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America’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) are magnificent, deadly weapons. They carry about one-half of all U. S. strategic Warheads, enough to give the Soviets pause. They are easily counted by Soviet arms verifiers while in port, invisible on patrol.1
. Yet, SSBNs have a hidden flaw. The communications that link the U. S. president to the SSBN are tew, fragile, and one-way. If the SSBN’s communica- t'ons are severed, this magnificent weapon, With all its Power and stealth, must sit out the war. Richard N. Perle, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, said that the Soviets
“. . . have enough warheads on highly accurate missiles to destroy virtually the whole of our Min- uteman missile force, and other hard targets as well • • . [b]ut not our submarines. (However], the highly accurate Soviet weapons could be made effective against some of the communications facilities, without which the submarines are rendered ineffective.2
Soviet missiles are not the only danger facing the SSBN’s unique command, control, and communications ^3) systems. Even if these systems work as advertised and face modest threats, other deficiencies are likely to Prevent the SSBN from fulfilling its role in U. S. nuclear strategy. These issues will be addressed in four categories: the policy, technology, program, and hardware trends of submarine C3; engineering deficiencies SSBN communications; the implications of these trends and deficiencies; and the implications for policy.
CJ Trends: The basis of strategic C3 is that no Weapon can be employed without a positive command—an emergency action message (EAM) from the President or his successors (the National Command Authorities [NCA]). In this command structure, if communications should fail, the weapon is, as Perle stated, ineffective.”
Command is a legal term. The founding fathers ^ade the president the commander in chief 200 years
By Rear Admiral W. J. Holland, U. S. Navy (Ret.)
In discussions of the comparative merits of strategic forces, submarine communications are cited as a weakness. The difficulties are never defined, nor is there mention of the superior methods of communications provided for the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and strategic bomber forces. The issue is reduced to an adage: “Everybody knows you can’t talk to a submarine”—a false assertion. Communications with the strategic submarine forces are as good as, and in many aspects superior to, the communications with other strategic forces. Ashton Carter, in the Brookings Institution’s “Managing Nuclear Operations,” declares: “Missile submarines offer the fewest operational restraints.”
The general perception that it is otherwise stems from several factors:
Physics: Electromagnetic energy does not penetrate water easily. This physical phenomenon is well understood and is the reason that acoustic energy is used for underwater search and communications. It is possible to accommodate this physical constraint in two ways:
► The submarine can put an antenna above the water on a mast or float one on the surface.
► Very low radio frequencies provide some penetration of the water column.
We use both techniques. A strategic submarine on alert is in constant communication with the National Military Command System.
Taciturn Submariners: The general misunderstanding about submarine communications is exacerbated by the well known reluctance of submariners to describe their abilities, operations, or plans—lest disclosure lead to vulnerability. Nowhere is this reticence more evident than in communications. Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, Germany’s submarine commander in World War II, required a radio report from every submarine, every night. These reports were used at his headquarters to concentrate forces along the line of advance of Allied convoys, thereby multiplying the effectiveness of the forces at sea.
Doenitz’s command, control, and communications
ago. The advent of nuclear weapons has not changed this. Every nuclear-age president has jealously guarded his command of nuclear weapons.3
Control is a management term—the management of forces in peace and war. Control concepts have been evolving from the simple spasm of “massive retaliation” to the elegant and complex management of forces in the “trans-attack” period.4 Like all managers, presidents want options and flexibility (the more the better), especially when facing a situation like nuclear war. The form and circumstances of nuclear war cannot be predicted, but must be controlled.5 They want more than the ability to launch all weapons at once. There is no button on the president’s nightstand that can start and end World War III.
Shortly after taking office, the Reagan administration “reaffirmed” the Carter administration’s Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59), “and turned its attention to the implementation of the strategy.”6 PD-59 was the evolutionary result of “counterforce,” “flexible response,” “intra-war deterrence,” and other such strategies from earlier administrations. PD-59, approved in July 1980, sought to “improve deterrence by improving the capacity for a prolonged but limited nuclear war.”7 Nuclear weapons would be meted out during a war on a controlled, flexible, and responsive basis with a “secure strategic reserve” held out of the initial hostilities.
Fixed, preplanned targeting was to give way to flexible targeting during a conflict.8 Targeting would focus not on soft cities, but on military targets, which tend to be “time-sensitive” and hardened against nuclear effects.
Flexible, responsive targeting, however, demands all the electronic accoutrements required to monitor, deploy, employ, and verify the employment of nuclear weapons. Command facilities, communications links, and data processing centers all must last as long as the weapons (and political leaders) they support. Recognizing the need for a strong bureaucratic emphasis on C3, the Defense Department was reorganized in January 1985, putting an Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD C3I), Donald C. Latham, in charge of activities formerly in the province of the Joint Chiefs and two under secretaries.9 Latham’s “personal view” was that C3 systems should have at least “six months’ worth of endurance.”10
While C3 trends have stressed “more,” SSBN fleet trends have stressed “fewer”: 41 SSBNs in the fleet in 1980 to perhaps 20 in 1997 (or fewer, if bargained away).11 Just before the end of this century, the Navy will have some 13 Tridents at sea at all times, assuming 33% of the 20 proposed Tridents will be in port for replenishment, refitting, or overhaul.12 The Navy argues that this concentration does not make it easier to destroy the fleet because, primarily, the Trident (Ohio
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force multiplier, however, allowed an Allied direction finding net to locate the transmitters and cryptographers to read the messages. So successful were these efforts that by 1943 Allied convoys could be rerouted around German submarine concentrations and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) forces were vectored there instead. Submariners have not forgotten this lesson. Our own experience in exploiting others’ electromagnetic emissions has made us even more reluctant to talk—and never on a radio.
The submarine’s advantage is stealth, which should never be given away for a phone call. Because we do not talk back, the uninformed—those raised on the telephone and in the traditions of air control communications methodology, which promotes incessant babble, think submarines are not communicating. Because submarine officers are reluctant to describe their capabilities, the assertion that you cannot talk to them goes unchallenged by knowledgeable sources.
Landborne Ignorance: Most influential in the submarine communications canard is landlubber bias. Unencumbered by knowledge or experience, the general opinion of the defense community is reflected in this specious statement from a RAND Corporation study: “Given the density of landline paths and the availability of multiple radio frequencies for communicating with ICBMs, it is reasonable to expect that such communications are more likely to be successful than those directed at SSBNs [nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines], where landline paths are not available and special VLF [very low frequency] radio frequencies must be relied upon.” This, in fact, is wrong. The submarine begins to receive the message before it arrives at the ICBM launch control centers.
Such folklore is not restricted to contractor studies.
In the June 1986 Proceedings article “Trident and Triad,” the authors conclude that “technology currently employed in Trident missiles or immediately available will make the SLBM [submarine-launched ballistic missile] equivalent or superior to the ICBM in every category except communications reliability.” It is obvious that even these two political scientists, who favor sea-based strategic forces, have fallen for the adage “Everybody knows . . . .” This hunch of the ignorant has become the wisdom of the gullible.
The influence of land-based theorists stems not only from their superior numbers, but from their relative influence within the military. Contrast submariners’ reticence with the veritable torrent of words from officers, contractors, and political theorists associated with ICBMs and bombers.
Only a small number of submariners, communicators, and specialists in nuclear warfare are assigned to naval strategic forces—and no U. S. Navy officer more (SSBN-726]-class) is very quiet. The Trident has more sPace for soundproofing and a more capable power- Plant. The Navy argues that the SSBN fleet is invulnerable to Soviet antisubmarine warfare (ASW) while submerged and will remain so in this century, barring a technological breakthrough.13
Nevertheless, this concentration of nuclear eggs in fewer baskets made the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces (the Scowcroft Commission) nervous. Loss of positive control over one Trident means some 192 strategic warheads are useless.14 Thus, each ship Carries more political importance. This, in turn, places greater importance on communications, yet “[cjommu- nications links with submarines, while likely to improve, will still offer problems not present with land- based systems.”15 The commission, charged by President Ronald Reagan with making recommendations obout the future of strategic forces, urged the Navy to reduce the value of individual targets” by following Ihe Trident program with smaller, less powerful, but ^ore numerous, strategic submarines.16
The Scowcroft Commission restated another obvious trend: The relative value of submarine-based ballistic missiles has increased since land-based platforms beCame vulnerable to a Soviet first-strike and, in the case °f bombers, vulnerable to antiaircraft defenses.17
Another trend is the improvements being made in submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) accuracy and range. Deployment of the D-5 missile will begin at the end of this century.18 It is said to have sufficient accuracy to “put hard targets at risk.”19 However, the ability to crush missile silos and command bunkers is not synonymous with “killing” a hard target. Hardened facilities are often time-sensitive. Missile silos must be hit before their missiles are launched and command bunkers must be struck before the commanders move to another bunker. Commodore Roger F. Bacon, then- Director of the Strategic and Theater Nuclear Warfare Division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, while acknowledging that submarine-launched missiles cannot be as rapidly employed as other weapons, found the SLBM’s delay “militarily” insignificant.20
C3 Deficiencies: The SSBN’s best friend is also its worst enemy. Seawater cloaks the ship’s signatures (electromagnetic, acoustical, and other characteristics) under hundreds of feet of opacity. But this opacity also applies to communications media, creating a dilemma. Either the ship puts an antenna into the atmosphere, allowing it to communicate as other strategic forces do but defeating the reason for spending so much on a ship that can sink on purpose, or it remains submerged, making all communications difficult and two-way communications impossible. (See Figure 1.)
There are two windows in the electromagnetic spec-
senior than a rear admiral (lower halD does so. A single vice admiral (Commander Submarine Forces Atlantic) and four rear admirals (Commander Submarine Forces Pacific, and Commander Submarine Groups 2,
6, and 9) have operational responsibility for all Navy strategic forces, duties they execute in addition to others that generally absorb much more of their time and interest. Navy strategic forces are viewed as a peripheral assignment and represent a limited (and for many officers of the Navy an objectionable) part of the Navy’s budget.
In contrast, the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC), a Joint Specified Command, is commanded by a full general who also commands the same entity as a major portion of the Air Force. He has jurisdiction over a large part of the Air Force’s budget and manpower. Several dozen general officers command these forces and provide key staff support. Perhaps most significant, SAC is the raison d’etre for an air force.
Stealth is the ace in the hole of the Navy’s SSBN missile farms, their ballistic missiles providing a continuous, silent, invisible threat. The necessarily complex communications with SSBNs, operated by the necessarily tightlipped submariners, tend to attract more attention than the more conventional communications used by the other legs of the strategic Triad.
trum where water penetration is possible. One window is at the low end: extremely low frequency (ELF), very low frequency (VLF), and low frequency (LF).21 The other window is at the high end: blue-green light, which must be amplified and focused in a laser beam.
The Navy operates fixed VLF and LF transmitters in locations around the world, but they require huge antenna fields and enormous amounts of power. Several years ago, the Navy told the General Accounting Office that these fixed sites will have little or no endurance in a nuclear war.22 These vulnerabilities and the improved survivability of aircraft platforms led the Navy to develop VLF aircraft called TACAMO (take charge and move out).23
While aircraft-based VLF mitigated most of the vulnerability of ground-based systems, it could not solve VLF’s inability to penetrate more than 30 feet of sea water, which forces the SSBN to trail a lengthy antenna just under the surface.24 This, in turn, creates operational security problems because of the SSBN must travel at a slower speed, trail a near-surface antenna, and other factors.25
It is likely that only VLF communications could send an EAM to submerged submarines during a nuclear war. This, in turn, would place the burden of maintaining communications with submarines with the small number of TACAMO relays. Aircraft are soft on the
ground and threatened by blast, dust, and radiation in the air. Further, while the new TACAMO aircraft can be refueled in the air, TACAMOs and their refueling tankers cannot stay aloft indefinitely: both aircraft will need air traffic control; crews need rest and provisions; engines need parts, maintenance, and oil; the aircraft themselves need clear runways. These needs could be difficult to satisfy in the middle of a nuclear war.25
Just as the Navy sought to cover some of the vulnerabilities of fixed VLF with airborne VLF, it sought to mitigate VLF’s operational security problems with ELF. ELF penetrates much farther than VLF, sending signals to normal operating depths.27 Nonetheless, it took 20 years of nasty political conflict between the Navy and the residents and politicians of Michigan and Wisconsin to build the ELF system.28 It turned out to be a truncated compromise.217 Now, the Navy describes ELF as a nonsurvivable system not for use during a nuclear war, because a single nuclear strike, sabotage, or malfunction could knock it out. Its strategic role will be as a “bellringer.”30
In other words, ELF—or the loss of ELF—would send a very simple signal (although no EAMs). In 15 minutes or so, ELF could send a message like “RSA” (raise surface antenna) or “PFW” (prepare for war). Loss of the ELF signal could be used as a sign that an attack on the United States had commenced. Either
ICBMs and strategic bombers are inherently more vulnerable than SSBNs. Their survival hinges on the speed with which the North American Defense Command center can detect an attack and relay launch orders to the land-based strategic forces.
Because of this pervasive Air Force influence, the characteristics of, and qualities inherent in, land-based strategic forces generate needs that can then become requirements for all forces. It is only natural that the practical interest, intellectual acumen, and major experimental knowledge in the field of strategic bombardment and associated deterrent considerations focus on quickness.
Reaction speed is a virtue for any military force subject to sudden attack. Just as armies have posted sentries since prehistoric times to warn of the approach of the enemy, we have created a superbly manned and engineered warning force, the North American Defense (NORAD) Command, the function of which is to detect missile or bomber attacks on this continent and to warn the president, the National Command Authorities, and military commanders. It must do this quickly because in the event of an attack, like the outpost sentry who is overrun by an assailant, the warning system may be destroyed early in the attack. Naturally, NORAD stresses early warning. The Strategic Air Command has elaborate plans to begin the rapid dispersal of those bombers on alert. Once again, speed is a premium.
NORAD has a substantial communications network to warn military forces of the impending blow, to inform the National Command Authorities of the attack, and to enable the president to employ the strategic
Figure 1 SSBN C3 Deficiencies
| ||||
\. Deficiency System | Requires Above surface Antenna | Receive Only | Interceptable Broadcast to SSBNs | Peacetime- only System |
elf |
| • | • | • |
Ground LF/VLF |
| • | • | • |
tacamo |
| • | • |
|
HF-to-EHF Systems | • |
| • |
|
Blue-green User |
| • | • |
|
way, the SSBNs would raise an above-surface antenna f°r two-way communications or trail a VLF antenna near the surface. But the ELF system will not be around to ring any bells while a nuclear war is underlay. Now we return to the reason for building an ELF Astern in the first place: The Navy maintains that neared above-surface antennas create operational security Problems for SSBNs, which, we must not forget, carry half of the nation’s strategic warheads.
Edward Y. Harper, technical director of the SSBN Security Program, told Congress two years ago that he “would have no concern about detectability of antennas . . . but it is clear to me 10 years from now we are probably going to have to patrol much deeper than we do today.”31 Stated another way, ELF—the peacetime-only bellringer—will have to be counted on even more in the future.
The second window theoretically offers help for VLF’s and ELF’s problems. In theory, EAMs from the president could be relayed to submerged submarines via a satellite that has a blue-green laser downlink. However, a submarine laser communications satellite (SLCSat) is still in development. No space-qualified transmitter has been developed and a prototype SLCSat is at least a decade away, if it is decided that SLCSat is cost-effective.32 If SLCSat does prove cost-effective, deployment might be possible after the year 2000.33
Antisatellite (ASat) warfare may not be a current threat to SLCSat because it will probably be in high orbit.34 Nonetheless, Soviet space-war capabilities are likely to improve by the time SLCSat is fielded because the United States is providing the incentive of putting more of its communications systems (including Milstar) in space, not to mention possible defensive systems if the Strategic Defense Initiative bears fruit.35
forces of his choice. Those forces that are subject to attack obviously place great value on receiving their orders in a timely fashion so that they can respond be- °re they are damaged.
The success of this system is always examined under foe most stressful condition—a preemptive, large-scale Soviet attack with no strategic warning. In such a situa- t|Qn, the entire infrastructure must be able to act swiftly to make those forces subject to attack most useful.
Speed in decision making and communication of orders ls crucial to compensate for the vulnerability of fixed forces to a first strike.
However, a different set of considerations applies to °rces that are not vulnerable to attack. When delays in decision making or communications do not affect the .°rces’ survivability, they do not affect the forces’ util- %• In turn, invulnerable forces, because they need not e committed hurriedly or massively, greatly reduce the technical demands for disruption-free communications, early warning systems, and decision-making arrangements. Generation-of-orders-to-reception time is not a meaningful calculation for invulnerable forces, which Provide deterrence by the surety of retaliation, not by lts swiftness. In a communications environment contained by jamming, electromagnetic disturbance, or Physical destruction, invulnerable forces with enduring °r restorable communication links allow the decision
maker much greater latitude in the timing and nature of the retaliatory attack. In this sense, stability is provided by the invulnerability of the forces (SSBNs) and by the enduring communications systems that give the assurance that orders can be delivered before, during, and after an attack on the United States.
Added to this stability is the ability of a democracy to pass power from the head of government to his legitimate successor. No other form of government provides such a sure and stable method for transferring power. Few political associations have the certitude for such a transfer as does the United States. No matter the nature or severity of an attack, it is virtually impossible to “behead” the United States. Thus, the U. S. leadership does not have to react quickly to ensure an effective deterrent posture.
The speed with which orders are delivered has meaning only when the forces being used are vulnerable to destruction or when time-on-target has value, i.e., when forces to be used are under attack and target destruction is urgent. They do not apply to a first strike, which could be executed by mail if planned far enough in advance. Execution to avoid destruction is a moot point for naval strategic forces.
Submarine-based strategic forces at sea are not subject to effective preemptive attacks. These forces can be used at the decision maker’s leisure. If speed of
As for the argument that the Soviets would not attack our satellites because we would retaliate, consider who would be hurt more by an ASat war. The Soviet Union is a Eurasian heartland power with most of its strategic assets based within the Soviet Union. The United States has a majority of its strategic warheads and many tactical warheads deployed outside the sovereign United States. If we destroy all the Soviet’s satellites, the Soviets can use terrestrial links to most of its nuclear forces. That could not be said of the United States if the Soviet Union destroys all U. S. satellites.36
ELF, VLF, and SLCSat broadcasts to the SSBN—in fact, any broadcast to ships scattered around the globe—are easily intercepted. SSBNs are deployed worldwide, and ELF and VLF propagation does not lend itself to directionality. SLCSat is more directional but in no case would it be prudent to point it at an SSBN, so it will be pulsed over wide areas that would probably include Soviet ships.37 It is not known whether the Soviets have any laser intercept capability, but laser principles are well known. Of course, the ability to intercept does not mean the Soviets can understand the message. The Soviets at least would know whether a counter-C3 strike against the SSBNs’ systems was successful by whether they receive their signals.
The Soviets potentially could understand the EAM or other traffic if in the future there is another Walker spy ring. The Walker ring specialized in compromising Navy communications, including cryptology.38 We cannot assume there is a similar ring in operation, or that there will be. The point is, messages sent to SSBNs are inherently interceptable and therefore potentially compromised; links to intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fields and strategic bomber bases can be kept covert more easily, through a multitude of terrestrial links within the sovereign United States.
Another deficiency of SSBNs’ command and control uniquely hampers the use of SSBNs in limited nuclear operations. An SSBN could be ordered to launch a few missiles, perhaps a couple of D-5s at a hardened command bunker into which important Soviet leaders just moved. Such an order could be tantamount to ordering the submarine to commit suicide. A launch provides a “flaming datum” that potentially exposes the ship. If the president is going to launch one SLBM, he may cause the loss of the submarine and its 192 warheads.39
A universal deficiency of all systems developed to receive messages while cloaked in the opacity of sea water is that none allow the SSBN to report back to the president. This would afflict the commander in chief with a nightmare familiar to commanders of any age—the inability to find out whether forces are ready for action, if they have responded to an order to act, and if they are ready to fight the next battle. SSBNs,
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execution is not as important as surety, the invulnerable forces need sure execution schemes. The issue for Navy communications then is to guarantee delivery of orders. Because naval communications reliability has always been prized equally with speed, this challenge did not and does not require any change in modus ope- randi by the institutional Navy. This, coupled with long-standing submarine operating procedures designed to maintain their covertness has made sure, reliable, redundant communications a realistic goal.
How well we have achieved this goal is not well known, not only because of submariners’ reticence, but because many raised in the era of the telephone and air-to-air combat procedures think that orders are received only if they are acknowledged. “Hello” is a required input for most of us before we send a message. Because submarines do not “talk back,” the uninitiated assume they are not listening. But submarine communications are not like stock broker-client transactions, but rather like hog farmers and the morning radio farm price report. Sub broadcasts are like the weather, traffic, or stock market reports that people use to dress, avoid traffic bottlenecks, or sell a particular stock. They provide orders and directions to submarines; the submarine just listens.
“But how do you know he is listening?” Because he was told to. Communication does not require words, speech, or, in the case in point, electromagnetic radiation. Compliance with rules can assure communication as surely as the spoken word. “How do you know the submarine is there?” the general asked. “Because I told him to go there and he has not told me he isn’t,” is the reply of the submarine operating authority.
The RAND study cited previously asserts that “force management requires two way communications.” But part of the communications can be comprised of known, but unstated, information, e.g., “No news is good news.” Negative information can be real information. If both ends of the communication know the rules and trust the other to obey them, little overt information need be imparted. Married people know that their spouses can communicate many things—even when they are not present.
Communications links to submarines are considerably more robust than they appear to be in published studies. Indeed, evidence exists to the effect that current links to strategic submarines are swifter, more endur-
The need for rapid communications with the vulnerable B-l (right) and B-52 bombers sets up an apples-oranges comparison with the relatively invulnerable SSBNs’ need for stealthy, secure communications. This is exacerbated by the fact that strategic forces are SAC’s raison d’etre— and for the Navy, a peripheral assignment.
their missiles, and their communications systems were huilt and are manned by humans. They can fail in war; any strategic system can. But other strategic systems have channels back to the NCA to report receipt of Messages and their status, including how long it will take to remedy a failure.
Anyone who has used one-way communications knows that Murphy’s Law applies. Imagine calling someone without; a ring, an answer, a response from the person called, or knowing whether the person called has hung up, or if the receiver works, or even if their house has burned down. In one-way communica- t'ons there is no way to ensure that the message is understood. Therefore, one-way messages must be repeated constantly, thus actual data rates for messages that are being received are slowed even more. This Problem is acute for strategic command and control because nothing can happen unless the EAM is abso- h'tely and perfectly received and verified. And, during a nuclear war, the president needs to know the status °f the forces he is managing.
. What if the president wants an SSBN to take out a time-sensitive target (e.g., a command bunker) with °ne of its new D-5s? First, the message must reach the SSBN. Under ideal conditions, this takes some time, and nothing can happen until the message is perfectly received. Missiles cannot be armed or launched without a perfectly received EAM.40 Then the SSBN must launch a missile. The SSBN cannot communicate back to the president to confirm receipt of the message or the launch, so the president can only look at his sensors to see if the missile took out the target. If the target is not destroyed, what does the president do? Order a different strategic system to take out the target? How does he know if the SSBN still exists? How does he know if the SSBN’s radio is working properly, that the missile and warhead have been enabled, and that the missile itself was launched? He does not, until he sees the target destroyed. What if his surveillance of the target does not work? The president is going to have many questions that his silent service cannot answer. That is a strange way to fight a war.
The president must be able to exercise control if he is going to manage the U. S. forces during a nuclear war. Thus, there is an imperative for two-way communications, especially for SSBNs. As Assistant Secretary of Defense Latham said:
“In light of the critical role the . . . submarine force fulfills in strengthening our deterrence posture, it is essential that we develop and deploy redundant means to assure survivable and enduring communications to and from the strategic submarine force.”41
But none of the SSBN’s communications systems—
not VLF, ELF, nor SLCSat—can answer back. SSBNs can put an antenna into the atmosphere and use, say, Milstar, but we return to our dilemma.42 If submerged, the SSBN is invulnerable; if it puts an antenna into the atmosphere it can answer, but puts itself at risk, a risk that the director of its security program says might be real within a decade. This dilemma is summarized well by Desmond Ball:
“For submarine-based systems to constitute a ‘secure reserve,’ the NCA would need to know the status of each submarine and its location in relation to particular targets at all times, but such information would be unlikely to be available without placing the security of the submarine in jeopardy.”43
Compare the SSBN’s plight to the capabilities of the other legs of the Triad. While any ICBM or bomber communications system is vulnerable, virtually the entire electromagnetic spectrum can be used for two-way communications between the NCA and ICBMs and bomber bases. ICBM and bomber base communications use media that transmit through the air or through cable on the ground; the ICBMs and bomber bases are in the sovereign United States.
Implications of Trends and Deficiencies: The president and his successors must be prepared to fight, i.e., to respond flexibly to exigencies before and during a nuclear war. They must be able to end a nuclear war. Rugged, redundant, powerful communications that allow for seat-of-the-pants reactions in the middle of a war are necessary.
If they are not available, command and control will be single and inflexible. One could propose an axiom: As communications deteriorate, command and control will devolve toward massive retaliation. If this axiom is correct, massive retaliation may be the only role SSBNs can fulfill.
As impressive as an SSBN appears, its value as a weapon is no greater than the ability to command and control it during a war. The communications that permit command and control of the SSBN are its hidden, perhaps fatal flaw. During a nuclear war, SSBN C3 would not, in Pentagonese, “gracefully degrade.” They could quickly go from poor to worse to nonexistent. As a result, shortly after a war begins, the SSBN fleet likely will be useful only for massive retaliation, if at all.
This leads to an unpleasant issue. Command is universally understood to mean that the president is in command, and only his explicit, positive order can cause the use of a nuclear weapon. Elaborate, physical controls, such as permissive action link (PAL) locks, are put on nuclear weapons and can only be negated by
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ing, and more flexible than those to other strategic forces. This happy situation is just now becoming recognized outside of a narrow circle of experts who usually are too busy creating ever more difficult and unlikely scenarios to address rather than advertising their successes. For years, submarine communications improvements have been made by relatively low-level, highly classified programs that aroused little interest or excitement as they came into service.
Submarine communications are comprised of the following elements:
The VLF Network: The backbone of the submarine communications path for many years has been the shore-based very low frequency network. Starting with a few transmitter sites covering the northern Pacific Ocean at the end of World War II, this network expanded to cover the world from many locations, linked by reliable, redundant paths. The VLF system is augmented by low frequency (LF) transmitters in even more locations, which add more dispersion and redundancy. This system adds surety in delivery and provides the flexibility to establish dedicated circuits for submarines on missions restricted in time or location.
The VLF system operates continuously from these many locations, on many frequencies, and in several transmission modes simultaneously. Because this is a continuous broadcast, the system is not susceptible to traffic analysis, enemy alert, or tactical deception. Unlike other strategic communications systems, performance is measured and analyzed constantly.
Some worst-case threat analyses indicated that the VLF link might be jammed if the Soviets dedicated
Presidential authority. If presidential authority cannot be communicated, the weapon cannot be used.
Some authorities have noted that, because of the seVere problems relating to communications, SSBN crews already have the physical ability to arm and launch Iheir missiles without an explicit presidential command.44 Note the use of “crews” and “physical.” These words are important: A Captain Queeg could not order a launch; the crew must be involved. And, there are procedural barriers to a launch without an explicit command; however, it is physically, i.e., technically, Possible.
Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense in the 1960s, when PALs were installed on nuclear weapons, said that PALs were not installed on SSBN missiles because “communication of an authorizing code ‘might conceivably be broken off because of difficulty in Caching a sub deep underwater.”45 This lack—a lock °n the missiles that could only be unlocked by a presidential command—continues in the current fleet, according to Commodore Theodore E. Lewin, Director of the Strategic Submarine Division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in 1985. Lewin told Confess that it was “procedurally” impossible to launch an SLBM without a presidential command and that the crews were subject to rigorous psychological screening, ^nt asked if “there is no technological requirement
right now in the machinery that there be a presidential unlock?” Lewin said, “That is correct, sir.”46
It is important to understand what is not being stated here. It is not being stated that U. S. policy calls for SSBN crews to launch their missiles as they see fit. It is not being stated that a Captain Queeg could start World War III. It is not being stated that U. S. policy should allow an SSBN crew to launch a missile.
The point made is that the Navy has found enough problems with its SSBN communications that it asked for and continues to receive an exemption from a critically important protection of the president’s authority— a physical barrier that only the president can remove before the weapon is used.
Policy Implications: First, if the SSBN’s unique communications systems have serious deficiencies, this does not mean that they are candidates for budget cuts. Rather, they are vital programs because they represent the only way we have to communicate with submerged strategic submarines. Further, attack submarines, which can operate with a much longer leash than strategic submarines (or no leash at all), can make excellent use of one-way systems that allow them to remain submerged.
Second, if the United States wishes to program its nuclear forces to fight a nuclear war, it would be wise to seek solutions for the deficiencies of ICBMs and
their submarine VLF systems to this purpose. Two deVelopments changed this conclusion. As the range of C- S. SLBMs increased, the distances between our submarine patrol areas and our transmitters decreased, reducing the jamming threat. In addition, technical deVelopments have improved all VLF systems dramati- CaHy in the past ten years. It is now reasonable to expect this system to deliver messages to submarines until 11 is physically destroyed.
Like all fixed, land-based communications systems, the VLF system can be subjected to severe and disabling stresses, including the same stresses other strate- S'c order delivery systems experience. The widely disposed geographic locations of the VLF fixed sites °ffers some advantages over those systems concentrated ln the central United States that are perhaps more susCeptible to extro-atmosphere disablement. To disable all lhe Navy VLF and LF sites would require many high- aLitude explosions dispersed over the globe.
To receive messages, U. S. submarines traditionally have had to be either at or near the surface and either stopped °r moving slowly. ELF, which is operational in Wisconsin and will be operational in Michigan in fiscal year 1988, ahows submariners to receive messages at depth and sPeed (white), retaining stealth without sacrificing speed.
In contrast to the RAND study opinion, this VLF connection between the National Command Authorities and the submarines on alert at sea is faster than the corresponding system ashore, which with its multiple paths, nodes, relays, and switching stations connects the command centers to the ICBM launch control centers and bomber wings.
Supplementing the fixed VLF sites is a mobile VLF transmitter, which is as vulnerable as the undersea forces. The TACAMO (take action and move out) system, flying continuously since 1973, is a VLF transmitter in an EC-130 Hercules aircraft. These airborne missions depart with a minimum endurance of ten hours remaining. Back-up planes on alert can be scrambled on short notice, on warning, by NORAD (faster than the SAC bomber force) to maintain this endurance routinely and to add to it in a crisis. The aircraft, electronically silent except when testing its system, flies random patterns over the ocean. It is unidentifiable until it transmits. It could only be attacked by seaborne or airborne platforms in its vicinity, so it is essentially invulnerable to any known Soviet countermeasure. The system is tested at regular intervals so its ability to perform is a known, measured quantity.
The ELF System: Extremely low frequency broadcasts begin this year from sites in Michigan and Wisconsin. This fills the final gap in continuous submarine bombers. Space systems might protect the ICBM fields and bomber bases. Small, mobile ICBMs are being researched. Stealth technology might make the bomber invisible, just as the SSBN is now. SSBN communications cannot be much improved with current or planned technology and therefore it would not be prudent to increase the role of the SSBN in the Triad. Proposals to amputate the bomber or ICBM legs are foolish.
Third, this is a rare case of policy becoming too advanced for the technology. Our policy, which demands war-fighting capability, is too sophisticated for the communications that would support it. Merely proclaiming an intention to fight during the “trans-attack” period cannot make it possible. As two analysts involved in the formulation of command and control policy put it, “Major gaps have opened between the stated objectives of strategic policy and the capabilities to carry it out.”47
The strategic submarine is a magnificent weapon.
But at worst, its fragile C3 systems could be a fatal flaw. At best, until ways can be found to make it a strategic war-fighting weapon, the United States should maintain its alternatives to the SSBN and, perhaps, consider a less ambitious policy.
‘50% of deployed strategic warheads is a common approximate figure. The S/PRI Yearbook 1986 (p. 40) puts the bomber/ICBM/SSBN warhead count at 2,330/5,093/6,500, but it includes all warheads, deployed or not. Also, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1987, p. 56. Also, Norman Polmar, “The Other Leg in the Triad,” Air Force Magazine, July 1985, pp. 84-91; D. Douglas Dalgleish and Larry W. Schweikart, “Trident and the Triad,” Proceedings, June 1986, pp. 73-81.
2Quoted in Hearings, House Foreign Affairs Committee, The Role of Arms Control in U. S. Defense Policy, 98th Congress, Second Session, June/July
1984, p. 48.
3Article II, Section 2, of the U. S. Constitution states: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States . . . .” Congress has passed laws that restrict the president’s command of troops, e.g., with the War Powers Resolution, but there are no such restrictions on his command of nuclear forces. Likewise, the president’s command over the release of nuclear weapons is universally understood. The NCA (which is called both National Command Authority and Authorities) ensure(s) an orderly devolution of presidential command should there be a successful “decapitation.”
4Leon Sloss and Marc Dean Millot, “U. S. Nuclear Strategy in Evolution,” Strategic Review, Winter 1984, pp. 19-28; Alan J. Vick, “Post-Attack Strategic Command and Control Survival: Options for the Future,” Orbis, Spring
1985, pp. 95-97; Jeffrey Richelson, “PD-59, NSDD-13 and the Reagan Strategic Modernization Program,” The Journal of Strategic Studies, June 1983, pp- 125-146; Colin S. Gray, “War-Fighting for Deterrence,” Journal of Strategic Studies, March 1984, pp. 7-28. Bruce G. Blair, Strategic Command and Con- trol (Washington, D. C.: The Brookings Institution, 1985), chapters 4-7; Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1983); Congressional Budget Office, Strategic Command, Control, and Communications: Alternative Approaches for Modernization, October 19811 Paul Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983).
5See Desmond Ball, “Can Nuclear War Be Controlled?” Adelphi Papers, 169 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981).
6Sloss and Milliot, p. 25; Richelson, p. 125: NSDD-13 “reaffirmed” PD-59. 7Freedman, pp. 393-394.
8Desmond Ball, “U. S. Strategic Forces: How Would They Be Used?” International Security, Winter 1982/1983, pp. 31-60.
9Caspar W. Weinberger, Memorandum from the Secretary of Defense, Subject: Realignment of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 29 January 1985 (and accompanying News Release).
Holland-------------------------------------------------------------------
communications. It is not always convenient or practical to have the submarine with an antenna near, on, or above the ocean surface. When proceeding to and from patrol areas or while conducting training, it is usually more effective and militarily efficient to proceed at depths and speeds that do not permit antenna use. In the past, submarines were forced to stop and listen every eight hours or so. While this is adequate for most scenarios, it always left a nagging doubt that perhaps the submarine could not be put into action in a timely fashion. The ELF system removes that doubt. Merely the loss of signal is enough to alert the ships that something could be wrong, thus bringing them to communication depth immediately to connect with other networks. A scheme for a robust, reconstitutable system that defies duplication uses every Navy ship, each of which contains a high-powered radio station to deliver information, orders, and intelligence to tactical and strategic forces. There are always substantial numbers of ships at sea, worldwide. By connecting these radio stations together in a common network, the resulting redundancy and geographic dispersion ensure a survivable and effective communications path for any situation. Such a capability exists.
Deterrence theory can be very complicated or very simple, but it always relies on real power. You cannot fake it for very long. Real forces, reliable command
and communications, and the will to use them are absolutes. Strategic communications have been the most difficult portion to fully implement. In large part this is because we must assume the enemy gets to shoot first. When considering vulnerable forces, the requirements for such systems are very demanding—some would say impossible.
When forces are secure and communications restorable, the criteria can be met. The combination of high data rate, continuous broadcast VLF, the ELF alerting system, TACAMO aircraft, and the reconstitutable network of many mobile platforms combine to create a communications system that meets all the necessary criteria to deliver orders from the National Command Authorities to the strategic submarine forces in a sure and timely manner before, through, and after any attack on the United States. Freeman Dyson, in his critical analysis “Weapons and Hope,” writes: “If the message gets out of Washington, it will get to the submarines.”
Admiral Holland served most of his 32 years of active-duty service in submarines. As a flag officer, he served in the National Military Command Center and as Director of Strategic and Theater Nuclear Warfare in OpNav. His last assignment before retirement was as Deputy Director of Space Command and Control. His is the President of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Educational Foundation.
Quoted in James W. Canan, “Fast Track for C3I,” Air Force Magazine, July 1984, pp. 44-45.
General Accounting Office (GAO), Report to the Secretary of Defense, Trident II System: Status and Reporting, 15 May 1984, p. 10; Norman Polmar, The American Submarine, 1984-2014,” U. S. Naval Institute Naval Review 1984, p. 206. A 20-Trident fleet assumes a continuation of the approximate °ne-perryear rate. And, America’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles could have been bargained away if President Reagan’s proposals had been accepted hy the Soviets at Reykjavik. There are companion reports from the House Armed Services Committee’s Defense Policy Panel that discuss the implications °f bargaining away ballistic missiles: Reykjavik and American Security, February 1987, and The Reykjavik Process: Preparation for and Conduct of the Ice- [®nd Summit and its Implications for Arms Control Policy, January 1987.
G- S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Fiscal Year 1986 Arms Con- tr°l Impact Statements, (ACIS) February 1985, p. 165: “Availability of SSBNs Operationally ready at-sea” is 66%.
Virtually all articles, books, and hearings on the subject restate the assump- 1Qn that SSBNs are invulnerable while fully submerged. An exception— potable because it is an exception—is Raymond A. Robinson, “Incoming Baltic Missiles at Sea,” Proceedings, June 1987, pp. 67-71.
There would be 192 warheads on each Trident if all 24 of its missile tubes carry missiles with eight warheads.
|(Report of the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces, April 1983, p. 9. I7Ib>d, p. 11.
Ibid, p. 11; also, Congressional Budget Office, The U. S. Sea-Based Strate- Sic Force: Costs of the Trident Submarine and Missile Programs and Alterna- \^es, February 1980.
initial deployment is set for December 1989. Commodore Bacon, SASC {tarings, p. 3844.
Commodore Bacon, SASC FY 1986, p. 3868: D-5 would “hold at risk the nil spectrum of Soviet targets. This will include those targets which the Sovi- els prize most—their leadership bunkers, their ICBM silos, their hardened command and control facilities . . . .”
Commodore Bacon, SASC FY 1986, p. 3851: “ . . . the difference between lhe arrival time of our force is not militarily significant. Nevertheless, the time Urgency debate goes on. The real purpose of the entire triad is deterrent [sic] of J'ddch time urgency is just one factor.”
Ashton B. Carter, “Communications Technologies and Vulnerabilities,” in Ashton B. Carter, John B. Steinbruner, and Charles A. Zraket, Managing Nu- cfar Operations (Washington, D. C.: The Brookings Institution, 1987), pp. 233-239; Blair, pp. 198-201.
Staff study, U. S. General Accounting Office, An Unclassified Version of a ^ossified Report Entitled “The Navy’s Strategic Communications Systems— 22eed for Management Attention and Decisionmaking,’’ 2 May 1979, p. 34.
The development of TACAMO is discussed in Kent M. Black and Andrew f - Lindstrom, “TACAMO,” Signal, September 1978, pp. 8-13; also Jane’s Military Communications 1986, s.v. “TACAMO Naval Communications Sys- tcm”; VAdm. Gordon R. Nagler, USN, “Navy Communications: The 1980s and Beyond,” Signal, pp. 59-61; Staff study (GAO), pp. 8-12.
^Staff study, GAO, p. 33.
lames B. Schultz, “ELF Lets Subs Stay Deep and Out of Sight,” Defense Electronics, January 1985, pp. 95-98; Clinton E. Roche, “ELF and the SSN,” ^8nal, April 1981, pp. 29-32; Staff study, GAO, pp. 49-50.
Ashton B. Carter, “The Command and Control of Nuclear War,” Scientific A^ierican, January 1985, p. 35. Carter makes this point about airborne com- ^and posts; presumably, these nuclear effects would be more acute for aircraft l^at must stay on station (such as TACAMO or Looking Glass) than for the Presidential NEACP, which has no “station.”
Staff study, GAO, p. iv: “DOD maintained that the extremely low frequency Astern was needed to free strategic submariners from having an antenna at or near the ocean surface”; also see pp. 49-51.
28Polmar, “Other Leg,” p. 87: ELF “has suffered from poor Navy sales efforts and has encountered massive opposition from ecologists and from critics who fear that ELF could provide a first-strike capability.”
29By 1979, the Navy had proposed five versions of the system, with each succeeding version having less capability, according to staff study (GAO), p. iii. 30“ELF is a system that is peacetime only because the first weapon that detonates on the ELF site, it has gone from that point of view [sic]. It is a bellringer only . . . .” Latham in hearings of the House Appropriations Committee, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1986, Part 4, 99th Congress, first session, April 1985, p. 539.
3‘Harper quoted in SASC FY 1986 hearings, p. 3854.
32Hearings, House Armed Services Committee, Defense Department Authorization and Oversight, FY 1987, Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation— Title II, 99th Congress, Second Session, February/March 1986, p. 395.
33David A. Boutacoff, “Military Focuses on Laser Communications,” Defense Electronics, June 1986, pp. 106-112; A Staff Report, “Submarine Laser Communication Program: Technical Breakthroughs Yield Engineering Challenges,” Signal, July 1985, p. 85; James B. Schultz, “Navy, DARPA Evaluate Blue- Green Lasers as Communications Link with Submarines,” Defense Electronics, November 1983, pp. 50-60.
^If deployed, SLCSat might be in geosynchronous or highly elliptical orbits, Latham, HASC FY 1987, pp. 739-741; see Ashton B. Carter, “Satellites and Anti-Satellites: The Limits of the Possible,” International Security, Spring 1986, pp. 46-98.
35Carter, “Satellites.”
36By 1995, the Soviets will have 30% of their strategic warheads on SSBNs, down from 20% currently (still far below the U. S.’s 50%). Caspar W. Weinberger, Soviet Military Power 1987, March 1987, p. 24-25.
37See Carter, “Communications Technologies,” pp. 233-239, 253. This point is valid for any system that broadcasts over ocean areas.
38James Bamford, “The Walker Espionage Case,” U. S. Naval Institute Naval Review, May 1986, p. 116.
39Commander James J. Tritten, “Trident: Strategic Navy Program,” National Defense, April 1983, p. 42.
“^The basic procedure is outlined in hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1986, 99th Congress, First Session, February/March 1985, Part 7, pp. 3857-3858.
4lLatham quoted in hearings of the HASC FY 1987, p. 730 (emphasis added); Office of Technology Assessment, MX Missile Basing, September 1981, p.
277; Richelson, “PD-59, NSDD,” p. 133.
42James B. Schultz, “Milstar Progresses Despite High Cost and Technology Risks,” Defense Electronics, June 1984, p. 92.
43Desmond Ball, Adelphi Paper 185: Targeting for Strategic Deterrence, Summer 1983, p. 36.
^Blair, Strategic Command and Control, pp. 101-102; Braken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces, pp. 229-230.
45McNamara quoted in “Safety Catches on the Nuclear Trigger,” Washington Post. July 26, 1985, p. A14.
46Quoted in hearings of the SASC, FY 1986, pp. 3855-3856.
47Sloss and Millot, p. 28.
Mr. Kelley works for a McLean, Virginia-based technical and professional services firm under contract to the Defense Department. He recently completed course requirements for a Ph.D. in international relations from Georgetown University, and holds masters degrees in security policy from George Washington University and in government from William and Mary.
*--- .--------------------------------------------------------------- Pick-up Lines_______ ______________________
In 1957, when I joined the Coast Guard, the only discemable difference between our dress blues and Navy enlisted uniforms was a small silver shield we wore on the right sleeve, just above the wrist.
On a training cruise, we visited in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the local folks tossed a wonderful party for us. The young ladies, attracted by our skin-tight, tailor-made uniforms, were all curious about the silver shield.
That, we told them straight-faced, was a “Public Health Service VD innoculation badge.’’
As we left Halifax, a U. S. Navy destroyer was headed in to port. I’ve often wondered how the noninnoculated Navy boys made out!
J. T. Chapin