NOTES FROM 'THE FUTURE OF LAND-BASED MISSILE FORCES' BY COLIN S. GRAY (ADELPHI PAPER 141, WINTER 1977)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003200210028-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 31, 2005
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: October 2, 1978
• Content Type: MFR

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2 0 CT 1978
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Notes from "The Future of Land-based Missile Forces"
. by Colin S. Gray (Adelphi Paper 141, Winter 1977)
1. Rationale for ICBMs:
a. Better command and control than sea-based systems.
Short time of flight. These combined allow you to:
(1) Take on limited and changing target systems.
(2) Take on withhold forces or reloadable silos in
a timely manner before they are likely to be utilized.
c. The relative counter-force capabilities of central
strategic forces impacts on the potential willingness of the
United States to come to the support of the European allies
with conventional or theatre nuclear forces. In short, in
trying to "win" that type of a limited war in Europe, the
United States' options would be restricted if the Soviets
could "win" a strategic nuclear war with a superior counter-
force force.
d. One of the arguments for the continued existence of an
ICBM force is that it provides warning for the bomber force,
i.e., a depressed trajectory attack on the bomber bases, if it
precedes the launch of ICBMs against our silos, provides ample
warning for the launch of our ICBMs; if enemy ICBMs are launched
to impact on our silos nearly simultaneously with the depressed
trajectory SLBMs on the bomber fields, we should have adequate
alert of the ICBM launch to get our bombers in the air.
e. The only viable case for ABM is with a dispersed ICBM
force such that the enemy doesn't know precisely where it is
at a given time. In short, if the enemy's attack has to be
dispersed sufficiently that it is thin against any given ICBM,
there is some possibility that an' ABM defense can handle that
thin system. (This seems like wishful thinking to me with the
almost infinite capacity that proliferate decoys.)
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f. (ST -- One point to be viewed is the comparative
leverage. If we build a less vulnerable fixed or semi-fixed
ICBM system, the costs to the Soviets.of patterning it is
probably a lot less than the cost of building it; if we go
to cruise missiles, the cost to the Soviets of constructing
both ballistic missile and cruise missile defense systems
.will be fantastically larger. There is also a lot of leverage
in the cruise missile being able to come in from any direction.
This mandates a 360? defense perimeter.)
2. There is a lot of talk in this paper of the incapability of
suppressing mobile surface-to-air missile systems. (It seems to me
this is a lot of nonsense -- any such system must radiate -- therefore,
a change in its location by 5, 10 or 50 kilometers can only provide a
marginal improvement in defense against an anti-radiation missile.)
3. The argument against a dyad boils down essentially to the
ability to hit time-urgent targets. Is this a real argument, or is
it simply the Neanderthals falling back on the one characteristic
of fixed ICBMs that cannot be replicated by SLBMs, bombers, and
cruise missiles?
4.. The other principal argument against a dyad is that its
slowness of response would make it seem unlikely that the U.S. would
ever employ its strategic nuclear forces first. That is, if events
in conventional war and theatre nuclear war in Europe dictated a use
of an option of striking against the Soviet Union in some limited
manner, the United States would not be credible if the only forces
it had to do this were cruise missile and SLBM forces. The former
would be too slow in arriving and the latter too uncertain in control
to permit possible arrival of these weapons on target without giving
the Soviets such warning that their entire force could be launched
against our SLBM forces remaining in port and bombers on airfields.
a. (I'm not sure I quite understand this as I don't
know where all the Soviet ICBMs are going to go if they
haven't much of anything to target.)
b. (I also wonder if GLCMs based in Europe have that
long a time of flight into the Soviet Union?)
5. Perhaps the most telling argument against a cruise missile
dyad would be the severe strain it would put on SALT. However, this
same argument would apply to a number of the other alternative ICBM
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basing systems. (The difficulty of counting cruise missiles,
however, would be considerably offset by the question of what
would be the advantage in having large numbers of them. Presum-
ably they are not a first track weapon because of their long time
of flight.)
6. The cardinal issue is whether we can risk going to a dyad
while the Soviets still have something of a triad. Chances are
they would find it necessary to change their program in the long
run, but would our mutual rhetoric appear to place us at a major
disadvantage in.the interim.
STANSFIELD TURNER
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