WINNOWING OUR WARHEADS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100370033-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: March 27, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10 :CIA-RDP99-004188000100370033-6
Arns-reduction talks with
the U.S.S.R. compel us, the
author argues, to re-examine
our hneir nui?/e..~ -~---= --
By Stansfield Turner
of them. By having a mix of ballistic missiles that travel
through space and bombs and cruise missiles that move in
the atmosphere, we have complicated any defensive ef-
forts by an enemy. The need to continue several types of
basing and several methods of delivery must be consid-
ered inany program to reduce total numbers.
Another criterion is what uses we would put these weap-
ons to, if needed. Because we have so many weapons, we
have been able to support five different, yet overlapping,
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The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
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theories of use. If we must take a 50 percent reduction, we
will no longer be able. to afford the luxury of not making
choices. If we were to cut all systems by 50 percent, some
would no longer be viable. START will force us to re-evalu-
ate the five basic theories behind our nuclear posture and
choose among them.
Pre-emptlve Sbike. Under this theory, we would launch a
nuclear attack on the Soviet Union first if we were confi-
dent the Russians were on the verge of attacking us. In so
doing, we would hope to minimize damage to the United
States by knocking out as many Soviet intercontinental nu-
clearweapons as we could
HERE IS A HIGH RISK
for the United States in the
current strategic arms re-
duction talks, known as
START, that call fora 50
percent reduction in strafe-
, gic nuclear warheads. The
risk is less in what we ne-
gotiate with the Russians
than in how we divide up the
50 percent we would be allowed to re-
tain. The prospect of a START agree-
ment offers us an important oppor-
tunity to reassess our nuclear arsenal
and the assumptions on which we
have built it.
Over the past 43 years, we have per-
mitted our nuclear arsenal to grow
enormously. In round numbers, we
have 2,300 warheads on three types of
intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBM's); 6,700 warheads on two
types of sea-launched ballistic missiles
(SLBM's), and 5,000 warheads -either
bombs or air-launched cruise missiles
- on two types of bombers. That adds
up to a total of almost 14,000 warheads
(some 2,000 more than the Russians
have). All of our nuclear warheads
have at least double the explosive
power of the bombs used on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, and most have much
more than that.
By placing these weapons both on
missile and bomber bases on land,
and on submarines at sea, we have
taken out insurance against a single
surprise attack that could wipe out alb
locate. Today, that would re
quire more than 3,000 war-
heads; after a 50 percent re-
duction of Soviet forces, we
would still need about 2,000.
We would want these war-
heads on ballistic missiles
with a short time of flight
(about 30 minutes) rather
than on bombers or cruise
missiles (several hours), if
we hoped to catch the Rus-
sians without giving them
enough warning to counter- ~
launch out from under our at-
tack. We would also want the
warheads on land-based
ICBM's because we are more
certain of being able to get
the firing orders to them
promptly than to submarines
at sea.
There is one problem,
though. The Russians have
ballistic missiles on subma-
tines that we can't locate well
enough to hope to target
quickly. These alone could do
us inestimable' damage, no
matter how successful our
pre-emptive strike against
their other nuclear forces.
The invulnerability of these
weapons is crucial, and yet it
is our insistence on being pre-
pared for a pre-emptive
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a.
strike against only the vul-
nerable portion of the Soviet
force that drives up the num-
ber of nuclear weapons we
stockpile. Each new nuclear
weapon the Russians deploy
demands two more on our
side to give us assurance that
we could knock it out. Our
added weapons, in turn, make
the Russians feel they are
falling behind, and the nu-
clear-arms spiral continues
upward.
Cowrterforce Retaliation. Ac-
cording to this theory, if the
Russians were actually to
strike us first with nuclear
weapons, we would use our
surviving forces to retaliate
primarily at military targets.
The concept behind this is
that it is unlikely the Rus-
sians would terminate the
war if their military machine
were intact. In pursuit of this
theory we today allocate
thousands of nuclear war-
heads to the destruction of
Soviet conventional, as well
as nuclear, forces. Under
START we would not have
enough warheads to continue
targeting all of these forces.
Mutual Assured Destruction.
According to the MAD theory
(which might more accu-
rately be termed mutual as-
sured vulnerability), it is the
assurance that we could re-
taliate devastatingly that
deters the Soviet Union from
attacking us. Our ICBM's
have very little assurance of
surviving a deliberate Soviet
attack, our bombers have
modest assurance, and our
ballistic-missile submarines
have high assurance. Thus,
our principal deterrent is the
nuclear warheads we have in
36 ballistic-missile subma-
rines; or, more specifically,
the roughly 50 percent of
those in submarines that ac-
tually are at sea at any given
time and which are virtually
invulnerable.
Under START, there is a
proposed limit of 4,900 ballis-
tic-missile warheads, either
on land or at sea. After set-
ting aside 2,000 of those for
land-based ballistic missiles
under the pre-emptive
theory, we would have only
2,900 left for submarine mis-
siles. That would limit us to
about 15 submarines, com-
pared with the 41 we main-
tained until just recently,
when larger submarines
began to replace older,
smaller ones; and only 7 or 8
would be at sea and invulner-
able, as compared with more
than 20 just a few years ago.
A modest breakthrough in
submarine detection might
allow the Russians to attack
them, perhaps with a nuclear
barrage of the areas where
they suspected our subma-
rines were. It would be fool-
hardy, in my opinion, to rely
as heavily on MAD as we do
today with only 7 or 8 ballis-
tic-missile submarines at
sea.
Flexible Response in Europe.
This theory comes in two ver-
sions.
The first version holds that
if there were a war in Europe
and the Warsaw Pact were
winning, the United States
would launch a limited nu-
clear strike on the Soviet
Union in the expectation that
the Russians would halt the
war as a result. The Rus-
sians might do that, but such
a move would leave them
vulnerable to further nu-
clear intimidation. Realisti-
cally, we must be prepared
for them to retaliate with a
similar nuclear attack on the
United States. As citizens,
we should ask whether we
want so badly to defend our
European allies that we
would offer up our home
towns as the targets for such
retaliation. It is very unlike-
ly, in my view, that any
President would risk Chi-
cago by attacking Kiev in or-
der to defend Bonn.
The second variation holds
that instead of attacking the
Soviet Union, we would fire
nuclear weapons at Warsaw
Pact forces in Eastern Eu-
rope. That would be more ac-
ceptable to us, because any
nuclear retaliation would
likely be on Western Europe.
Our West European allies,
though, will be reluctant to
make their territory a nu-
clear battleground. That is
expressly why the West Ger-
mans have become anxious
to negotiate away the very-
short-range nuclear weapons
which we now have in East
and West Germany and
which can do damage only to
those two countries.
Adherence to either ver-
sion of flexible response
translates into resistance to
START or other forms of nu-
clear-arms reductions. Flex-
ible response is, after all, a
war-fighting doctrine. Any
prudent military man, when
thinking in terms of fighting,
will want more weapons
rather than fewer. Arms-con-
trol agreements are bound to
reduce his fighting options. In
particular, belief in flexible
response will create resist-
ance to limiting our nuclear-
capable aircraft in Europe
under START, as well as to
limiting the French and Brit-
ish nuclear forces.
Strategic Defense Initiative.
Again, there are two versions
of this, the S.D.I., theory. One
is President Reagan's and
the other, the Pentagon's.
The President's notion is i
that we build a cocoon over
the entire United States that
would be impregnable to
ballistic missiles. To the de-
gree we accomplish this, our
concern with maintaining a
mix of invulnerable nu-
clear forces for MAD dimin-
ishes. S.D.I. will be our
deterrent.
11UQ4
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The Pentagon's theory pos-
tulates an S.D.I. capable of
defending only a few specific
locations, primarily where
our fixed ICBM's are based.
These weapons will be vul-
nerable without such de-
fenses, but the cost of an ,
S.D.I. to protect them could
be justified only if, within the
proposed limit of 4,900 ballis-
tic missile warheads, we allo-
cated a sizable number to
fixed ICBM's.
HE QUESTION IS,
can we afford to con-
tinue pursuing all five
of these theories? The an-
swer is no, partly because of .
the warhead limits in
START, if those negotiations
prove successful; and partly
because of the number of ex-
pensive systems we are
developing in support of these
theories. The theorists of pre-
emptive strike and counter-
force retaliation have sold us
on developing three new
ICBM's; those supporting
MAD have convinced us to
buy new Trident submarines
and missiles, two new bomb-
ers and a number of different
cruise missiles, and those be-
hind S.D.I. have encouraged
us to spend billions of dollars
for research.
Because of START and
budget constraints, wrench-
ing choices are going to have
to be made. In my opinion,
they should be:
Abandon the Pre-emptive
Strike. No President, I be-
lieve, would ever initiate nu-
clear war with the Soviet
Union because he had been
told that the Russians were
about to attack us. He would
estimate that if he did launch
nuclear weapons, the prob-
ability that the Russians
would launch back would be
almost 100 percent. I cannot
imagine a Director of Central
Intelligence ever having any-
thing approaching 100 per-
cent confidence in his predic-
tion that the Russians were
truly going to attack.
The President would be
faced with a choice between
the total probability of nu-
clear destruction on our soil
and some lesser probability.
And because there is no pros-
pect that our pre-empting
could limit damage to the
United States to an accept-
able level, he would likely
wait it out. Abandoning the
pre-emptive strike would
mean that we would not need
to assign 2,000 of our pro-
posed limit of 4,900 ballistic
missile warheads to ICBM's.
Place Severe Limits on Coun-
terforceTargeting. Should the
Russians ever intentionally
attack the United States with
a small number of nuclear
weapons, a similar response
would be mandatory. Other-
wise, we would be the ones
subject to further nuclear
blackmail. Responding
against a few military tar-
gets would be preferable to
attacking cities, as it would
be less likely to incite the
Russians to escalate.
The question of how we
should retaliate against a
major nuclear attack on the
United States is more com-
plex, because it is difficult
even to imagine what the im-
pact of such an attack would
be. A single warhead on a
Sovie[ ballistic missile is
typically the equivalent of
one billion pounds of TNT.
Just three of these would con-
tain more explosive DOWPr
than all of the bombs dropped
by.the United States on Ger-
many during World War II.
And the Russians have al-
most 10,000 such wan..?_~'~
or a potential for inflicting
more than 3,000 times the
damage done to Germany.
The death and destruction
from the direct blast of these
detonations would be only the
beginning. The disruption of
communications and trans-
portation would ,bring our
society to a halt. And nuclear
radiation would not only kill
countless others over time,
but make many food supplies
unusable and areas of the
country uninhabitable. We
should recall that the radia-
tion effects of the minuscule
explosion at Chernobyl in
1986 were felt as far away as
Western Europe and Scandi-
navia.
It is only an academic
nicety as to whether we
should retaliate against
Soviet cities or military in-
stallations. Any sizable re-
taliation on our part would
devastate many of each, no
matter where we aimed our
weapons. To say, as some do,
that it is immoral to target
populations, but not military
targets, is like trying to
carve angels on the head of a
pin. It is perfectly moral to
deter nuclear war, and it
happens that threatening the
destruction of societies is the
only means we have yet de-
vised to do that. Moreover, if
the Russians were to drop
thousands of billions of
pounds of destruction on our
country, would we really be
concerned with a moral dis-
tinction as to where our re-
sponse happened to land?
Thus it seems unwarranted
to reserve large numbers of
warheads for counterforce
targeting of military bases.
Rely on Mutual Assured De- ~
sbvction. Until S.D.I. or some
other means of deterring nu-
clear war actually material-
izes, we must rely on MAD.
Maximum survivability,
then, and the ability to retali-
ate, must be our principal
concerns when adjusting our
nuclear force mix. For the
foreseeable future this
means relying heavily on
ballistic missile submarines,
and we should build almost as
many of them as allowed
within the START limit of
4,900 warheads for ballistic
missiles. Still, it would be pru-
dent to have one other kind of
ballistic missile as aback-up.
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The two candidates cur-
rently being developed are
the terrain-mobile Midget-
man and the railroad version
of the MX ICBM. The best bet
is the Midgetman, which
would be able to move contin-
uously on roads and desert
terrain. It would be far less
vulnerable than the MX
ICBM, which would only
move out onto the nation's
railroad system in a crisis. ~
Midgetman is also advanta-
geous under START because
it has only one warhead,
rather than the three on the
MX. We could have three
times as many Midgetmen as
railroad MX under the war-
headlimits of START.
If we were to allocate 300
warheads to Midgetman, that
would leave 4,600 for subma-
rine missiles, or 24 ballistic
missile submarines of the de-
sign we are now building,
rather than the 15 we would
have if 2,000 warheads were
allocated to ICBM's. We
could have even more subma-
rines if we designed smaller
ones with fewer missiles on
each, albeit at increased ex-
pense. On top of that, there
would be 300 single-warhead
Midgetmen. Staying within
these numerical limits would
require abandoning 977 older
Minutemen ICBM's and the
50 non-mobile MX ICBM's
still being deployed.
Also, to maintain MAD we
must make the very best use
of the remaining 1,100 nu-
clear warheads likely to be
allowed under START for
cruise missiles. One expen-
sive new bomber to carry
them should be enough. I
recommend the radar-elud-
ing Stealth bomber, because
either the aircraft itself or
the missiles it launches
should be able to penetrate
Soviet defenses, whereas the
new B-1 bomber is too vulner-
ablefor penetration.
Further, the survivability
of cruise missiles can be
made quite high simply by in-
creasing the types of launch
platforms we employ: bomb-
ers, attack submarines, sur-
faceships and land launchers
(though the intermediate nu-
clear forces treaty recently
signed rules out United
States ~ ground-launched
cruise missiles in Europe).
Discard Flexible Response. It
is only a matter of time be-
fore West Europeans ac-
knowledge that flexible re-
sponse is a charade, but its
advocates contend that we
must prolong the myth as
long as possible. They fear
that the West Europeans,
especially the West Ger-
mans, when they recognize
that our nuclear weapons do
not provide real defense, will
accede to political pressures
from the Russians. My view
is that the West Europeans
will not risk their freedom
that easily, and they have
other choices.
One option is to spend more
on conventional forces. It is
easy to say that doing so would
be politically unpopular, but
the Europeans have been
pushed to the wall before and
have responded valiantly. An-
other option is co negotiate
with the Warsaw Pact forces
for asymmetrical reductions
in conventional forces; and the
Russians have at least pro-
fessed some interest in such a
possibility. Or we might well
revaluate the threat posed
by the Warsaw Pact, espe-
cially in light of the growing
unrest the Russians are facing
in Eastern Europe, across
their line of march to Western
Europe.
Flexible response is not
only a myth, but a dangerous
y
one. The United States mili-
taryhas been taught that it is
our policy to resort quickly to
nuclear weapons if the tide of
battle turns against us in
Western Europe. This mind-
set could easily result in a
field commander's seizing
the initiative and using nu-
clear weapons without au-
thorization if communica-
tionsbroke down in battle. He
could well believe that he had
a mandate from his Com-
mander in Chief to do so.
Abandon S.D.I. as a Liimited
Defense for ICBM's. The Pen-
tagon's version of S.D.I.
would be a much more costly
way of reducing the vulner-
ability of ICBM's than the
mobile Midgetman.
pursue Research for a Natl?r
wide S.D.1. Our perspective
on the nationwide possibil-
ities of S.D.I. has been
warped by too much talk of
deploying such a system
within the next few years.
That would be an S.D.I. for
defending ICBM's, but it
would only need to be capable
of defeating 20 percent to 30
percent of an incoming at- ,
tack to ensure survivability
of sufficient ICBM's for re-
taliation. Anationwide sys-
tem would need to defeat 99
percent to defend our people
sufficiently. The difference in
technical challenge is im-
mense. In reality, a nation-
wide system is a long way off,
and there is only a low prob- .
ability that we will ever be
able to achieve one. Still, we
shouldn't abandon research.
We simply do not know what
technology may be able to
produce. What we can afford is
a slower pace of funding than
we have at present, as there is
little risk of the Russians over-
/2.
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taking us in this complex tech-
nology. Even if they did, we
would still have a robust retali-
atory force in our cruise mis-
siles, since an S.D.I. cannot de-
fend against them.
If it should become neces-
sary to slow down the testing
of S.D.I. in order to reach
agreement on START, that
would not necessarily be a
setback for S.D.I. Rigorous
research is only one way to
make progress toward S.D.I.
Another is to reduce the size
of the Soviet nuclear threat
and, hence, the technological
challenge. That is best done
through arms-control agree-
ments. It is going to take both
stunning technology and sub-
stantial arms control to
produce a workable, nation-
wide S.D.I.
We and the Russians have
been profligate in the amount
of money we have spent on
nuclear forces. And we both
have been indifferent to the
risks posed by simply pos-
sessing such numbers of nu-
clear weapons. Fifty percent
reductions under START
would be a large step in the
right direction. Reducing the
sum of our strategic arsenal
from about 25,000 warheads to
12,500 would leave neither side
lacking for destructive power.
What the new limits on weap-
ons would do is to force us to
think through the kinds we
should maintain. The choices
we will face will be traumatic
to some nuclear theories and
theorists, but if we choose
weapons backed by theories of
deterrence and reject those
based on war-fighting, we can
advance the cause of nuclear
stability. Unless we can do
chat, and do it well, we could
end up less secure after
START than before. ^
/3 .
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