Nuclear Arms Control Background and Issues (1985) / Chapter Skim
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2 Strategic Offensive Nuclear Arms Control
2 Strategic Offensive Nuclear Arms Control
Pages 24-80
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From page 24... ...
These agreements and negotiations have sought to limit the central strategic systems, usually defined as land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and Tong-range heavy bombers with their armaments. Other arms control agreements and proposals—including restrictions on defensive systems, proposals for a freeze on all nuclear systems, and the proposal to limit intermediate nuclear forces also relate directly or indirectly to the objective of controlling strategic offensive nuclear arms.
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From page 25... ...
In November 1972 the United States and the Soviet Union began the second phase of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT Il)
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From page 26... ...
Moreover, attempts to deploy such systems were seen as inevitably leading to further major expansions in strategic offensive capabilities as both sides sought to assure their ability to penetrate potential defenses. After initially rejecting this negative assessment of ballistic missile defense, Soviet leaders by the late 1960s apparently accepted this coupling of offensive and defensive strategic arms as a driving factor in the nuclear arms race.
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From page 27... ...
Along with a desire to improve U.S.-Soviet relations, the Nixon Administration recognized the potential value of arms control in restraining the rapid, ongoing Soviet construction of ICBM launchers and ballistic missile submarines and in stabilizing th strategic balance between the superpowers. After nine months of intensive preparation, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks began in Helsinki on November 17, 1969.
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From page 28... ...
After the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the Soviet Union was determined not to find itself again in an inferior strategic position and started a rapid buildup of its strategic forces. By 1969 the Soviet Union had overtaken the United States in the number of land-based {CBMs.
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From page 29... ...
The Senate endorsed the Interim Agreement SS to 2, the same vote by which it advised ratification of the ABM Treaty. Yet despite the almost unanimous vote for the Interim Agreement, some senators expressed concern about the unequal ceilings in the agreement and about the buildup in the throw-weight of the Soviet missile force, as exemplified by the heavy SS-9 missile.
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From page 30... ...
These differences were resolved in principle at a meeting in Vladivostok between Presidents Ford and Brezhnev in November 1974. At Vladivostok it was agreed that the strategic offensive arms treaty, which was to be of ten years' duration, would contain the following elements: equal aggregate limits of 2,400 on strategic nuclear delivery systems (ICBM launchers, SEEM launchers, and heavy bombers)
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From page 31... ...
Separate statements associated with the SALT II Treaty placed quantitative and qualitative limits on the Soviet Backfire bomber. The treaty established a framework of equal ceilings and subceilings and qualitative constraints within which the strategic systems could evolve and future reductions could be undertaken.
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From page 32... ...
Although the President stated that the report did not mean that the United States should give up its search for arms control agreements, administration officials added that the outstanding arms control issues raised in the report had to be resolved for the process to succeed. THE PROVISIONS OF SALT I AND SALT II The SALT I Interim Agreement The SALT ~ Interim Agreement of 1972 (Appendix A)
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From page 33... ...
The SALT II Treaty is a detailed technical contract that establishes precise definitions and provisions in an effort to close potential loopholes. Specifically, the SALT IT Treaty provides for: · Equal aggregate limits on the number of ICBM and SEEM launchers and heavy bombers initially 2,400, with a reduction to 2,250 by the end of 1981.
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From page 34... ...
. · A ban on certain types of strategic offensive systems not yet employed by either side, such as ballistic missiles with ranges over 600 km on surface ships.
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From page 35... ...
· A ban on the deployment of ground-launched and sea-launched cruise missiles having ranges greater than 600 km. The SALT II soloing Statement of Principles provided guidance for subsequent negotiations on the limitation of strategic arms.
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From page 36... ...
and Soviet forces to be symmetric in detail. For example, while the Soviets had more ballistic missiles with larger payloads and more megatonnage, the United States had more strategic warheads, greater accuracy, and better submarine and bomber forces.
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From page 37... ...
challenged the underlying premise of overall strategic parity. They argued that Soviet strategic forces were in fact superior to those of the United States and that a treaty based on the false premise of strategic parity was inequitable and would prevent the United States from regaining equality.
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From page 38... ...
Supporters SALT II approached the problem of preserving essential equivalence between asymmetrical strategic forces in several ways. It sought to place equal ceilings and subceilings on the central strategic systems (ICBMs, SEBMs, and heavy bombers)
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From page 39... ...
At the same time, the United States would have the option of increasing its strategic forces by some 150 delivery vehicles, if this was deemed necessary. Moreover, the sides were committed to negotiate substantial reductions in the number of strategic offensive arms in the next stage of SAINT.
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From page 40... ...
cruise missiles, the Soviet Backfire bomber, and British and French strategic forces. For example, at Vladivostok, when the equal aggregate approach was accepted, the United States dropped its insistence that the Soviet Union substantially reduce the number of its heavy missiles, for which there was no comparable U.S.
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From page 42... ...
One group of critics argued that the SALT II limits were inequitable because they did not bring the Soviet advantages in destructive capability into balance. The other group of critics argued that, although the SALT limits were equal, SALT was not an acceptable approach to arms control because it did not provide for significant reductions and in fact "institutionalized" the arms race.
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From page 43... ...
Critics also asserted that the quantitative and qualitative limits did not effectively cap the strategic arms race or effectively begin the process of reductions in a way that would assure essential equivalence. Instead of forcing a reduction, SALT IT would permit a large increase in Soviet capabilities.
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From page 44... ...
Also, any bomber with hard points on its wings could rapidly be converted to carry cruise missiles, and any cruise missile operable from a plane could rapidly be adapted for launch from ground- and sea-based launchers. Some critics emphasized that the most serious danger of the SALT II Treaty was that it would Jull the American public into a false sense of security while in fact locking the United States into a position of inferiority.
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From page 45... ...
During this period the U.S. intelligence community had developed a very detailed understanding of Soviet strategic forces, including the number and capabilities of deployed missiles and bombers, the location of production and test facilities, the structure of the command system, training and operational procedures, and missile testing practices.
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From page 46... ...
Based on extensive experience, it was noted that the authenticity of unencrypted telemetry could be established with confidence. Supporters of SALT II pointed out that the counting rules used to establish the aggregate ceilings and subceilings in the agreement had been defined so that they depended on information attainable by NTM, namely, numbers of missile launchers, missile test data, and numbers of aircraft.
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From page 47... ...
SEBM launchers are located in fixed numbers on ballistic missile submarines, which are currently constructed over a period of years at a single location and are subsequently outfitted in the open; and (3) heavy bombers are large, distinctive aircraft that have been produced at only a few well known plants and deployed at a limited number of bases.
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From page 48... ...
will be considered as MIRVed missiles and that any launcher of a type that has ever contained or launched such a MIRVed missile will be considered a launcher of MIRVed missiles. This conservative counting rule, which depends strictly on observable characteristics, includes within the MIRVed launcher subceilings all launchers that have a capability of launching MIRVed missiles even if the missile in the launcher has only a single warhead (as was believed to be the case in some instances)
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From page 49... ...
Some critics questioned the record of the U.S. intelligence community in the area of strategic weapons monitoring over the past 20 years, pointing out alleged underestimates of the size and capabilities of Soviet strategic missile forces.
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From page 50... ...
Critics of SALT IT challenged the adequacy of verification of the treaty's major provisions along the following lines: The Aggregate Limit on IBM and SEBM Launchers and Heavy Bombers. Critics argued that the enumeration of ICBM silos and SEBM launchers did not adequately verify the real threat, the number of Soviet missiles.
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From page 51... ...
As in the case of the aggregate limits, critics argued that the subceiling on MIRVed launchers did not really permit adequate verification of the number of MIRVed missiles that had been produced. Moreover, if excess missiles were produced for clandestine deployment, reload, or deployment after a breakout from the treaty, they would very likely be MIRVed.
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From page 52... ...
On January 23, 1984, in response to a congressional request, President Reagan sent Congress a classified report with an unclassified summary dealing with seven compliance issues. It charged the Soviet Union with violations and probable violations of five provisions of the SALT agreements.
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From page 53... ...
from being upgraded to have a marginal ABM capability, the SALT ~ ABM Treaty prohibited the testing of such a system or any of its components in an "ABM mode." In a unilateral statement accompanying the treaty, the United States had interpreted this term to include the testing of such a system's radar against a ballistic missile reentry vehicle. In the SCC the Soviet representatives denied that the radar was being tested in an "ABM mode" and noted that the use of radars for instrumentation and range safety was not prohibited.
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From page 54... ...
For example, they asserted that the silolike hardened command and control modules were in fact suitable for dual use as missile silos; that the SA-5 radar may have been tested sufficiently before the testing was stopped to permit the entire widely deployed SA-5 system to be upgraded to a significant terminal ballistic missile defense system; and that the decision to accept deployment of the SS-19 as consistent with the Interim Agreement greatly increased the Soviet counterforce threat since the SS-19, with its six warheads and the highest accuracy of any Soviet missile, was being deployed in large numbers (3601. Other critics took a more extreme view, suggesting that additional compliance problems such as the problem of rapidly transportable, if not mobile, ABM systems- were being ignored.
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From page 55... ...
On January 23, 1984, in response to a congressional request, President Reagan submitted a cIassified report to Congress on "Soviet Non-Compliance with Arms Control Agreements," which reviewed seven major compliance issues. The President's transmittal message states: "The United States Government has determined that the Soviet Union is violating the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Helsinki Final Act, and two provisions of SALT IT: telemetry encryption and a rule concerning ICBM modernization.
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From page 56... ...
Furthermore, even if we were to accept the Soviet argument that the SS-X-25 is not a prohibited new type of ICBM, based on the one test for which data are available, it would be a violation of their political commitment to observe the SALT IT provision which prohibits (for existing types of single reentry vehicle {CBMs) the testing of such an ICBM with a reentry vehicle whose weight is less than 50 percent of the throw-weight of that ICBM." In the case of the possible deployment of banned SS-16 ICBMs at Plesetsk, the report found that "while the evidence is somewhat ambiguous and we cannot reach a definitive conclusion, the available evidence indicates that the activities at Plesetsk are a probable violation of their legal obligation not to defeat the object and purpose of SALT IT prior to 1981 during the period when the Treaty was pending ratification, and a probable violation of a political commitment subsequent to 1981." The report also found that the Soviet Union had violated its legal obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 and the Geneva Protocol of 1925 and its political commitments under the Helsinki Final Act concerning the notification of military exercises.
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From page 57... ...
missiles and Tong-range cruise missiles in Western Europe, the United States had directly violated the "non-circumvention" provision in SALT IT, since from the Soviet point of view these missiles were strategic in character. With regard to the ABM Treaty, the note charged the United States with violating specific provisions by developing both a mobile and a space-based ABM radar system; by developing multiple warheads for ABM interceptors; by building and upgrading large phased-array radars on its coasts (Pave Paws)
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From page 58... ...
Treaty as Tong as the Soviet Union did likewise. The new administration did not initially announce its own approach to strategic arms control, although it did state that a prerequisite for genuine future arms control was to redress the strategic imbalance and restore a margin of safety with the Soviet Union.
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From page 59... ...
As domestic and NATO pressure for arms control increased, the President announced in November 1981 that strategic arms talks would possibly begin the following year. He stated that these negotiations, which would be called Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, or START, would have the goal of substantially reducing strategic nuclear arms.
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From page 60... ...
The President said that the U.S. goal was to enhance deterrence and achieve stability through significant reductions in "the most destabilizing nuclear systems- ballistic missiles, and especially intercontinental ballistic missiles while maintaining a nuclear capability sufficient to deter conflict, underwrite our national security and meet our commitmer~t to our allies and friends." Strategic Tong-range bombers were not included in the President's outline of the START proposals, but under questioning, administration officials said that the United States would be prepared to deal with bombers and cruise missiles throughout both phases of the arms control talks with the Soviet Union.
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From page 61... ...
START position, and interested in an arms control formula that would accommodate modernization of U.S. strategic forces.
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From page 62... ...
In mid-~July 1983 the United States presented a draft treaty that incorporated the new position. The draft treaty reportedly included the equal missile warhead ceilings of 5,000, with no more than 2,500 landbased; the newly increased level of 1,250 deployed ballistic missiles; a separate bomber ceiling of 400, which included the Soviet Backfire bomber; a limit of 20 air-launched cruise missiles per bomber; and alternative approaches to limiting throw-weight.
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From page 63... ...
The Soviet Union also eliminated provisions that would have banned the new U.S. Trident IT D-5 missile, limited Tong-range cruise missiles on aircraft to a range of 600 km, stopped the deployment of new Trident submarines at four to six, and limited the missiles on each submarine to 16.
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From page 64... ...
At the same time, the administration made clear that it was keeping intact the main features of the basic U.S. START proposal, including the reduction of missile warheads to 5,000, the limit on deployed ballistic missiles of 1,250, the need to reduce the throw-weight discrepancy between the two sides, and a ceiling of 400 on bombers.
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From page 65... ...
At the end of Round V of START, which followed the Soviet walkout from the INF negotiations, the Soviet delegation did not set a resumption date for the talks, saying that the deployment of Pershing IT and cruise missiles in Europe had changed "the overall strategic situation," which had to be reexamined. In response, President Reagan stated that the move was "more encouraging than a walkout" and that he hoped Soviet negotiators would return in 1984.
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From page 66... ...
· An equal ceiling for both sides of 400 strategic bombers (to include the Soviet Backfire bomber) , with a limit of 20 cruise missiles per bomber.
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From page 67... ...
· Unspecified equal aggregate limits on missile warheads and bomber weapons. · A number of modernization constraints, including a ban on the deployment of ground- and sea-launched cruise missiles with a range greater than 600 km.
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From page 68... ...
In the Reagan Administration's view, the strategic forces of the two sides were roughly in balance when the SALT ~ agreements were signed in 1972. The Soviet Union achieved this balance because, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United States decided not to contest Soviet efforts to attain equality in strategic forces.
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From page 69... ...
Although there has been a major Soviet strategic buildup during the last decade, the modernization of U.S. strategic forces has prevented any significant shift in the overall strategic balance.
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From page 70... ...
In response to the President's statements about the buildup of Soviet Backfire bombers, the critics assert that, despite its age, the B-52 is a far better Tong-range bomber than either the Backfire, which has questionable strategic capability, or the standard Soviet long-range bombers, Bears and Bisons, which have not been modernized to nearly the same extent as the B-52. In the 1970s, for cost-benef~t reasons, the United States decided that instead of procuring a new bomber it would upgrade the B-52 bombers, first by developing shortrange attack missiles and then by developing highly accurate longrange cruise missiles to ensure the ability to penetrate Soviet defenses.
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From page 71... ...
In short, these critics believe that essential equivalence continues to exist today and that the United States does not need a major strategic arms buildup or major asymmetric reductions to enter a mutually advantageous strategic arms control agreement. The Soviet View of the Strategic Relationship For its part, the Soviet Union insists in its public statements that an approximate military balance or parity exists now and is being maintained between the Soviet Union and the United States.
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From page 72... ...
In connection with their postponement of further START negotiations, Soviet officials went further and stated that the U.S. deployment of Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe has altered the strategic balance and therefore requires a new assessment of their strategic arms control proposals.
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From page 73... ...
retaliatory capability would be qualitatively impaired, because the ICBM force is the only part of the strategic triad that can quickly respond with a high-accuracy attack on the remaining Soviet strategic forces. START supporters argued that the upward revision of the limit on deployed missiles from 850 to 1,250, as recommended by the Scowcroft Commission, would further help alleviate the vulnerability problem by providing more flexibility for the deployment of small single-warhead ICBMs.
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From page 74... ...
In addition, the adoption of the variable build-down ratios would enhance the incentive to move toward stabilizing systems. Proponents of the build-down argue that it would both permit stabilizing modernization and reduce warhead totals without requiring as drastic a restructuring of Soviet strategic forces as the original START proposal.
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From page 75... ...
The modernized B-52 force, armed with short-range attack missiles and several thousand Tong-range cruise missiles, is a far more effective strategic force than the 150 Soviet Bison and Bear long-range bombers. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union appears to have a numerical advantage because the United States has included in the overall
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From page 76... ...
The START proposal has also been criticized because it does not include any qualitative restraints on the modernization of both sides' strategic forces. Even after including the build-down provisions, according to this argument, the U.S.
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From page 77... ...
strategic forces. Some critics, while endorsing the general concept of Midgetman both as a less vulnerable land-based system and as a step toward the deMIRVing of strategic missiles, have raised questions as to whether enough Midgetman missiles could be deployed to constitute a credible independent force, within the ceiling of 1,250 deployed missiles, given other ICBM and SEEM forces that would presumably be retained.
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From page 78... ...
Soviet officials state that their proposal, which~is based on the assessment that parity still exists, would substantially reduce the number of nuclear warheads to equal, agreed-upon ceilings. They also state that their proposal would severely limit the channels available for the continuation of the strategic arms race, and that the Soviet Union would be prepared to negotiate deeper reductions within this framework in the future.
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From page 79... ...
Finally, they emphasize that the Soviet approach is fundamentally flawed, because it is built on the incorrect premise that there is overall parity between the strategic forces of the United States and the Soviet Union. Verification The details of the verification provisions in the U.S.
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From page 80... ...
The calls for more on-site inspection have generated the most concern. Critics maintain that in many cases on-site inspections are actually less effective than National Technical Means, particularly when the NTM are supported by effective cooperative measures.
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