has been outfitted with a gas-dynamic laser, using carbon dioxide, which radiates at 10.6 micron, supplied by United Technologies Corp. The beam aiming/tracking system is supplied by Hughes Aircraft Co.

The Airborne Laser Laboratory is the most advanced of the three planned service testbed facilities, and experience gained with the USAF aircraft is expected to be of value for surface-based applications.⁸

Potential applications of air-based laser weapons include bomber self-defense, air superiority, satellite destruction, and antisubmarine launched ballistic missile (ASLBM) missions. The first two applications might be feasible, if not especially cost-effective, during the next decade. The last two applications are the ones with significant strategic (and arms control) implications since they could constitute unique long-range capabilities for which there would be few competing technological alternatives.

An air-based laser antisatellite (ASAT) capability would have some interesting advantages and disadvantages. First, any American antisatellite capability would tend to symmetrize the current unsettling situation in which the Soviet Union has developed and tested a nonnuclear hunter-killer ASAT system.⁹ On the other hand, the U.S. at best has no more than a primitive nuclear antisatellite capability whose use is not very credible, short of all-out warfare. The Soviet ASAT capability has triggered a U.S. budget request for $108 million to be dedicated to "space defense" R&D:

Soviet development and testing of a potential antisatellite capability clearly threatens the survivability of our space system and raises the spector of space warfare as a new dimension of conflict. We are responding to this Soviet initiative in space by expanding those RDT&E programs which will provide a capability for protecting U.S. satellite systems.¹⁰

Given the large and growing space assets of the United States, which include important early warning and communication satellities,¹¹ continued neglect of the U.S. -Soviet ASAT asymmetry might increasingly imperil the American strategic posture. A symmetrizing response, which may be both technologically elegant and politically discreet, corresponds to air-based laser ASAT weapons.

The second point is much more subtle. If effective laser antisatellite weapons were deployed on large aircraft by both superpowers, the temptation to strike first might grow. Both sides might perceive that important advantages could be gained by preempting the opposition during a developing crisis. Space might be viewed as an attractive arena for early hostilities that demonstrate resolve during such a crisis without being 100 provocative. Moreover, once long-range laser ASAT weapons enter the strategic scene, laser antiballistic missile (ARM) concepts (which may or may not be space-based) cannot be far behind.¹²

Figure 2. High-energy laser program

We may have more to lose in this type of HEL arms competition than the Soviets, not simply because the U.S. is more dependent on satellites than the Soviet Union. Elite opposition to ABM weapon systems is much stronger in the U.S. than in the Soviet Union. Russian leaders have always had a strong interest in strategic defense, as demonstrated by the contemporary American puzzlement regarding the strategic significance of large Soviet civil defense capabilities. In this regard, former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made an extremely interesting point in his last report to Congress:

In theorizing about strategic nuclear stability, some analysts have postulated that mutual vulnerability is a condition of stability--in other words, if each side offered its vulnerable population and industry as hostages to the other, neither side would dare to attack. These same analysts saw acceptance by the Soviets of this premise in their signature of the ABM Treaty of 1972. It has become equally plausible to believe that the Soviets have never really agreed to this assumption, and that they entered the ARM Treaty either because of severe resource constraints or because they feared that, without an agreement, U.S. technology over the near term would give us a continuing and even growing advantage in this form of defense.¹³

Some students of strategic affairs may disagree with Rumsfeld that "it has become equally plausible" to believe that the Soviet Union is not irrevocably wedded to the ARM Treaty by virtue of its being a collective "MADvocate."¹⁴ In any case, Soviet interpretation of the ARM Treaty of 1972 may leave open the possibility that the development of ARM systems "based on other physical principles"¹⁵ is not foreclosed by Article V which states that:

Each Party undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy ARM systems or components which are sea-based, air-based, space-based, or mobile land-based.

Some American officials interpret this article to apply only to those ARM systems or components currently consisting of interceptor missiles, radars, etc., and not to "exotic" ABM possibilities that might utilize laser or particle beams. Hence, to the extent that Soviet leaders may share this interpretation and have not foreclosed the exotic-ARM option, the advent of American laser ASAT weapon systems could provide additional incentive for Soviet development of air- or space-based laser ABM systems.

The ASLBM application is an example of another long-range HEL possibility that bears directly on the. ARM Treaty of 1972. To the degree that overhead surveillance systems can provide early warning and launch location information for submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLRMs), this information could be utilized to vector laser-armed aircraft which would carry out boost-phase interceptions of relatively soft SLBMs. This conception of a possible air-based laser ASLRM weapon system might prove to be much more cost-effective than strategic antisubmarine warfare (ASW) systems. Its feasibility, of course, would depend on further advances in high-energy laser technology as well as on the future durability of the ARM Treaty, for which a review conference will be convened in 1978.

It is my belief that laser ARM systems constitute the most interesting possible application of high-energy laser technology. It is true that laser guns (having large fields of fire and great agility) mounted on various aircraft may lead to highly effective self-defense and air superiority capabilities in the coming decades. But the real payoff is in laser weapon systems that have long ranges (e.g., thousands of miles) and adequate power/propagation/pointing characteristics to produce the timely destruction of strategic targets such as satellites and ballistic missiles. The contemporary strategic balance is based on nuclear weapons, which, in the event of war, would be delivered to their designated targets by bombers, ICBMs, and SLBMs (and probably strategic cruise missiles in the mid-term future). Effective interception of these nuclear delivery systems constitutes the most important generic function of strategic defensive weapon systems and may prove to be highly feasible by the use of advanced laser weapons.

With the possible exception of the ASLBM application, aircraft are not the most appropriate platforms for basing high-energy laser weapons designed to destroy strategic ballistic missiles. Given its unique vantage point and lack of propagation problems, space is the best arena from which to launch potent "photon torpedoes" toward strategic missiles in the vulnerable boost phase. Missile cases and engines would appear to have important laser vulnerabilities during the highly stressed powered portion of the flight trajectory. Satellites, of course, would tend to be even more vulnerable to space-based lasers.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been concentrating its strategic technology efforts in chemical laser R&D with various space-based applications in mind. In his posture statement for FY 1977, under the priority heading of "Space Applications," DARPA Director George H. Heilmeier stated:

The US continues to increase its reliance on strategic offensive and defensive systems which totally or partially involve space as the environment. It is in this environment that one of the most significant properties of a high energy laser may he exploited most fully-the ability to precisely transmit energy over very long distances at the speed of light.

The laser device is the heart of the system and for space-based applications, where system weight is a critical factor, laser efficiency is a driving parameter. The DARPA laser program is investigating two candidate device classes-an infrared (2.7um) hydrogen-fluoride laser whose energy is produced by either chemical or electrical excitation. . . .

Recent DARPA studies have revealed the significant advantages to he gained by implementing very large optical apertures in space. In infrared surveillance systems, this would provide the capability to accomplish continuous surveillance. This year DARPA has initiated studies to define the technical risk and direction associated with the development of this technology. We feel that large erectable space optics will significantly influence the future direction of space laser and surveillance system development.¹⁶

More recently, Dr. Heilmeier has testified that DARPA's space-based laser program is motivated partly by a belief that the achievement of high-energy lasers for possible use against hostile satellites "could represent a Sputnik-like event" in its geopolitical impact.¹⁷ His important testimony before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on R&D goes directly to the heart of the potential strategic implications of high-energy laser technology:

When I appeared before this committee last year, I outlined an investment strategy which focused on some key questions whose answers are deeply rooted in advanced technology. There is little doubt in my mind that these questions could become the national security issues of the 1980s. Let me review them briefly:

• Are there technologies on the horizon that could make possible a space-related use of high energy lasers and could such a laser system in the hands of the Soviets threaten our vital satellite network and strategic deterrent capability? Conversely, could such a laser serve the United States in some defensive way?

Even two years ago some of these questions would have seemed like something out of a modern day Jules Verne novel. However, as a result of DARPA initiatives, while difficult technical problems remain, the technologies to answer each of these questions in the affirmative are on the horizon today and require little in the way of major unknown, conceptual breakthroughs to make visionary answers to these questions a reality. But what are the implications to our security assuming that we or the Soviets are successful?

For a moment, I'd like you to consider:

• Space Defense--Both the United States and Russia depend heavily on space assets. Ponder the consequences of a space associated system that could protect our own satellite resources while possessing the capability to destroy enemy satellites in a surgical and timely manner.

• Ballistic Missile Defense--Ballistic missile defense based on missile interceptors can be saturated by large numbers of warheads. Ponder the consequences of a leak-proof ballistic missile defense-one that could not be overcome by projected numbers of missiles.

Sometime in the future, the foregoing initiatives can he ours instead of the Soviets'. While difficult technical problems remain, the technology is on the horizon and amenable to an investment in well structured, focused programs....

Almost from the inception of the high energy laser, people have speculated on the possibility of deployment of them in space. This was simply unrealizable using the gas dynamic laser (the first high energy laser) or the electrically excited laser because of their size and weight. Our recently completed analysis indicates that laser systems incorporating much more efficient future chemical lasers may be feasible.

The high energy laser in space is a potential system to defend our own satellites against antisatellite threats. The technical problems are formidable, requiring major advances in chemical laser devices; precision pointing and tracking; and large, high-power optics. Nevertheless, space is a favorable environment for chemical lasers. The pressure recovery problem that terrestrial and airborne applications must face does not exist in the vacuum of space, nor are there propagation problems due to the atmosphere which can distort the beam and lessen its effectiveness.

The DARPA program is attacking important aspects of the space-based high energy laser problem. It is my belief that the high energy laser in space could represent a Sputnik-like event... a technical achievement which could influence the perceptions of foreign countries as to who is the leader in defense-related technology. Such perceptions could have serious political implications in view of more obvious trends in other areas.¹⁸

According to a recent report on HEL weapon possibilities, the question of space applications comes up again and again:

Not only do all laser wavelengths travel better in space--losing energy density only through unavoidable beam spreading--but some particularly destructive wavelengths, such as those in the ultraviolet, can only propagate in a vacuum. chemical lasers, which may one day be very light and efficient, work best in space. And satellites make very tempting targets, since by their nature, they must be lightweight and thus relatively fragile.

The number of strategically important satellites is constantly increasing. . . Treaties and incidents aside, [former DDR&E] Currie admits," The question of warfare in space or space as sanctuary inevitably will arise."¹⁹

This line of thinking has produced a revival of interest in the possibility of space warfare involving high-energy laser weapons.²⁰

At a Harvard seminar in 1974, Richard L Garwin reportedly delivered a "devastating critique" of the emerging laser weapons program. ²¹After ruling out various laser weapon possibilities (e.g., ground-based ABM, airborne antiaircraft, and shipborne anticruise missile systems) as either cost-ineffective or vulnerable to countermeasures, Garwin made a quite provocative statement about the likely American response to a hypothetical Soviet deployment of a space-based laser weapon system:

A space-based laser ABM . . . fails as a practical candidate for deployment if only because neither the United States and the Soviet Union would tolerate the other's gradual deployment of such capability. Rather, nuclear-armed interceptors would be used to attack the imagined laser-hearing satellites as they were being readied in orbit over a period of months.²²

Garwin's statement and Heilmeier's testimony provide important evidence that Soviet development and testing of space-based high-energy lasers would generally be taken very seriously by the United States. This would be true even if such Soviet activities were being performed with nondestructive purposes in mind (such as radar tracking, high-resolution imaging, or power transmission).²³ Indeed, any large-scale Soviet experimentation with space-based high-energy lasers that occurred before similar American experimentation could well constitute a Heilmeierian "Sputnik-like" technological surprise with enormous political and military impact.²⁴ The possibility of this type of technological surprise and its concomitant implications for national security and arms control must be taken into account by strategic and arms control policy planners.

The political evolution of an appropriate American response to such a possible Soviet surprise is one of the most uncertain components of the current strategic situation. The Soviets are well aware of the legacy of Sputnik/1957: the aggressive American response pushed the Soviet Union deeper into a posture of strategic inferiority which lasted for more than a decade. Would Soviet leaders tend to be more cautious about triggering a similar American response in the future? Or would they calculate that the contemporary arms control environment might provide adequate political cover for important technological developments in the area of strategic defense which could ultimately contribute to clear-cut Soviet superiority?

After all, the ARM Treaty of 1972 is the bedrock of the SALT process on which rests everything that has followed, including President Carter's expectations that a SALT II agreement is feasible in the very near future. Hence the Soviet leadership might believe that some combination of (1) arms control ambience; (2) American permissiveness regarding technical violations of the existing SALT agreements; and (3) vocal MADvocates in American elites (who would never permit the construction of serious ARM systems for population defense) could suffice to protect Soviet HEL (or particle-beam) initiatives from inducing coherent mobilization of American military technology and resources in the form of a serious commitment to, say, a space-based laser ARM weapon development program.

One of the primary considerations regarding the continuing viability of the ARM Treaty of 1972 is whether the Soviet Union and United States both have sufficient political will to resolve the rather "small and grubby" issues that are likely to arise. The first ABM Treaty review conference during 1978 will provide an important forum for testing the political will of both parties to this treaty when the issues of tactical ARM and SAM-upgrade possibilities may be placed on the conference agenda. Difficulty in resolving smaller arms control issues would portend extreme problems in resolving much larger issues relating to exotic-ARM possibilities in the future (e.g., during the ABM Treaty review conference of 1983 and 1988- it should be noted that this treaty is of unlimited duration).

How interested will the Soviet Union and the United States be in propping up the ARM Treaty during the 1980s if and when HEL (or particle-beam) technology advances to the point at which serious ARM applications appear to be feasible and may become increasingly desirable? To the extent that both American and Soviet leaders invest significant political capital in détente and bilateral strategic arms control objectives, they will tend to equivocate with their domestic constituencies and even deceive themselves about what the other's intentions and possible capabilities may be.²⁵ The fundamental issue of political will may become subsidiary to that of the grudging toleration by one side (probably the American) for ARM research or advanced development initiatives by the other side (probably the Soviet) which do not per se violate Article V of the ABM Treaty, liberally interpreted.

The key point is the existence of broad gray zones between those HEL applications that may involve real threats to the viability of the strategic nuclear-deterrent forces and those that do not. Few sharp boundaries can be drawn between future HEL systems designed to track and image satellites and those having marginal capabilities for delivering lethal bolts of laser energy to relatively fragile satellites or eventually to strategic nuclear aircraft and missiles. As HEL technology advances, this gray zone expands, and marginal weapon capabilities against vulnerable targets tend to blur into increasingly broad-based capabilities against a wider spectrum of "interesting⁵' targets. This blurring process is likely to produce severe and unprecedented difficulties for the arms control task of channeling HEL technology into directions which have minimal destabilizing implications for international security over the long haul.

On the other hand, considering the inherent instability of nuclear deterrence as a means for reducing the risk of destructive war over the very-long-term future, one could argue that a strategic transition from nuclear offensive weapons to nonnuclear (photon and/or particle-beam) defensive weapons might be eminently desirable. In this regard, President Carter's ultimate objective of the elimination of nuclear weapons from national arsenals should be noted. The primary task of long-term arms control may be to channel HEL technology so as not to destabilize the delicate balance of nuclear deterrence but rather to guarantee a smooth transition from such "offensive" balances to a more stable regime of defensive emphasis.

This line of thinking brings us to a central arms control issue: should the ABM Treaty of 1972 be interpreted as banning all space-based HEL systems, including those not dedicated to the ABM mission as well as those that are? All military systems have growth potential (e.g., note the persistence of the SAM upgrade issue), and HEL weapon systems may have much more than their fair share. Could nonlethal HEL systems be secretly upgraded to have lethal capabilities in such a manner that delectability would remain highly uncertain? Or could non-ABM laser weapons be upgraded to have significant ABM capabilities? If so, the ABM Treaty review conference of 1983 or 1988 may be forced to consider the feasibility of arms control verification for emerging HEL technology. This technology is an increasingly important gray area, with enormous strategic potential, in which straightforward arms control negotiating and verification approaches are totally lacking. Disposition of these complex issues through conceptual nuclear attacks on "imagined" laser ABM satellite systems, as Garwin suggested, comes nowhere near the heart of the laser weapon arms control problem.

Given new statutory requirements for arms control impact statements (ACIS),²⁶ as well as the Carter administration's clear-cut arms control orientation, it seems questionable whether Garwin's type of summary judgment against space-based HEL weapon systems will eliminate future academic and congressional interest in the implications of possible laser weapon developments for both American and international security. This should prove to be a fertile field for creative policy-relevant research, especially since adequate technical verification of HEL-related arms control agreements may prove to be an extremely-elusive goal:

The SALT agreements did include a specific prohibition of the testing of certain kinds of ABM components of satellite-based ABM development. Less than complete confidence in verification was accepted in these agreements, which seem to have set a precedent for other possible limitations without insistence on verification. That verification is as much a political as a technical matter, that perfect verification is impossible, and that it is also unnecessary if there is some measure of political trust are also increasingly accepted ideas.²⁷

In essence, inadequate technical verification of hypothetical laser weapon arms control agreements would force the United States to rely upon Soviet good will. Few Americans, however, would be willing to accept this type of arrangement.

The bottom line for laser weapons is that they are slowly moving toward engineering reality from the domain of science fiction. When HEL prototypes become available in the this new family of directed-energy weaponry mid-980s for various military applications, on strategic arms control will become the policy implications of laser weapons for increasingly important and could help deter-strategic force structure and doctrine will mine the long-term evolution of the shape of require careful investigation. The impact of SALT during the future.

1. A more comprehensive analysis of the possible impact of laser weapons on strategic posture and doctrine and on arms control will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Harvard quarterly, International Security.

2. D. G. Brennan, "Weaponry," Toward the Year 2018 (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1968), pp. 9-15.

3. Associated Press wire, May 22, 1973.

4. Drew Middleton, "Powerful Lasers Reported Bound for American and Soviet Arsenals," New York Times, February 16,1977, p.2.

5. For example, see John H. Douglas, "High-Energy Laser Weapons," Science News, July 3, 1976; Jeff Hecht, "Later Weapons," Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, October 1977; and Edgar Ulsamer, "Exotic New Weapons: Reality or Myth?" Air Force Magazine, September 1977.

6. James W. Canan, The Superwarriors (New York: Weybright & Talley,1975), p.273. Recently, American military intelligence officials were reported to have compared the Soviet particle-beam ABM development program in site to the huge Manhattan Project (tee David Binder, "U.S. and Soviet Reported Trying to Perfect an Anti-Missile Beam," New York Times, February 5, 1977). Obviously, such estimates reflect many qualitative factors, which are judgmental in nature.

7. See the prepared statement by Dr. Robert A. Greensburg, Assistant Director for Space and Advanced Systems (ODDR&E), in Fiscal Year 1978 Authorization . . . Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 95th Congress, March 29, 1977, pp.6173-76.

8. Philip J. Klass, "Advanced Weaponry Research Intensifies," Aviation Week & Space Technology, August 18, 1975, p. 34.

9. Bernard Weinraub, "Brown Says Soviets Can Fell Satellites," New York Times, October 5, 1977 and "Soviet Union Outpaces U.S. in Preparing for Possible War in Space, Brown Says," Wall Street Journal, October 5, 1977. According to the principal Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering: "We cannot let the USSR obtain a military advantage in space through antisatellite weapons, because the consequences to the future balance of military power could be no less than catastrophic." Statement by Robert N. Parker before the Subcommittee on Science and Space of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, 95th Congress, March 9, 1977, p. II-2.

10. Report of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to the Congress on the FY 1978 Budget, FY 1979 Authorization Request and FY 1978-1982 Defense Programs. January 14, 1977, pp.198-99.

11. According to Genera George S. Brown. Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Military Posture Statement for FY 1977 (p.46):

The United States' primary system for warning of ICBM and SLBM launches is a system which consists of 3 satellites (2 located in the Western Hemisphere and 1 in the Eastern Hemisphere). The satellites are in synchronous orbit and operate on a full time basis. The Western satellites are deployed to provide coverage of the SLBM launch areas and the Eastern satellite is deployed to provide coverage of the ICBM threat.

12. An interesting, but far from comprehensive, discussion of the possible impact of laser ASM weapons is given by P. J. Nahin, "The Laser Ballistic Missile Defense," IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. AES-13, March 1977.

13. Rumsfeld, p.67. Emphasis added.

14. Sec Donald G. Brennan's definition of MAD = mutual assured destruction in "Strategic Alternatives, " New York Times, May 24 and 25,1971 (a two-part Op Ed article).

15. See Paragraph E of the Agreed Interpretation to the SALT I agreements, Arms Controls and Disarmament Agreements, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, June 1977 (second edition), p.141.

16. Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, United Stales Senate, 94th Congress, Second session, pp. 5762-66. Part II, Research and Development (1976).

17. Philip J. Klass, "Progress Made on High-Energy Laser," Aviation Week Space Technology, March 7, 1977, p.16.

18. George H. Heilmeier, Statement on DARPA FY 1978 R&D Program in Fiscal Year I978 Authorization . . . Hearings, pp. 6177-63.

19. Douglas, pp.11-12.

20. "War's Fourth Dimension," Newsweek, November 29, 1976. Also see three articles in New York Times: "2 Magazines Say Soviet Lasers Destroyed a U.S. Space Satellite," November 23,1976; "Pentagon Fearful of Soviet Effort to Develop Hunter-.Killer Satellites," November 24,1976; and "Warfare in Space?" editorial, November 26, 1976.

21. Douglas, p.11.

22. Richard L. Garwin, "Effective Military Technology for the 1980s,International Security, Fall 1976, p.73.

23. For example, see Edgar Ulsamer, "Laser-'Powered Rockets and Dark Satellites," Air Force Magazine, April 1976; Robert H. Kingston and Leon Sullivan, "Coherent Laser Radar," Optical Design Problems in Laser Systems, vol. 69 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (1975); and Kenneth Billings, "Laser Energy Conversion," Astronautics and Aeronautics, June 1975.

24. Herbert York, in Race to Oblivion: A Participant’s View of the Arms Race (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970) discusses at length the crucial psychological impact that Sputnik had on American society and government. Another excellent description of the strategic and political impact of Sputnik is given by Philip J. Klass in Secret Sentries in Space (New York: Random House, 1971)

25. As always the subjective interpretation of ambiguous intentions is an ultrahazardous occupation.

26. Public Law 94-141, Section 146, amending the Arms Control and Disarmament Act (22 U.S.C. 2571-75).

27. Harvey Brooks, "The Military Innovation System and the Qualitative Arms Race," Daedalus, Summer 1975, p.82.

Barry J. Smernoff (Ph.D., Brandeis University) is a member of the professional staff at the Hudson Institute in New York. As a policy analyst, he has conducted research on the economic and national security implications of alternative energy policies and on the arms control impact of new military technologies. Formerly a staff member at Lincoln Laboratory, Dr. Smernoff has lectured at U.S. and Canadian universities, government agencies, and for the National Academy of Sciences. He has published several scientific articles and written more than thirty research reports published by the Hudson Institute

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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