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The part Polaris plays—and Poseidon will play—as a deterrent to nuclear war is almost universally acknowledged. On the other hand, the possible contribution to deterrence of the Sea-Based Anti-Ballistic Missile Intercept System (SABMIS) is far less widely understood.
Perhaps this will soon change because, as in athletics, knowledgeable Americans are taking a much harder look at the defense. They know that there is no longer much truth, if there ever was any, in the old saw about the best defense being a strong offense. They are finding out what successful coaches and successful military commanders have known right along: a well-drilled offense can grind out first-downs, sink baskets, score runs, or seize the high ground; but it is the defense that wins ball games—and wars.
It would not be surprising, then, if strategic defense were to become one of the most important Navy missions in the 1970s and 1980s.
Traditionally, defensive systems have had few proponents in the United States. This country has always spent more of its military money on offensive weapons. One might even identify an institutional bias against
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strategic defensive systems among both military—especially in the Strategic Air Command—and civilian leaders in the Pentagon.
The bias is certainly understandable. The early atomic bombs were strictly offensive weapons. The development of jet bombers of intercontinental range and thermonuclear weapons created the popular image of world annihilation as the result of a nuclear war, and also motivated the massive retaliation strategy of the 1950s. By the late 1950s, the ICBM had been introduced into the strategic inventory and the problem of ballistic missile defense seemed almost hopeless. The shift from massive retaliation to flexible response in the 1960s, if anything, reduced the emphasis placed on defense.
The first serious U. S. attempt to develop an antimissile defense led to the Nike-Zeus. Growing out of the earlier Nike-Hercules air defense system, it contemplated interception of missile warheads in the terminal area of their trajectory, and above the atmosphere— perhaps 100 miles from their targets. To do this, radars and interceptor missiles larger and more powerful than any in existence were developed. It represented a great increase in defensive systems effectiveness.
But, there were many problems with the Nike-Zeus, especially when its effectiveness was measured against the offensive systems that could be available by 1970. It had a limited “traffic handling capability.” Since its radars were mechanically steered and worked in sequence, they lost precious seconds in switching between targets. It could engage only a small number of targets simultaneously. Its ability to deal with but few decoys meant that a large number of interceptors might be wasted against them.
While one can still debate the advisability of deploying the Nike-Zeus in the early 1960s, the fact remains that it was never deployed. Work was initiated on the more advanced Nike-X system, which has led to the radical improvement of defensive cost-exchange ratios.
The main advantage of the Nikc-X system was the Multifunction Phase Array Radar (MAR). This single electronically-steered radar could sweep the sky in microseconds, replacing the acquisition, tracking, and discrimination radars of the Nike-Zeus. More recently, we have seen the development of the very long-range Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR), which, together with the improved Zeus interceptor, now called Spartan, could allow an area defense of the entire United States. Development of the smaller Tactical Multifunction Array Radar (TacMAR) and the Missile Site Radar allows more flexible deployment.
Phase array radars allow many discrimination techniques not possible with the mechanically steered radars of the Zeus. The development of the ultra-high-acceleration Sprint Missile allows the use of atmospheric filtering of warheads and decoys for discrimination purposes. The attacker is now faced with possible interception at any altitude from perhaps 5,000 feet and five miles down range to 100 miles altitude and 400 or 500 miles from his intended target.
Another advance in the Nike-X system that has made possible its increased performance is the warhead of the Spartan. It will be of multimegaton yield and specifically designed to generate X-rays and other useful nuclear kill effects. Its kill radius may be ten miles or more.
The effects of these changes have not been fully digested by the defense community. There has, in fact, been reluctance to admit that these changes have occurred. Yet, these changes cast doubt on many of the basic assumptions of deterrence and defense that have been held for years.
The public discussion of the ballistic missile defense (BMD) issue has been largely dominated by a certain approach which can be termed the Minimum Deterrence-Technological Plateau school of thought. Representatives of the school, such as Jerome Wiesner, Ralph Lapp, and Hans Bethe have been waging an almost religous crusade against BMD. Many of their assumptions and conclusions have been questioned in the open literature, but much has been necessarily unsaid publicly because of the high security classification accorded to ABM and MIRV technologies.
Until the September 1967 decision to deploy the Sentinel system (essentially the area defense elements of the Nike-X—Spartan, PAR and a few Sprints), the Johnson Administration and the Minimum Deterrers were almost in complete agreement on the •\BM. 1 he Minimum Deterrers have vigorous- y °Pposed the Administration on the Sentinel decision, but there is still substantial agreement on the issue of a large-scale Nike-X deployment designed to counter a sophisticated Russian threat. Both vigorously opposed it, although the Administration claimed [ts opposition is on technical rather than Geological or financial grounds.
All of the detailed capabilities and prob- ems of BMD are not known publicly at this tlrne, but much can be gleaned from hearings, transcripts, and official statements. From these, seems that, as the performance of the Nike-X system has improved, the Johnson Administration’s arguments against it became more strained and less convincing. As late as the 1966 posture statement, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara could argue that the Nike-X could not significantly reduce U. S. fatalities from a Soviet strike; but bY the 1967 posture statement, he had to admit that it could. His last argument against the ABM was based on the assumption of an automatic nullifying Soviet response. In the Words of Secretary McNamara:
It is the virtual certainty that the Soviets will react to maintain their deterrence which casts such grave doubts on the advisability of deploying the Nike-X system for the protection of our cities against the kind of heavy, sophisticated missile attack they could launch in the 1970s. [Emphasis McNamara’s]
This assumption is far from self-evident ar>d has been challenged by many high rank- *ng military officers, including General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of ' taff, and General Harold K. Johnson, who recently retired as Chief of Staff of the Army. Indeed, the entire JCS has supported a light anti-Russian deployment. General Johnson contended that it would probably “provide l°r the survival of the national entity of the V’ S. against the Soviet threat, including likely responses in the late 1970s.”
In the first place, it is not clear that Soviet strategic efforts will be so drastically changed by our deployment of Nike-X, both because they have a different view toward strategic defense and because they may have largely anticipated a U. S. BMD in their force planning. In the last two years, they increased their rate of ICBM construction by almost ten times (now 300-400 per year), increased the construction of ballistic missile submarines, and achieved at least some operational capability in ballistic missile defense. In the second place, there is no evidence that the Russians have ever reacted in this fashion in the past. Dr. Richard Foster of Stanford Research Institute has pointed out that:
There has, in the past been only a vaguely discernible correlation between changes in the U. S. and Soviet defense expenditures and allocation within the annual budgets. This is especially true for supposed changes in components of the Soviet defense budget in relation to changes in the corresponding parts of the U. S. budget. Some new defense expenditures on specific items by one power have provoked no reaction at all from the other power. Others have provoked a quite irrelevant reaction—not a direct counter to the adversary’s action but an imitation of it. . . . Given the limits of the Soviet economy, a major increase in defense spending could be achieved at the expense of productive investment, and hence, at the expense of over-all economic growth. Therefore, it seems likely that any Soviet response to a U. S. decision to deploy bmd would be financed primarily by adjustments within the defense budget rather than an over-all increase in defense spending.
Ironically, several years ago when it was assumed that ABMs could be offset by substantially smaller expenditures than we now assume, Secretary McNamara stated that the action-reaction argument was “not conclusive against our undertaking a major Damage Limiting program. The resources available to the Russians are more limited than our own and they may not actually react to our initiative as we have assumed.”
In its last two years, the Johnson Administration made it abundantly clear that the U. S. strategy for penetrating a Soviet ABM would be saturation: sending more warheads with penetration aids than the Russians have interceptor missiles. This strategy is heavily dependent on MIRVs—Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles. There was the assumption that the Soviet response would be the same.
MIRV has considerable value in counterforce attacks against missile silos, but when estimates on the U. S. “Assured Destruction” capability are publicly released or claims
about U. S. “Strategic Superiority” are made, Soviet MIRV does not seem to be assumed. The Senate Preparedness Subcommittee has characterized the assumption that “we possess MIRV and the Soviets do not” as “risky.” A Soviet MIRV test was recently reported in the press.
The assumption that Soviet MIRV plans will be affected by the U. S. decision to deploy or not to deploy an ABM seems to have little justification. If no Soviet MIRV is assumed, then the Nike-X would have a cost exchange ratio better than the condition of parity. If the Russians are credited with MIRV, it should be assumed for both Assured Destruction and Damage Limitation purposes; and if Soviet MIRVs are assumed, there is a premium on any advanced ABM that could nullify it at a cost less than the Nike-X. SABMIS may be such a system.
The SABMIS concept adds seapower to continental defense. It entails the interception of missiles in their boost or mid-course phase. The system will consist of surface ships mounting phase array radars similar to those developed for the Nike-X. These will detect and track enemy missiles and guide interceptor missiles at them.
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SABMIS radars will clearly be the largest ever installed on naval vessels, but the problems this will cause seem to be solvable. Since the radars are not mechanically steered, mounting large radars will be possible. However, maintenance of the complex equipment necessary for the system to function, while still keeping it on a constant alert status for long periods of time, will be somewhat more difficult than that required for conventional equipment.
The interceptor missile now planned will be a version of the Poseidon. It will obviously have a much slower rate of acceleration than the Sprint and the Spartan interceptor of the Nike-X, but it will be able to carry a much larger warhead.
Use of the Poseidon as the interceptor is probably the weakest link of the system as it is currently conceived. It creates unnecessary difficulties by reducing the effective warning time the system has before the decision to launch the interceptor must be made. If the Nixon Administration prescribes greater support to technological advancement, we may well see the Navy recommend development of a new interceptor.
Much of the uncertainty concerning the SABMIS concept will not be dispelled until a prototype system is actually tested, but it is possible to make a preliminary evaluation of the potential if we assume that the technical problems and operational difficulties can be solved.
SABMIS may have a substantial advantage over Nike-X in countering MIRV because it can engage in boost phase and mid-course intercepts. ICBMs are particularly vulnerable in the boost phase. They are large, soft targets and cannot be shielded by means of decoys or other conventional penetration aids. The use of MIRV is actually a disadvantage; it only increases the value of each intercept. ECM gear may be of some value, but the much larger size of an ICBM compared to a warhead means a much larger ECM package will have to be carried and this will cut warhead payload considerably.
SABMIS units will not need anywhere near the discrimination capability of the Nike-X. Thus, they will not require the large and costly radar units and the large number of computers that will be included in the Nike-X system. While the Defense Department has not yet released the actual costs, Senator Strom Thurmond commented that it “is a lot cheaper than the Army’s system.”
This does not mean that SABMIS is a substitute for the Nike-X. As Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations has stated, SABMIS is:
not a replacement for the Army system, but a . . . complement in that it give us defense in depth, and we would hope to get as many
missiles as possible, and then the ones that are deployed over the United States, of course, "Quid be taken on by the Nike, but this would make the Nike problem much simpler.
SABMIS alone could not be an effective defense of the United States. Without the Nike-X, SABMIS will have no capability to defend against Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs). If deployed solely in the ^tctic area, SABMIS could not defend against Soviet Fractional Orbital Bombs (FOBs) fired over the South Pole. The Russians might switch to smaller ICBMs and possibly place ihem further south to reduce the chance of a boost phase intercept. Or, the Soviets might consider use of higher acceleration ICBMs.
None of these options could be equally effective against the combination of SABMIS and Nike-X defenses. The Administration has contended that use of Fractional Orbital bombardment Systems would reduce missile Payload about one-half to two-thirds and also would reduce delivery accuracy. Such “virtual attrition” of payload would substantially improve the performance of the Nike-X terminal defenses. If the Russians attempted to throw large numbers of small ICBMs against SABMIS, their total payload will be reduced. This is another example of how SABMIS can force “virtual attrition” of an attacking force. If the Russians were faced with the Nike-X alone, they could optimize their penetration capability against it by using large missiles carrying great numbers of MIRVs. With SABMIS the Russians will have to work out some compromise that may not be optimum against either system.
The Russians may switch to SLBM, but this would entail a substantial investment. It would be yery difficult for them to develop the highly sophisticated miniature MIRVs that would be necessary for a Soviet Poseidon. Tven then they would be faced with the Powerful Damage Limiting capability that is represented by the Nike-X and U. S. ASW forces.
It is possible that the Nike-X SABMIS combination may reduce the potential number of Soviet penetrations to a mere handful. When Hr- John Foster was arguing against the Nike-X system in 1967, he stated that several dozen Soviet warheads are likely to penetrate it. It is virtually certain that a combination of Nike-X and SABMIS defenses will do much better. As Admiral Moorer stated:
Our preliminary calculations show that a SABMis/Nike-X defense in depth mix would be an effective combination to deal with future sophisticated weapons that Soviet and Chinese technology will be able to produce.
The significance of the new technology can only be estimated by comparing a defended and an undefended United States facing the Soviet forces that will exist in the 1970s. The Soviet Union is said to have had
1.0 ICBMs at the end of 1968, and if the
buildup is continued at the pace of the last two years, they may have over 2,000 by 1972. The Russians have also been reported as accelerating their construction of improved ballistic missile submarines and may equal the U. S. force by 1973. The Russians already have some ABM installations in operation around Moscow, and are deploying the mysterious Tallinn System in other areas of the country. The Moscow system itself may have capabilities of defending most of European Russia. The Russians are maintaining their small heavy bomber force and a large medium bomber capability: the United
States is scrapping most of its heavy bombers and will acquire only a small number of FB-111 medium bombers. The Russians are constantly expanding their already large bomber defense system.
The United States is currently programing
1.0 Minuteman and 54 Titan-II ICBMs, 656 Polaris-Poseidon missiles, and a bomber force of 78 B-58s, 450 B-52s, and 60 FB-llls. The U. S. strategic force will not be entirely offensive. The Sentinel ABM will give some defensive capability against Soviet ICBMs and FOBs. There will be a limited modernization of the U. S. bomber defense system; and the ASW forces of the Navy also functions in the Damage Limiting role. But the current Damage Limiting capabilities of these U. S. forces are small if Soviet offensive weapons are directed against U. S. cities in large numbers.
One can hardly overestimate the effect of a Soviet MIRV on the strategic balance. At the 1967 Hearings of the Joint Atomic Energy Committee on the decision to deploy Sentinel,
Paul Nitze gave the committee the following table comparing the performance of the same missile armed with a ten megaton warhead and one armed with ten 50-kiloton MIRVs.
COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF 2 HYPOTHETICAL MISSILE PAYLOADS
(number of targets destroyed)
| 10 | 1 |
Type of Target Destroyed | 50-Kt. war | 10-mt. war |
| heads | head |
Airfields | 10 | 1 .0 |
Hard missile silos | 1.2-1.7 | 1 .0 |
Cities of 100,000 population. | 3.5 | 1.0 |
Cities of 500,000 population. | 0.7 | 1.0 |
Cities of 2,000,000 population | 0.5 | 0.6 |
Total megatonnage | 0.5 | 10 |
This chart indicates that larger cities would be more profitably attacked with a single large weapon and smaller cities with MIRVs. If the United States has no ABM defense, the Russians could do just that. It also indicates that a single missile armed with MIRVs will be able to destroy 1.7 silos. This is the most significant implication of MIRV. As delivery accuracy increases, the number of silos a single missile can destroy will go up. Thus, the value of hardening as a means of survival is declining rapidly.
Actually, the Russians would not have to achieve anywhere near the performance outlined here to destroy the vast majority of U. S. Minuteman ICBMs in the early 1970s. Soviet payload per missile is far larger than those of the United States. This may mean that the Russians could mount larger MIRVs and may have an easier time in perfecting terminal guidance systems. The U. S. advantage in accuracy, however, may decline because of this.
The U. S. missile and bomber defense systems that will be operational in the 1970s, plus the ASW forces of the Navy, will complicate the task of a Soviet officer plotting a first strike; but there will still be some prospects for a Soviet success. The Russians may be able to exhaust the interceptors of the
Sentinel system by their use of MIRVs and still have enough left to destroy the majority of the Minuteman silos. The Russians might attempt to destroy the Perimeter Acquisition Radars of the Sentinel with SLBMs. Sentinel is not designed to defend against these strikes. A combination of FOBs and SLBMs might also launch attacks against bomber bases and the Polaris communication facilities.
U. S. ASW forces would reduce the chances of successful SLBM attacks; but if the reports of a very rapid Soviet build-up of long range SLBM submarines are accurate, U. S. ASW forces may be overtaxed.
The difficulties facing a Soviet officer launching a first strike against a combination of SABMIS and Nike-X defenses are almost self-evident. SABMIS units deployed in the Arctic can intercept missiles irrespective of their targets. The Russians would have to expect a large loss to SABMIS alone.
The Russians might attempt to launch an attack on SABMIS vessels before or during a missile attack on the United States. But this would allow SABMIS to perform as an effective early warning system. As Admiral Moorer noted:
any effort or move on the part of the enemy to attack this ship would be, of course, a giveaway that they were just in the process of planning to initiate a nuclear attack on the the United States, and I think that we can operate these ships in such a way that it would be most difficult to time their destruction with the firing of missiles. But so far as their protection is concerned, we would provide other naval forces.
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Even if SABMIS were less effective or more vulnerable than Admiral Moorer believes, the substantial uncertainty created by the existence of a SABMIS/Nike-X defense would introduce such uncertainty into the execution of any attack that it is difficult to see how the Russians could assume a high prospect of success. Such a combination would give a high degree of protection to ICBM silos, command and control facilities, and urban centers against a massive Soviet attack. At the upper range of effectiveness for such a combination, the number of Soviet penetrations may be reduced to a handful; but even at the lower ranges, it is difficult to see how the Russians could achieve enough penetrations to de-
Having attended Long Island University in 1963-1964, Mr. Schneider enrolled in the University of Southern California and received a B.A. in History in June 1967. He is now a graduate student at U.S.C. on a National Defense Education Act Scholarship working toward a Ph.D. in History, with a strong tj'lr|or 'n Military Strategy and International Rela- fo0? servc<^ as a Research Assistant at the Stan- r Research Institute during the summer of 1968.
SJ°y a significant part of the U. S. land-based ‘tensive forces and still maintain a large enough reserve to seriously threaten urban centers as well.
The Defense Department has admitted the cnefit derived from a small defensive deployment in maintaining an “Assured Deduction” capability but has not yet acknowl- (<Jged the capabilities of large defensive deployments in preserving it. Actually, side benefits of the larger deployments may be “uich greater than those of smaller ones.
The Nike-X/SABMIS deployment could be j. e basis of an offensive-defensive strategic 0rce that would be less vulnerable to tech- uological breakthroughs. Unexpected in' r<-*ases in Soviet accuracy or yield-to-weight ratios would be far less important if such a Posture were in existence. If no ABM were Present to intercept missiles fired at them, Proposed land mobile systems could become utore vulnerable to destruction resulting from 0 servation satellites relaying their position offensive forces. A combined offensive- efensive capability would give us a greater cl Jility to exploit technological changes reSardless of the direction in which they occur.
bis is especially important, because the Performance of defensive systems seems likely l° increase in relation to offensive weapons, at least into the 1980s.
Besides SABMIS, there are many other de- ensive improvements that may become possi- e in the next 15 years. One of the most Sl,?nificant could be the MIRVing of antimissiles themselves. This alone could increase ' BM performance by a substantial factor.
atellite radar units might serve as early Earning and even tracking and discrimination aids to both SABMIS and Nike-X systems. The Air Force has proposed ABMIS, a large C-5 type aircraft with a self-contained antimissile system. As currently conceived, it would operate much the same way as SABMIS.
It may be possible to add SABMIS and ABMIS units to the Nike-X terminal defenses. This would reduce the vulnerability of the Nike-X system to disruptive attack. The Perimeter Acquisition Radars, for example, might eventually be mounted on ships operating in the Great Lakes. This might significantly reduce the vulnerability of the system (at least in the most populous areas of our country) to unconventional nuclear attack. It is conceivable that the Russians or Chinese might try to smuggle nuclear weapons or weapon components into the United States and detonate them near PAR sights to degrade Nike-X effectiveness. It would be much more difficult for them to knock out a ship at sea.
The technique of penetration by saturation demands the attacker know how many defensive weapons are deployed around each target. The introduction of ABM MIRVs would complicate this. With SABMIS, ABMIS, and possibly rail mobile ABMs introduced into the Nike-X terminal defenses, together with SABMIS and possibly ABMIS deployed in the Arctic, the Russians would have a formidable problem indeed. Such a combination of defensive systems would give the United States a virtual damage denial capability against the Chinese as far into the future as we can reasonably see.
Actually, the United States will not need so sophisticated a system to deal with a Chinese attack on the United States. A light Nike-X system alone will probably be highly effective at least into the mid 1980s. The real significance of SABMIS in the U. S.-Chinese confrontation in the 1970s would be its ability to extend protection against Chinese IRBM attacks to Asian nations.
SABMIS has capabilities that cannot be matched by fixed land-based installations and these may be very valuable in countering Chinese threats against China’s Asian neighbors. As Admiral Moorer states:
sabmis will also have a capability to deploy
in distant waters in defense of our overseas
bases. . . . Ships can be moved into position
overseas, augmented, reduced or withdrawn,
as necessary to support U. S. policy.
Already Japan has showed an interest in acquiring an ABM. Deployment of SABMIS units in the Sea of Japan or off the coast of India will probably not prevent the Japanese and the Indians from eventually obtaining nuclear weapons; but through the use of SABMIS and other devices, the United States may control proliferation and assure that it will increase, rather than sever, U. S. ties with Japan and India.
SABMIS deployments will give the United States enormous flexibility of commitment. It also avoids the complication of land deployment of anti-missiles equipped with nuclear warheads. Transfer of such weapons would be banned by the proposed NonProliferation Treaty. Thus any such weapons deployed overseas would have to remain in American hands, and SABMIS will probably be the best way to do this.
SABMIS deployments would enable the United States to break, reduce, or increase commitments virtually at will. It could give the United States considerable leverage in dealing with allies or neutrals. This might be of substantial importance in shaping their actions in a crisis situation.
SABMIS units would also be valuable in deterring the Chinese from using IRBMs against U. S. forces in Asia or against Nationalist China. Without SABMIS, we will be very vulnerable. Destruction of our six largest bases in Vietnam, for example, by IRBMs with nuclear warheads would make our position there almost untenable. While such an action would be very risky for the Chinese, it is not totally inconceivable. If the United States had introduced tactical nuclear weapons into an Asian conflict, such an attack might have been made. It would be far less risky from the Chinese standpoint than a direct nuclear attack on the United States, and it would be in line with immediate Chinese objectives. A minimal Chinese threat capability against the Continental United States might convince the Chinese that the United States would be deterred from an)’ massive escalation of that threat.
Soviet use of IR/MRBMs in an Asian conflict cannot be ruled out. Korea might be a victim if a tactical nuclear conflict developed there and the Russians believed they had a major advantage in strategic weaponry over the United States. Deployment of SABMIS units off the coast of Korea would protect both our land and naval forces from ballistic missile attack; SABMIS units in the Arctic would all but eliminate any Soviet hopes for strategic superiority.
The over-all cost of a Damage Limitation posture is declining in relation to an “Assured Destruction” only posture. The reason is that a general decline is now taking place in the survivability and penetration capability of strategic weapons systems. The cost of a Damage Limiting posture would only be 30 per cent to 50 per cent more than an “Assured Destruction” capability. The Nike- X deployments would cost only 1 or 2 billion dollars a year. SABMIS expenditures would come after the Nike-X was largely completed and would be substantially less.
What are the chances for SABMIS today? Unfortunately, if the McNamara policies are continued, the outlook is very poor for even the development, much less the deployment, of the system. Four years ago, just before the change toward Minimum Deterrence strategy began, Secretary McNamara characterized a Damage Limitation strategy as a “Maximum Deterrent” to nuclear war; it still is! In view of the rapid advances that are being made by the Soviets in strategic weaponry and their obvious willingness to use forces, as vividly demonstrated in Czechoslovakia, our current Minimum Deterrence policy may become a virtual invitation to the Russians to resume the aggressive strategy that was temporarily ended by their defeat in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962.
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