Air University Review, March-April 1981

ICBM Vulnerability, Mobility, and Arms Control:

the decisional horns of dilemma

Much heat and controversy in the last Presidential election focused on the state of American strategic nuclear forces and their comparison with Soviet counterparts. A lightning rod in this debate, discussed in extensive forums that included the floor of the Democratic National Convention, was the projected vulnerability of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to a preemptive strike by counterforce-capable Soviet missiles, a problem that one leading commentator has described as "the strategic issue of the 1980s."¹

The ICBM vulnerability problem has, of course, been the product of ongoing and projected improvements in multiple-warhead and guidance technologies that have decreased circular error probables (CEPs) spectacularly, to the point of achieving a high single-shot kill probability (SSKP) against even hardened targets like ICBM silos (socalled hard-target kill capability). This achievement is significant both for targeting against retaliatory systems and the vital command and control links needed to manage strategic resources in a wartime environment.

Much of the current debate of what to do about ICBM vulnerability has centered on proposals to utilize constrained mobile basing (the multiple protective shelters or MPS system) of the missile experimental (MX) as a countermeasure. As I argued in the July-August 1980 edition of the Review, the proposed system has conceptual problems that render it less than an optimal solution. Implicit in that assessment, the MPS system seeks to please two masters, force invulnerability and arms control verifiability, when these two requisites are not entirely compatible. By seeking to compromise these two ends, the result is a less than satisfactory overall resolution. The purpose of this article is to explore some of the reasons why incompatibility exists.

One of the basic problems with the proposed solution to ICBM vulnerability is that it appears to be a discreet response to a specific problem. This narrow view may be mistaken. The implications of hard-target kill capability and how it is countered have consequences for the entire strategic deterrence system. If uncountered, improved accuracy threatens the survivability of retaliatory forces that has been a prime ingredient in the retaliatory strategy underlying American policy. If countered by recourse to a deceptively based mobile system like MX, the results could greatly complicate arms control processes based in the ability to monitor compliance by nonintrusive means.

The purpose of deterrence is to convince a potential aggressor not to attack. It is accomplished through one or both of two threats. These threats are the promise that you have sufficient counterforce to stop and thus frustrate aggression, thereby denying goal accomplishment, or to inflict such massive punishment on the aggressor as to make the costs prohibitively high. Since deploying effective missile defense systems is outlawed by the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the absence of defense has made the punishment threat the deterrent base and has formed the basis of strategy and force requirements.

In the early 1960s, this threat definition was canonized as assured destruction and became mutual as the Soviets built their own nuclear forces to parity. With both sides possessing secure second-strike forces, preemptive incentives were minimized, and the result was stability in the nuclear relationship. Klaus Knorr explains, "As long as the conditions of the mutual balance of terror . . . prevail, it is hard to think of conflict objectives valuable enough to justify the deliberate initiation of large-scale nuclear war."²

Regardless of whether forces are aimed at population concentrations or infrastructure targets, the basis is the punishment threat. Once the force levels necessary to assure destruction threat are established, the emphasis moves toward stabilizing the relationship. As Fritz Ermarth puts it:

The essence of U.S. "doctrine" is to deter central nuclear war at relatively low levels of arms effort ("arms race stability") and strategic anxiety ("crisis stability") through the credible threat of catastrophic damage to the enemy should deterrence fail.³

Two corollaries relevant to the missile accuracy improvement question flow from these basic preferences. The first relates to force characteristics. Forces must be invulnerable to preemptive attack to ensure their availability for retaliatory missions (survivability) and they must be capable of overcoming adversary defense efforts and reaching targets (penetrability).

Accuracy improvements affect these requirements in different ways. Accuracy improvement approaching hard-target kill capability makes fixed offensive systems vulnerable and thus decreases retaliatory capacities, but improved accuracy also strengthens the assured destruction threat by enhancing single-shot kill probability. Fewer warheads need to be dedicated to given targets, creating the ability to broaden target coverage or to keep more forces in strategic reserve.

The second corollary relates to targeting plans. Assured destruction strongly implies countervalue targeting or aiming retaliatory forces at things people value most, such as their lives and the necessities for postwar recovery like factories, roads, and electric power generators. Countervalue targeting does not require enormous accuracy, although accuracy improvements do allow greater target discrimination away from gross urban concentrations to more discrete targets like recovery capacities.

The alternate targeting strategy is counterforce, and counterforce targets can be divided into two categories: strategic retaliatory forces and residual forces remaining after an initial nuclear exchange. Counterforce strategy against retaliatory forces (ICBMs and command and control facilities) requires attainment of hard-target kill capability, since a missile not destroyed can be used in retaliation. To the extent that attaining counterforce capability makes the targeting plan attractive, the result is a threat to invulnerability and is destabilizing.

Missile accuracy improvement began in earnest during the latter 1960s, largely because of two interrelated factors, First, the early McNamara Defense Department’s decision not to deploy more than 1054 land-based ICBMs and 656 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) meant that enhanced American capability would have to come from improvements in existing systems. Second, Soviet strategic expansion was evident by the latter 1960s. For a variety of political, bureaucratic, budgetary, and technological reasons, it was decided that American strategic advantage was best served by engaging in a qualitative rather than quantitative competition.

Once engaged, the outcomes of this process were unpredictable, incremental, and difficult to control, The creative nature of scientific research and decentralization of the American research system make the results efforts difficult to predict and control. The basic nature of science and engineering in precision, so that "regardless of official doctrine, teams of scientists and engineers do and will inevitably discover ways of improving system perforrnance."⁴ Control is made more difficult because what happens ". . . is a composite of behavior taking place in atleast three distinguishable, but overlapping arenas [war planning, system and force acquisition, and the public debate]."⁵ In that organizational setting, coordination problems are inevitable.

Accuracy improvements in reentry vehicle (RV) and warhead design have been the result of two technological processes: reductions in warhead size, allowing more guidance equipment to be placed in existing systems; and computer miniaturization, permitting more guidance to fit in available space. The first notable breakthrough was the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) bus, which is a postboost vehicle that was a technological by-product of the space program.⁶ Its testing was completed in 1968, with initial deployment 1970. These breakthroughs in guidance technology have allowed spectacular CEP reductions and new possibilities across the spectrum of weapon systems.

The cumulative effect has been to create the possibility of hard-target kill and, hence counterforce capability. At the war planning level, these developments

. . . affect the entire spectrum of accuracy, mobility, the multiplicity and discrimination of available strike weapons, yields, surveillance, command, control, information and communications, as well associated means for obtaining intelligence and analysis and decision.⁷

The ability to select targets with a high degree of confidence also strikes at some long-held notions about how nuclear war would be fought: "What we see here is nothing less than decoupling of two ideas which have been closely conjoined since 1945 and perhaps since 1861: the ideas of strategic warfare and of mass destruction."⁸

These technological developments attack the heart of the strategic consensus based in the assured destruction threat. Considerations of preemption to dilute retaliatory capacity and target selectivity to limit damage challenges basic tenets without offering obvious alternate bases. One observer concludes that "technology can destabilize the strategic balance and thus provide less, rather than more, security."⁹ Senator Frank Church, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, worried about the mutual effects on secure second-strike calculations: "If these forces are deployed, each nation’s fear of a first strike will be dramatically increased."¹⁰ These potential consequences have forced attempts to rationalize what technology has made possible.

Justifications for missile accuracy improvements have been and continue to be highly controversial. The basic reason for this controversy is that the capability is Damoclean in nature and thus produces schizophrenic explanations about its good and bad effects.

The positive and negative edges of the Damoclean sword can be restated. Positively, improved accuracy broadens target coverage by permitting fewer warheads to be aimed at various targets and, once achieved, allows targeting of things beyond the capabilities of less accurate delivery systems. Negatively, retaliatory systems like the fixed, land-based ICBMs are among those additional targets. The result is the ICBM vulnerability issue and countermeasures to it.

This Damoclean character makes discussions of accuracy improvement schizoid. In the American debate, this schizophrenia can be summarized as follows: American possession of counterforce capability is stabilizing because it enhances flexibility and improves our deterrent position; Soviet attainment of the same capacity is destabilizing because it will tempt them to launch a preemptive attack against our ICBMs. Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger authored this American position and explained it before a subcommitte of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

We have to distinguish among disarming first strike, no first use, and counterforce. Counterforce can go against any military target. It can go against IRBM sites as opposed to ICBM sites. It would go against airfields or army camps. It has a range, and one can go counterforce rather than countervalue without necessarily putting himself into a position of having a disarming first-strike capability.¹¹

Tammen elaborates the virtues attributed to the American improvement program:

Two points generally are made in favor of a new hard-target warhead program. First, it would increase efficiency by reducing the number of warheads now targeted against one hard facility. Second, it would allow greater flexibility and hence effectiveness in targeting command posts, nuclear weapons storage facilities, communications centers, and other hardened sites that may remain vulnerable in a second-strike environment.¹²

This retaliatory-preemptive division makes the discussion schizophrenic. Because we maintain that our basic intentions are retaliatory, possession of a capability with obvious preemptive implications will tempt the Russians to think about striking first but will not create the same temptation for us.

Such a distinction is simply incredible and creates a Jekyll-Hyde dichotomy wherein Dr. Jekyll’s role is assigned to the United States and Mr. Hyde’s to the Soviets. Further, it assumes that the United States would not be tempted to swallow the potion counterforce capability provides and assume Hyde-like qualities. The argument becomes especially strained when applied to damage limitation arguments; in a retaliatory strike, we could destroy empty Soviet ICBM silos to prevent their reloading or holding missiles in reserve but would not engage in the more fruitful damage limitation activity of destroying those silos before their deadly contents had been dispatched. Any Soviet planner who accepted our reasoning would be a quite rightful candidate for assignment to a Siberian power station.

The problem underlying this inconsistency is, of course, the relationship between capabilities and intentions and the extent to which intentions can be inferred from physical capacity. Defenders of the Schlesinger thesis do not deny that hard-target kill capability is an outgrowth of our accuracy improvement program (in fact, they generally applaud it) as well as that of the Soviets. Rather, the imputation of a Soviet preemptive intent derives from Soviet public disdain for the assured destruction concept and their advocacy of counterforce targeting as part of war winning and recovery should deterrence fail. Similarly, the controlled, second-strike application of our counterforce capability is supported by our public advocacy of second-striking and our emphasis on limiting a nuclear war should it occur.

That the Soviets must find this distinction suspicious is pointed out by Paul Warnke: "The fine tuning of our nuclear weapons and delivery systems could create fears of counterforce attack on the other side and hence be destabilizing."¹³ Speaking directly to the so-called Schlesinger doctrine, William Kincade argues:

In terms of perceptions, however, his separation of targeting doctrine from hardware and his denial of first-strike intentions were somewhat academic, since the U.S. was pursuing simultaneously a warfighting targeting and employment doctrine and missile accuracy improvements which lend themselves to first-strike interpretation.¹⁴

Raymond Garthoff adds that espousing the virtues of counterforce represents a doctrinal movement away from assured destruction and ties the issue to the SALT process:

The reversal of American stated policy on the destabilizing nature of counterforce capabilities, and the open pursuit of such capabilities since 1974 considerably raised Soviet suspicions, especially accompanied the failure to reach a SALT agreement based on the Vladivostok accords.¹⁵

The emergence of counterforce-capable weapon systems and their justifications are controversial and create very real problems for both sides. The thorny nature of the difficulties is well demonstrated in the ongoing debate about the MX, which adds an arms control dimension to the controversy.

The proposed MX would be an extremely sophisticated addition to the current American ICBM inventory of Titan, Minuteman II, and Minuteman III missiles. The MX is extremely powerful, with a " . . . throw-weight that would be at least four times as great as . . . the current Minuteman III"¹⁶ (which has about half that of the Soviet SS-18 "heavy" missile). The MX has hard-target kill capability with a CEP no estimated at .05 nautical miles, compared projections for the Soviet SS-17, SS-18, and SS-19 counterparts in the 1000-foot range by the early 1980s.

What makes the MX all the more remarkable is the variety of modes in which it can be deployed. MX could be housed in silos or in a variety of mobile modes without seriously degrading its performance.

This MX quality adds an arms control dimension to the whole problem area. A mobile MX responds directly to ICBM vulnerability, but its enormously sophisticated guidance system makes it hard-target kill capable and raises the range of controversy that counterforce capacity engenders. The debate becomes arms-control relevant because, as a hedge against Soviet hard-kill capability, MX is most effective when using some deceptive form of deployment (so that the Soviets would not know which aim points to target and consequently would have to destroy them all, in the process depleting a large part of their warheads). Deceptive deployment can violate national technical means of verification provisions that have formed the basis of successful arms control agreements and hence creates concerns within the arms control community. Each characteristic merits elaboration.

It is no surprise that land-based, fixed-site ICBM forces should be the first system to become vulnerable: they are in known, immovable locations and are hence the easiest to target. Since a large portion of each side’s arsenals are ICBMs (about one-third of deliverable U.S. megatonnage and over 80 percent of Soviet megatonnage), "The question for the decade, for both superpowers in the 1980s with respect to the structure of their strategic forces, should be what to do about land-based ICBMs."¹⁷

John Newhouse summarizes the various ways to deal with a vulnerable Minuteman force: "(1) dismantling all or part of it; (2) superhardening the silos; (3) defending it; (4) putting it on mobile launchers."¹⁸ Adopting a launch-on-warning (LOW) firing policy can be added to this list. Each possibility has advantages and disadvantages that can be summarized:

—Dismantling the ICBM force is advocated by those who maintain that: a nonsurvivable force component creates a temptation to preempt and is worse than no force; and it makes more sense to invest in more survivable systems like SLBMs (as reflected in the United States "one-way freedom to mix" proposals in SALT I). Dismemberment is opposed on the grounds that: ICBMs have positive characteristics not shared by other systems (e.g., positive prelaunch command and control, delivery accuracy, high payload); and the ICBMs have important missions (e.g., creating ‘‘corridors" for penetrating bombers by destroying Soviet air defenses) and pose offensive and defensive problems for the Soviets that would not be present in their absence (essentially a defense of the Triad concept).

—Additional hardening of existing silos or siloing in alternate, harder sites such as deep caves generate little support. Objections arise from two sources: the activity is very expensive, and its effects would be temporary. Colin Gray summarizes these objectives: " . . . the arithmetic is not promising for its effectiveness (e.g., and increase in nominal silo blast resistance from 2,000 to 3,000 psi . . . can be offset by an improvement in missile CEP of 50 feet.)"¹⁹

—Missile defense was actively debated in the latter 1960s and early 1970s (the Johnson Sentinel and Nixon Safeguard proposals), and a Safeguard configuration was built at Grand Forks and was operational for a short time. ABM was ultimately rejected because of questionable effectiveness and cost given projected offensive improvements like MIRV. In addition, the incompatibility of active defenses with strategy was raised (an effective ABM system would make penetrability questionable and partially undermine deterrence stability notions), and the debate culminated with the ABM Treaty. Projected breakthroughs in laser and charged-particle beam research²⁰ have ballistic missile defense potential, however.

—If other options are rejected, the remaining possibilities are to move to a LOW firing plan or to go mobile. LOW involves firing missiles when one detects an incoming missile force to ensure that forces are not destroyed in their silos and is often condemned as crisis destabilizing. Unless an alternative antidote to the vulnerability problem is found, however, "Those branches of American and Soviet military services that believe they must continue to press the case for land-based missile forces will . . . be even more tempted to stress launch-on-warning as an option."²¹ Some form of mobility thus becomes more attractive than the alternatives.

MX’s hard-target kill capability causes concern, not only because counterforce capability challenges traditional deterrence stability notions (as discussed earlier) but also because of Soviet force structure. The Soviet Rocket Forces are the preeminent arm of Russian strategic capability. As a result, ICBM vulnerability is a much greater Soviet than American problem and makes MX a particularly threatening possibility: "MX could appear to the Soviets to constitute a credible first-strike threat against their land-based missiles, which are the backbone of Soviet strategic forces."²²

A credible U.S. counterforce capability could force the Soviets into a mobility decision for most of the same reasons as are being discussed in the United States. The Soviet’s more limited technological base would be a disadvantage for them in a "mobility race": targeting from a fixed site is considerably easier than targeting the same weapon from a variety of potential points, the correct one of which can only be known in advance if one plans to preempt. A Soviet decision not to compete in mobile missiles could lead them to other firing options like launch-on-warning. The potential effect would be ". . . crisis instability and preemption incentives that are undesirable,"²³ and there is some evidence that the U.S.S.R has already recognized this problem.

Even if the mobile missile question is detached from counterforce capability (e.g., a less accurate mobile missile), mobility remains an arms control problem. The basic problem is that the more mobile a basing system is, the more secure it is, but that security is bought at the expense of arms control verifiability. The result is a basic dilemma for policymakers: the purpose of mobile systems is to evade the detection that would allow an enemy to destroy them. The more efficiently the systems are hidden, the more secure they are against counterforce-capable Soviet weapons. While verification improvements are possible (e.g., cooperative agreements to open silos periodically for inspection, only constructing missiles near launch sites so they can be counted in a manner similar to nuclear submarines), some counting imprecision occurs; as Newhouse puts it, arms control "stability relies on knowing what the other has."²⁴ Even supporters of mobile systems like MX agree there is an arms control cost in the decision to go mobile. Gray, for instance, states bluntly that

. . . most of the land-mobile possibilities would place intolerable strain upon national technical means of verification. American officials might be compelled to choose between a SALT III regime that cannot be adequately verified and the demise of the SALT system.²⁵

Sidney D. Drell agrees, stating dourly, "The verification problems raised by this option [mobile missiles] could mean the end of arms control by negotiated agreement."²⁶

There is an obvious paradox in this situation. On the one hand, arms race stability is best served by verifiable limitations through arms control agreements like SALT. On the other hand, crisis stability is best served by having secure forces. If land-based systems are to remain part of the deterrent force, mobility is the most effective way to sustain that security. Thus, the accomplishment of the dual U.S. preferences for arms race stability and crisis stability are subjected to strain in a world of hard-target kill capable weapon systems: verifiable agreements require adversary knowledge of launcher numbers that entails simultaneously some increase in the ability to target systems. Knowing that forces are vulnerable raises incentives for preemptive or launch-on-warning firing postures and contributes to crisis instability.

Attempts to reconcile this dilemma are troublesome. First, if a U.S. decision to go mobile is followed by a Soviet decision to do likewise, it is quite possible that the Soviets would go to a less verifiable mobile basing mode, such as road mobile. Second, deception and precise verification are not entirely compatible. The extra missile shelters in the MPS system, for instance, could be loaded with excess missiles in a crisis, and even randomly opening holes for inspection does not entirely overcome the cheating potential of putting extra missiles in the shelters. Certainly the United States would suspect the Soviets of attempting such deception, and there is little reason to believe the U.S.S.R would not harbor the same suspicions about our system. The only way to reinstate precise verification is through cooperation and intrusive monitoring. As one analyst puts it, "In terms of the intrusiveness of the monitoring procedures and the amount of U.S.-Soviet cooperation required, verification in an MPS environment is without precedent in strategic arms control."²⁷

If precise verification and mobility are incompatible and the decision is reached to sacrifice arms control security for secure forces, one possible outcome is " . . . that mobile deployments would touch off a destabilizing arms race."²⁸ Georgi Arbatov, director of the Soviet U.S.A. Institute, concurs in this conclusion:

The arms race could take a course . . . which would make new agreements on limiting and reducing armaments far more difficult, if not altogether impossible, due to the insurmountable obstacles for their verifcation.²⁹

There is not universal agreement either that mobile missiles are arms control destructive nor that the ICBM vulnerability issue warrants developing and deploying such systems. Gray, one of the leading advocates of the MX, poses the interesting argument that the vulnerability-mobility problem only becomes an arms control issue if the United States moves ahead in developing the system:

Silo vulnerability . . . does not become an arms control problem capable of being addressed seriously in SALT, until it is first approached as a defense problem. When the Soviet Union . . . observes that the United States is in the process of both solving its silo-vulnerability problem, and . . . is developing a major threat to Soviet silo-housed ICBMs, then silo vulnerability . . . should become an arms control issue relevant to SALT.³⁰

Gray bases this observation on the contention that MX development is necessary to motivate the Soviets to a serious concern about the issue: "MX is the system that should persuade very tough-minded Soviet officials that the hard-target counterforce race cannot be won."³¹ Thus, continued MX development to whatever point it takes to convince the Soviets becomes a bargaining chip for future arms control discussions.

This argument raises objections. If MX deployment becomes inexorable because of perceived necessity or if it requires deployment to convince the Soviets to take the issue seriously, there is the very real question of whether there would be anything substantial to discuss in post-MX arms control negotiations.

Some observers question how serious the ICBM vulnerability problem is. On the basis of elaborate computer simulations of potential Soviet attack scenarios taking into account a variety of variables, John D. Steinbruner and Richard L. Garwin maintain that a successful attack would require such substantial force depletion as to make the prospect unappealing. They conclude:

The strategic forces of the Soviet Union, even if very aggressively modernized, will not be sufficient to threaten with true credibility the decisive destruction of the United States Minuteman force.³²

Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, stressing the number of unpredictable factors such an attack would entail, agreed in 1978:

In recognizing that the MINUTEMAN vulnerability problem is a serious concern for us, we also realize that the Soviets would face great uncertainties in assessing whether they have the capability we fear . . .³³

Others disagree about whether vulnerability in one Triad leg would seriously tempt the Soviets to attack the ICBM force. Some observers, for instance, contend that unless all retaliatory systems can be attacked simultaneously (including bombers and submarines), the Soviets will remain deterred. Since the Soviets have neither the depressed trajectory SLBM capability to attack alert bombers nor effective antisubmarine warfare (ASW) capacity to pose a threat to SLBM forces, U.S. retaliatory capabilities are not seriously compromised. Critics of this position counter that survivable systems in all three Triad legs are necessary for deterrent stability; that the surviving forces are the least accurate (SLBMs) and most questionably penetrable (bombers); and that once an attack was completed, the United States could be left with the unattractive alternatives of retaliating with a massive countervalue attack inviting a similar response or of accepting a fait accompli.

The preceding discussion has attempted to convey the complexity and contentiousness of the ICBM vulnerability-mobility issue. Despite fundamental disagreements about the nature of the problem and its solution, some central realities must be dealt with. These realities require solutions with important long and short run consequences for the strategic nuclear relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The central fact, of course, is that both the United States and Soviet Russia will attain hard-target kill capability in the next few years. The history of abstinence from deploying technologically possible innovations is sufficiently dismal as to suggest that pinpoint accurate systems will enter strategic arsenals soon. This likelihood is enhanced by the fact that the kinds of improvements that lead to greater accuracy (e.g., computer guidance) are very difficult to verify.³⁴ Bans or limits on numbers of such warheads, even if adequate definitions could be reached, are unpromising; as with MIRV, the only way physically to ensure that limits are being honored would be through constant, on-site monitoring (to guarantee warheads are not switched). The SALT II solution on MIRV (any system tested as a MIRV is considered against the limit) simply encourages deployment to that limit.

If deployment is either highly likely or inevitable, a second reality must be faced: we do not truly know what the consequences of ICBM vulnerability are. This uncertainty is important for at least two reasons. First, uncertainty itself is destabilizing in terms of traditional notions about stable deterrence based in the sure belief that any nuclear usage would be suicidal. To the extent that counterforce attainment allows calculating potential advantage through preemption, the basic threat mechanism is weakened.

Uncertainty has a second effect that makes deployment more likely than it would be otherwise. Although predicting with absolute confidence the effect of ICBM vulnerability may not be possible, enumerating the possibilities is. Some of these possibilities could be no less than catastrophic, providing considerable momentum to counter the "worst case." In the case of ICBM vulnerability, the most effective countermeasure is the development of deceptively based mobile systems.

The decision either to develop and deploy MX or not to do so contains implications that could alter significantly the strategic nuclear balance. The final determination inevitably places one on the horns of dilemma: the decision not to go to mobile systems inevitably has negative consequences for traditional notions regarding stable deterrence; the decision to do so raises negative arms control implications that even the most ingenious verification schemes do not entirely overcome. It does not appear possible to have it both ways.

There is legitimate contention about the extent vulnerable ICBMs threaten strategic stability but it is undeniable that there is some impact. Minimally, this is true because deterrence is at heart psychological: one is deterred to the degree that one believes in the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear attack. The more certainly one believes that a nuclear action would be suicidal, the more firmly is one deterred, and thus the more stable is the nuclear relationship.

The simple fact that people can and do calculate the potential advantage that an uncountered hard-target kill attainment provides weakens the deterrent threat. Such discussions have concentrated on the effect of Soviet attainment on the integrity of U.S. deterrent posture, but the reverse is equally true. Given the heavy ICBM dominance in Soviet forces, American attainment of the capability is even a great concern to them, and they necessarily must assume that the United States is engaged in calculations about the same advantages attributed to their possession. This Soviet problem may create an equally important horn of dilemma for them in terms of how they can counter American hard-target kill capability.

Realizing these contingencies would bring into question both the survivability and penetrability of second-strike forces that have been the linchpins of deterrence stability notions for twenty years. At best, vulnerable forces are a tempting target for preemption and create pressures either for a preemptive or launch-on-warning counterdoctrine that would be crisis destabilizing. At worst, large-scale system vulnerability could force examination of deterrent system maintenance, with no alternative basis readily apparent.

The decision to develop deceptive mobile systems is no less damaging to arms control efforts. The Gray argument that continued development is needed to make missile accuracy part of the arms control agenda is unconvincing: the cat would clearly be out of the bag at that point. The ability to develop precisely verifiable agreements was a major item in the SALT II ratification debate as is advocacy of the proposed MX system. As the discussion has tried to demonstrate, these two positions are not as compatible as some have argued and raise some thorny problems to be resolved.

Notes

1. Colin S. Gray, "The Strategic Forces Traid: End of the Road?" Foreign Affairs, July 1978, pp.771-89.

2. Klaus Knorr, On the Uses of Military Power in the Nuclear Age (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 88-89.

3. Fritz W. Ermarth, "Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought," International Security, Fall 1978, pp. 138-39.

4. Colin S. Gray, "The Future of Land-Based Missile Forces," Adelphi Papers No. 140 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, Winter 1977), p. 4.

5. Ermarth, p. 142.

6. Ronald L. Tammen, MIRV and the Arms Race: An Interpretation of Defense Strategy (New York: Praeger, 1973).

7. Harry G. Gelber, "SALT and the Strategic Future," Orbis, Summer 1978, p. 289.

8. Ibid., p. 290.

9. Paul C. Warnke, "Arms Control: A Global Imperative," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1978, p. 33.

10. "SALT II, Linkage, and National Security," Arms Control Today, August-September 1978, p. 1.

11. Testimony of James Schlesinger, "U.S.-U.S.S.R. Strategic Policies," in Robert J. Pranger and Roger P. Labrie, editors, Nuclear Strategy and National Security: Points of View (Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1977), p. 115.

12. Tammen, p. 126. Emphasis added.

13. Paul C. Warnke, "Second Lecture," in Paul C. Warnke and James L. Buckley, Strategic Sufficiency: Fact or Fiction? (Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1972), p. 30.

14. William H. Kincade, "Repeating History: The Civil Defense Debate Renewed," International Security, Winter 1978, pp. 107-8.

15. Raymond E. Garthoff," Mutual Deterrence and Strategic Arms Limitation in Soviet Policy," International Security, Summer 1978, p. 138.

16. Colin S. Gray, "The Future of Land-Based Missile Forces," p. 12.

17. Colin S. Gray, "Soviet-American Strategic Competition: Instruments, Doctrines, and Purposes," in Pranger and Labrie, editors, p. 285.

18. John Newhouse, Cold Dawn: The Story of SALT (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), p. 25.

19. Colin S. Gray, "Soviet-American Strategic Competition," p. 291.

20. Dr. Barry J. Smernoff, "Strategic and Arms Control Implications of Laser Weapons: A Preliminary Assessment," Air University Review, January-February 1978, pp. 38-50; Donald M. Snow, "Over the Strategic Horizon: Directed Energy Transfer Weapons and Arms Control," Arms Control Today, November 1979, pp. 1, 8-9; Donald M. Snow, "Lasers, Changed-Particle Beams and the Strategic Future," Political Science Quarterly, Summer 1980, pp. 277-94.

21. Fred C. Ikle, "Can Deterrence Last Out the Century?" in Pranger and Labrie, editors, p. 65.

22. Robert S. Metzger, "Cruise Missiles: Different Missions, Different Arms Control Impacts," Arms Control Today, January 1978, p. 2.

23. C. Johnston Conover, "U.S. Strategic Weapons and Deterrence," Rand Paper Series No. P-5967 (Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation, August 1977, p. 28.

24. Newhouse, p. 26.

25. Gray, "The Future of Land-Based Missile Forces," p.29.

26. Sidney D. Drell, "Beyond SALT II: A Missile Test Quota," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 1977, p. 39.

27. Stephen M. Meyer, "Verification and the ICBM Shell-Game," International Security, Fall 1979, p. 63.

28. Conover, p. 39.

29. Georgi Arbatov, "The Dangers of a New Cold War," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1977, p. 38.

30. Gray, "The Strategic Forces Triad," p. 779.

31. Ibid., p. 788.

32. John D. Steinbruner and Richard L. Garwin, "Strategic Vulnerability: The Balance between Prudence and Paranoia," International Security, Summer 1976, p. 169.

33. Harold Brown, Department of Defense, Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1979 (Washington: Government Printing Office, February 2, 1978) p. 63.

34. For an elaborate example of this position, see Les Aspin, "SALT or No SALT," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1978, pp. 34-38.

Donald M. Snow (B.A., M.A., University of Colorado; Ph.D., Indiana University) was visiting professor of National Security Affairs, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, before returning to the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, on 1 January 1981 as associate professor of political science and Director of International Studies. Dr. Snow is the author of Nuclear Strategy in a Dynamic World: American Policy in the 1980s (1980). He has published articles in professional and academic journals and is a previous award-winning contributor to the Review.

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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