SOVIET STRATEGIC DEFENSE PROGRAMSOctober 1985
Preface
In March 1983, President Reagan presented a
dramatic new vision of a world in which we would no longer have to
depend on nuclear weapons to prevent nuclear conflict. He presented
that vision, and that challenge, in this way: What if free people could
live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the
threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we
could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they
reached our own soil or that of our allies?
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which the President announced
that night, marks the first, essential step toward the realization of
his ultimate goal. The SDI is a research program, designed to examine
the promise of effective defenses against ballistic missiles based on
new and emerging technologies. If such defenses prove feasible, they
would provide for a more stable and secure method of preventing war in
the future, through the increasing contribution of non-nuclear defenses
which threaten no one.
The Strategic Defense Initiative has been the subject of much
discussion within the United States and allied countries since its
initiation. Such exchanges are essential in our free societies and can
only help ensure that the vision behind the research program can be
achieved. There has been comparatively little public discussion,
however, about the trend in Soviet defensive as well as offensive
forces which provides the essential backdrop to the SDI. Indeed, the
Soviet Union has intentionally tried to mislead the public about its
strategic defense activities.
As this publication documents, Soviet efforts in most phases of
strategic defense have long been far more extensive than those of the
United States. The USSR has major passive defense programs, designed to
protect important assets from attack. It also has extensive active
defense systems, which utilize weapons systems to protect national
territory, military forces, or key assets. Soviet developments in the
area of active defenses fall into three major categories: air defense;
ballistic missile defense based on current technologies; and research
and development on advanced defenses against ballistic missiles.
Important recent Soviet activities in strategic defenses include:
- Upgrading and expansion of the world's only operational Anti-Ballistic Missile(ABM) system around Moscow;
- Construction of the Krasnoyarsk ballistic missile detection and tracking radar that violates the 1972 ABM Treaty;
- Extensive research into advanced technologies for defense
against ballistic missiles including laser weapons, particle beam
weapons, and kinetic energy weapons;
- Maintenance of the world's only operational antisatellite (ASAT) system;
- Modernization of their strategic air defense forces; and
- Improvements in their passive defenses by maintaining deep
bunkers and blast shelters for key personnel, and enhancing the
survivability of some offensive systems through mobility and hardening.
The following pages examine in detail Soviet programs in
defenses against ballistic missiles, air defense, and passive defense.
A summary of key Soviet offensive force developments is presented in
the annex to this document, since those are critical to an
understanding of the impact of Soviet strategic defense programs.
Soviet offensive forces are designed to be able to limit severely U.S.
and allied capability to retaliate against attack. Soviet defensive
systems in turn are designed to prevent those retaliatory forces which
did survive an attack from destroying Soviet targets.
Given the long-term trend in Soviet offensive and defensive force
developments, the United States must act in three main areas to
maintain security and stability both in near term and in the future.
First, we must modernize our offensive nuclear forces in order to
ensure the essential military balance in the near term, and to provide
the incentives necessary for the Soviet Union to join us in negotiating
significant, equitable, and verifiable nuclear arms reductions.
Second, we must act now to start constructing a more reliable strategic
order for the long term by examining the potential for future effective
defenses against ballistic missiles. The Strategic Defense Initiative
is a prudent and necessary response to the ongoing extensive Soviet
anti-ballistic missile effort, including the existing Soviet
deployments permitted under the ABM Treaty. The SDI provides a
necessary and powerful deterrent to any near-term Soviet decision to
expand rapidly its ABM capability beyond that permitted by the ABM
Treaty. The overriding importance of the Strategic Defense Initiative,
however, is the promise it offers of moving to a better, more stable
basis for deterrence in the future and of providing new and compelling
incentives to the Soviet Union to agree to progressively deeper
negotiated reduction in offensive nuclear arms.
The third approach is one of negotiation and diplomacy. We are even now
looking forward to a transition to a more stable world, with greatly
reduced levels of nuclear arms and enhanced ability to deter war based
upon the increasing contribution of non-nuclear defenses against
offensive nuclear arms. Toward those ends, we are endeavoring at the
negotiations in Geneva to achieve significant, equitable, and
verifiable reductions in existing nuclear arsenals and to discuss with
the Soviets the relationship between offensive and defensive forces and
the possibility of a future transition to a more defense-reliant
deterrence.
CASPAR W. WEINBERGER
Secretary of Defense
GEORGE P. SHULTZ
Secretary of State
Introduction
In the late 1960s, given the state of defensive technology at the
time, the United States came to believe that deterrence could best be
assured if each side were able to maintain the ability to threaten
retaliation against any attack and thereby impose on an aggressor costs
that were clearly beyond any potential gains. That concept called for a
reduction by both the Soviet Union and the United States in their
strategic defensive forces, the maintenance of a balance between the
two sides' offensive nuclear forces, and negotiated nuclear arms
reductions which would maintain the balance at progressively lower
levels.
In accordance with those principles, the United States exercised great
restraint in offensive nuclear arms and at the same time dramatically
lowered its defensive forces. Thus, we removed most of our defenses
against Soviet bombers; decided to maintain a severely limited civil
defense program; ratified the 1972 AntiBallistic Missile (ABM) Treaty,
which placed strict limits on U.S. and Soviet defenses against
ballistic missiles; and then deactivated the one ABM site which we were
allowed under that Treaty. The basic idea that stability and deterrence
would be maintained if each side had roughly equal capability to
retaliate against attack also served as the foundation for the U.S.
approach to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) process of the
1970s.
The Soviet Union, however, failed to show the type of restraint, in
both strategic offensive and defensive forces, that the United States
hoped for when the SALT process began. The
USSR has consistently refused to accept meaningful and verifiable
negotiated reductions in offensive nuclear arsenals. Since the late
1960s, the Soviets have greatly expanded and modernized their offensive
nuclear forces and invested an approximately equal sum in strategic
defenses. The USSR has an extensive, multifaceted operational strategic
defensive network which dwarfs that of the United States as well as an
active research and development program in both traditional and
advanced defenses against ballistic missiles. Soviet noncompliance with
arms control agreements in both the offensive and defensive areas,
including the ABM Treaty, is a cause of very serious concern. The
aggregate of current Soviet ABM and ABM-related activities suggest that
the USSR may be preparing an ABM defense of its national territory -
precisely what the ABM Treaty was designed to prevent.
Soviet offensive and defensive force developments pose a serious
challenge to the West. If left unchecked and unanswered, they would
undermine our ability to retaliate effectively in case of Soviet
attack. The situation would be even more severe if the Soviet Union
were to have a monopoly on advanced defenses against ballistic missiles
in addition to its sizable offensive and defensive forces. In that
case, the USSR might come to believe that it could launch a nuclear
attack against the United States or our allies without fear of
effective retaliation. At the very least, it might see a realistic
chance of successful nuclear blackmail.
Soviet Strategic Defense Programs
The Soviet Approach
The Soviet emphasis on strategic
defense is firmly grounded in Soviet military doctrine and strategy,
which call for the following actions in the event of nuclear war:
- destruction and disruption of the West's nuclear-associated command, control, and communications;
destruction or neutralization of as many of the West's nuclear
weapons as possible on the ground or at sea before they could be
launched;
interception and destruction of surviving weapons - aircraft and missiles - before they reached their targets; and
- protection of the Party, the State, military forces, industrial infrastructure, and the
essential working population against
those weapons that survived attacks by Soviet offensive forces.
In pursuit of these goals the USSR puts considerable stress on a
need for effective strategic defenses as well as offensive forces. In
the Soviet view, the USSR could best achieve its aims in any nuclear
war if it attacked first, destroying much of the U.S. and allied
capability for retaliation. Defensive measures, both active and
passive, would in turn prevent those enemy forces that survived a
Soviet first-strike from destroying targets in the USSR.
Marshall V. D. Sokolovskiy, in Military Strategy -
the basic Soviet strategic treatise, originally published in 1962 -
defined the aim of Soviet strategic defenses in this way: "They have
the task of creating an invincible system for the defense of the entire
country.... While, in the last war, it was sufficient to destroy 15-20
percent of the attacking air operation, now it is necessary to assure,
essentially, 100 percent destruction of all attacking airplanes and
missiles."
Soviet offensive and defensive force developments over the past 25
years demonstrate that the strategy articulated by Sokolovskiy still
applies. The following pages present a detailed description of the
actions undertaken by the Soviets in the area of strategic defenses. In
order to explain the totality of the Soviet strategic military effort,
a description of offensive force developments is provided in the annex
to this document.
Defensive Forces
Over the last 25 years the Soviets have increased their active and
passive defenses in a clear and determined attempt to blunt the effect
of U.S. and allied retaliation to any Soviet attack. Passive defenses
are non-weapons measures - such as civil defense and hardening - which
protect important assets against attack. Active defenses utilize weapon
systems to protect national territory, military forces, or key assets.
Evidence of the importance the Soviets attach to defensive
damage-limitation can be traced back to the beginning of the nuclear
age. National Air Defense became an independent service in the late
1950s and since 1959 has generally ranked third in precedence within
the Soviet Armed Forces, following the Strategic Rocket Forces and the
Ground Forces.
By the mid-1960s, two new mission areas - antisatellite defense and
anti-missile defense - were added to the National Air Defense mission.
As a result, the Soviet Union has the world's only operational
anti-satellite (ASAT) system, which has an effective capability to seek
and destroy critical U.S. satellites in low earth orbit. In addition,
Soviet efforts to attain a viable strategic defense against ballistic
missiles have resulted in the world's only operational ABM system and a
large and expanding research and development program.
The Soviet emphasis on the necessity of research into defenses against
ballistic missiles was demonstrated by then-Minister of Defense Grechko
shortly after the signing of the ABM Treaty in 1972, when he told the
Soviet Presidium that the Treaty "places no limitations whatsoever on
the conducting of research and experimental work directed towards
solving the problem of defending the country from nuclear missile
strikes."
Ballistic Missile Defense
The Soviets maintain the world's only operational ABM system around
Moscow. In 1980, they began to upgrade and expand that system to the
limit allowed by the 1972 ABM Treaty.The original single-layer Moscow
ABM system included 64 reloadable above-ground launchers at four
complexes and DOG HOUSE and CAT HOUSE battle management radars south of
Moscow. Each complex consisted of TRY ADD tracking and guidance radars
and GALOSH interceptors (nuclear-armed, ground-based missiles designed
to intercept warheads in space shortly before they reenter the Earth's
atmosphere).
When completed, the modernized Moscow ABM system will be a two-layer
defense composed of: silo-based, long-range, modified GALOSH
interceptors; silo-based, high-acceleration interceptors designed to
engage targets within the atmosphere; associated engagement and
guidance radars; and a new large radar at Pushkino designed to control
ABM engagements. The silo-based launchers may be reloadable. The new
system will have the 100 ABM
launchers permitted by the ABM Treaty and could be fully operational by
1987.
The
Soviet system for detection and tracking of ballistic missile attack
consists of a launch-detection satellite network, over-the horizon
radars, and a series of large phased array radars.
The current launch-detection satellite network can provide about 30
minutes warning of any U.S. ICBM launch and determine the general
origin of the missile. Two over-the-horizon
radars directed at the U.S. ICBM fields also could give 30 minutes
warning.
The
next operational layer of ballistic missile detection consists of 11
large HEN HOUSE ballistic missile early warning radars at six locations
on the periphery of the USSR. These radars can distinguish the size of
an attack,confirm the warning from the satellite andover-the-horizon
radar systems, and provide target-tracking data in support of
anti-ballistic missile forces.
The
Soviets are now constructing a network of six new large phased-array
radars that can track more ballistic missiles with greater accuracy
than the existing HEN HOUSE network. Five of these radars duplicate or
supplement the coverage of the HEN HOUSE network, but with greatly
enhanced capability. The sixth, under construction near Krasnoyarsk in
Siberia, closes the final gap in the Soviet early warning radar
coverage against ballistic missile attack. Together, the six new large
phased array radars form an arc of coverage from the Kola Peninsula in
the northwest Soviet Union, around Siberia, to the Caucasus in the
southwest.
The United States is now constructing new ballistic missile early
warning radars, known as PAVE PAWS, that are located on the periphery
of our territory and oriented outward. Both the U.S. and the USSR, in
signing the ABM Treaty, recognized the need for ballistic missile early
warning radars. At the same time, they recognized that ballistic
missile early warning radars can detect and track warheads at great
distances and therefore have a significant anti-ballistic missile
potential. Such an ABM capability would play an important role in a
nationwide ABM defense, which the Treaty was designed to prevent. As a
result, the
U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed that future ballistic missile early
warning radars must be located on a nation's periphery and oriented
outward. In that way, the desirable and legitimate goal of early
warning could be advanced while minimizing the danger that an effective
nationwide battle management network could result.
The Krasnoyarsk radar is designed for ballistic missile detection and
tracking, including ballistic missile early warning, and violates the
1972 ABM Treaty. It is not located within a 150-kilometer radius of the
national capital (Moscow) as required of ABM radars, or is it located
on the periphery of the Soviet Union and pointed outward as required or
early warning radars. It is 3,700 kilometers from Moscow and is
situated some 750 kilometers from the nearest border - Mongolia.
Moreover, it is oriented not toward that border, but across
approximately 4,000 kilometers of Soviet territory to the northeast.
The
Soviet Union has claimed that the Krasnoyarsk radar is designed for
space tracking, rather than ballistic missile early warning, and
therefore does not violate the ABM Treaty. Its design, however, is not
optimized for a space tracking role, and the radar would, in any event,
contribute little to the existing Soviet
space tracking network. Indeed, the design of the Krasnoyarsk radar is
essentially identical to that of other radars that are known - and
acknowledged by the Soviets - to be for ballistic missile detection and
tracking, including ballistic missile early warning. Finally, it
closes the last remaining gap in Soviet ballistic missile detection
coverage. The Krasnoyarsk radar, therefore, is being constructed in
direct violation of the ABM Treaty.
The
growing Soviet network of large phased array ballistic missile
detection and tracking radars, of which the Krasnoyarsk radar is apart,
is of particular concern when linked with other Soviet ABM efforts.
Such radars take years to construct; their existence might allow the
Soviet Union to move rather quickly to construct a nationwide ABM
defense if it chooses to do so. The Soviets are also developing
components of a new ABM system which apparently are designed to allow
them to construct individual ABM sites in a matter of months, rather
than the years that are required for more traditional ABM systems.
Soviet activities in this regard potentially violate the ABM Treaty's
prohibition on the development of a mobile land-based ABM system or
components. We estimate that by using these components, the Soviets
could undertake rapidly-paced ABM deployments to strengthen the
defenses of Moscow and defend key targets in the western USSR and east
of the Urals by the early 1990s.
In addition, the Soviets have probably violated the prohibition on
testing surface-to-air missile (SAM) components in an ABM mode by
conducting tests involving the use of SAM air defense radars in
ABM-related testing activities. Moreover, the SA-10 and SA-X-12 SAM
systems may have the potential to intercept some types of strategic
ballistic missiles.
Taken together, all of the Soviet Union's ABM and ABM-related
activities are more significant - and more ominous - than anyone
considered individually. Cumulatively, they suggest that the USSR may
be preparing an ABM defense of its national territory. Advanced Technologies for Defense
Against Ballistic Missiles
In the late 1960s, in line with its long-standing emphasis on strategic
defense, the Soviet Union initiated a substantial research program into
advanced technologies for defense against ballistic missiles. That
program covers many of the same technologies involved in the U.S.
Strategic Defense Initiative, but represents a far greater investment
of plant space, capital, and manpower.
Laser Weapons
The
USSR's laser program is much larger than U.S. efforts and involves over
10,000 scientists and engineers and more than a half dozen major
research and development facilities and test ranges. Much of this
research takes place at the Sary Shagan Missile Test Center where the
Soviets also conduct traditional ABM research. Facilities there are
estimated to 1include several air defense lasers, a laser that may be
capable of damaging some components of satellites in orbit, and a laser
that could be used in feasibility testing for ballistic missile defense
applications. A laser weapon program of the magnitude of the Soviet
effort would cost roughly $1 billion per year in the U.S.
The Soviets are conducting research in three types of gas lasers
considered promising for weapons applications: the gas-dynamic laser;
the electric discharge laser; and the chemical laser. Soviet
achievements in this area, in terms of output power, have been
impressive. The Soviets are also aware of the military potential of
visible and very short wave-length lasers. They are investigating
excimer, free electron, and x-ray lasers, and have been developing
argon-ion lasers for over a decade.
The Soviets appear generally capable of supplying the prime power,
energy storage, and auxiliary components needed for most laser and
other directed-energy weapons. They have developed a rocket-driven
magnetohydrodynamic generator which produces over 15 megawatts of
electrical power - a device that has no counterpart in the West. The
Soviets may also have the capability to develop the optical systems
necessary for laser weapons to track and attack their targets. Thus,
they produced a 1.2-meter segmented mirror for an astrophysical
telescope in 1978 and claimed that this was a prototype for a 25-meter
mirror that would be constructed in the future. A large mirror is
considered necessary for a space-based laser weapon.
Unlike
the U.S., the USSR has now progressed in some cases beyond technology
research. It already has ground-based lasers that could be used to
interfere with U.S. satellites, and could have prototype space-based
antisatellite laser weapons by the end of the decade. The Soviets could
have prototypes for ground-based lasers for defense against ballistic
missiles by the late 1980s, and could begin testing components for a
large-scale deployment system in the early 1990s.
The
remaining difficulties in fielding an operational system will require
still more development time. An operational ground-based laser for
defense against ballistic missiles probably could not be deployed until
the late 1990s, or after the year 2000. If technology developments
prove successful, the Soviets may deploy operational space-based
antisatellite lasers in the 1990s, and might be able to deploy
space-based laser systems for defense against ballistic missiles after
the year 2000.
Particle Beam Weapons
Since the late 1960s, the Soviets have been involved in research
to explore the feasibility of space-based weapons that would use
particle beams. We estimate that they may be able to test a prototype
particle beam weapon intended to disrupt the electronics of satellites
in the 1990s. A weapon designed to destroy satellites could follow
later. A weapon capable of physically destroying missile boosters or
warheads probably would require several additional years of research
and development.
It is still uncertain whether ground-based charged particle-beam
weapons are feasible - that is, whether the beam will propagate in the
atmosphere. A space-based neutral particle beam weapon, however, would
not be affected by the atmosphere or by the earth's magnetic field.
Soviet efforts in particle beams, and particularly on ion sources and
radio frequency quadrupole accelerators for particle beams, are very
impressive. In fact, much of the U.S. understanding as to how particle
beams could be made into practical defensive weapons is based on Soviet
work conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Radio Frequency Weapons
The USSR has conducted research in the use of strong radio frequency
signals that have the potential to interfere with or destroy critical
electronic components of ballistic missile warheads. The Soviets could
test a ground-based radio frequency weapon capable of damaging
satellites in the 1990s. Kinetic Energy Weapons
The
Soviets also have a variety of research programs underway in the area
of kinetic energy weapons, using the high-speed collision of a small
mass with the target as the kill mechanism. In the 1960s, the USSR
developed an experimental "gun" that could shoot streams of particles
of a heavy metal such as tungsten or molybdenum at speeds of nearly 25
kilometers per second in air and over 60 kilometers per second in a
vacuum.
Long-range, space-based kinetic-energy systems for defense against
ballistic missiles probably could not be developed until the mid 1990s
or even later. The USSR could, however, deploy in the near-term a
short-range, space-based system useful for satellite or space station
defense or for close-in attack by a maneuvering satellite. Soviet
capabilities in guidance and control systems probably are adequate for
effective kinetic energy weapons for use against some objects in space.
Computer and Sensor Technology
Advanced weapons programs - including potential advanced defenses
against ballistic missiles - are also dependent on remote sensor and
computer technologies which are currently more highly developed in the
West than in the Soviet Union. The Soviets are therefore devoting
considerable resources to improving their abilities and expertise in
these technologies. An important part of that effort involves an
increasing exploitation of open and clandestine access to Western
technology. For example, the Soviets have long been engaged in a well
funded effort to purchase U.S. high-technology computers, test and
calibration equipment, and sensors illegally through third parties.
Antisatellite Developments
The
USSR has had for more than a dozen years the world's only operational
antisatellite system, a co-orbital device which enters into the same
orbit as its target satellite and, when it gets close enough, destroys
the satellite by exploding a conventional warhead. In addition, the
nuclear-armed GALOSH ABM interceptor deployed around Moscow may have
ASAT capability, and Soviet ground-based lasers could possibly damage
some sensors on some U.S. satellites.
Furthermore, as noted earlier, the Soviets are engaged in research and,
in some cases development, of weapons which ultimately may serve as
ballistic missile defense systems, but probably will first provide
antisatellite capabilities. Air Defense
Although the United States began dismantling most of its defenses
against Soviet bombers in the 1960s, the Soviet Union has continued to
invest enormous resources in a wide array of strategic air defense
weapon systems. Taken together, the Soviet strategic air defense
network is a potent and increasingly capable force which would attempt
to limit the retaliatory capability of our strategic bombers and cruise
missiles.
The
Soviets have deployed numerous strategic air defense systems with
excellent capabilities against aircraft flying at medium and high
altitudes. They are now in the midst of a major program to improve
their capabilities against aircraft and cruise missiles that fly at low
altitudes. That effort includes partial integration of strategic and
tactical air defenses, the upgrading of early warning and surveillance
capabilities, the deployment of more efficient data transmission
systems, and the development and initial deployment of new aircraft,
associated air-to-air missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and airborne
warning and control system (AWACS)aircraft. Currently, the Soviets have nearly 12,000 SAM launchers at
over 1,200 sites, 10,000 air defense radars, and more than 1,200
interceptor aircraft dedicated to strategic defense. An additional
2,800 interceptors assigned to Soviet Air Forces (SAF) could also be
employed in strategic defense missions. In contrast, the U.S. has
approximately 300 interceptor aircraft based in the U.S. dedicated to
strategic defense, 118 strategic air defense warning radars, and no
operational strategic surface-to-air missile launchers. These figures
do not include tactical air defenses deployed by NATO and the Warsaw
Pact in Europe.
The
newest Soviet air defense interceptor aircraft, the MiG-31/FOXHOUND,
has a look-down/shoot-down and multiple-target engagement capability.
More than 85 FOXHOUNDS are now operationally deployed at several
locations from the Arkhangelsk area in the northwestern USSR to the Far
East Military District. Two new fighter interceptors, the Su-27/FLANKER
and the MiG-29/FULCRUM, also have look-down/shoot-down capabilities and
are designed to be highly maneuverable in air-to-air combat. These
three aircraft are equipped with two new air-to-air missiles - the
long-range AA-9 (for the FOXHOUND) and the medium-range AA-10 (for the
FULCRUM and FLANKER) - that can be used against low flying targets.
The
USSR is also deploying the MAINSTAY airborne warning and control system
(AWACS) aircraft, which will improve substantially its capabilities for
early warning and air combat command and control, especially against
low flying aircraft and cruise missiles.
The Soviets maintain the world's most extensive early warning system
for air defense, composed of a widespread network of ground-based
radars linked operationally with those of their Warsaw Pact allies. As
previously noted, more than 10,000 air surveillance radars of various
types provide virtually complete coverage at medium to high altitudes
over the USSR, and in some areas well beyond the Soviet Union's
borders. Three over-the-horizon radars for ballistic missile warning
could provide additional warning of the approach of high-flying
aircraft.
The USSR also has an active research and development program to improve
its air surveillance network. In 1983, it began to deploy two new types
of air surveillance radars which will enhance Soviet capabilities for
air defense, electronic warfare and early warning of cruise missile and
bomber attacks. The Soviets are also continuing to deploy improved air
surveillance data systems that can rapidly pass data from outlying
radars through the air surveillance network to ground-controlled
intercept sites and SAM command posts.
Soviet
strategic surface-to-air missiles provide low-to-high-altitude barrier,
area, and terminal defenses under all weather conditions. Five systems
are now operational: the SA-1, SA-2, and SA-3, and the more capable
SA-5 and SA-10. The recent Soviet air defense reorganization permits
efficient integration of strategic and tactical SAM systems. While most
tactical SAMs have a shorter range than their strategic counterparts,
many have better capabilities against targets flying at low altitude.
Over the years the Soviets have continued to deploy the long-range SA-5
and have repeatedly modified the system. Further deployment and
upgrading of the SA-5 to enhance its capability to work in conjunction
with low-altitude systems like the SA-10 are probable.
The
SA-10 can defend against low-altitude targets with small radar
cross-sections, like cruise missiles. The first SA-10 site was
operational in 1980. Over 60 sites are now operational and work is
progressing on at least another 30. More than half these sites are
located near Moscow; this emphasis on Moscow and the patterns noted for
the other SA-10 sites suggest a first priority on terminal defense of
command and control, military, and key industrial complexes.
In keeping with their drive toward mobility as a means of weapons
survival, the Soviets are developing a mobile version of the SA-10
which could become operational late this year. This mobile version
could be used to support Soviet theater forces and to permit periodic
changes in the location of SA-10 sites within the USSR so as to counter
U.S. retaliatory forces more effectively.
The
Soviets are also flight-testing another important mobile SAM system,
the SA-X-12, which is able to intercept aircraft at all altitudes,
cruise missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles. The SA-10 and
SA-X-12 may have the potential to intercept some types of strategic
ballistic missiles as well. This is a serious development because these
systems are expected to be deployed widely through
out the Soviet Union in the 1980s. They could, if properly supported,
add a significant point target defense coverage to a nationwide Soviet
ABM deployment. Passive Defenses
Soviet military doctrine calls for passive defenses to act in
conjunction with active forces to ensure the wartime survival and
continuity of Soviet nuclear forces, leadership, military command and
control units, war-related industrial production and services, the
essential work force, and as much of the general population as
possible. The U.S. passive defense effort is far smaller and more
limited; it is no way comparable to the comprehensive Soviet program.
Physical hardening of military assets to make them more resistant to
attack is an important passive defense technique. The USSR has hardened
its ICBM silos, launch facilities,and key command and control centers
to an unprecedented degree. Much of today's U.S. retaliatory force
would be ineffective against those hardened targets. To maintain
effective deterrence, the United States must be able credibly to
threaten prompt retaliation against the full spectrum of Soviet
targets, including those which have been greatly hardened.
Soviet leaders and managers at all levels of the government and
Communist Party are provided hardened alternate command posts located
well away from urban centers - in addition to many deep bunkers and
blast shelters in Soviet cities. This comprehensive and redundant
system, patterned after a similar system for the Soviet Armed Forces,
provides hardened alternate facilities for more than 175,000 key party
and government personnel throughout the USSR.
Elaborate plans have also been made for the full mobilization of the
national economy in support of a war effort. Reserves of vital
materials are maintained, many in hardened underground structures.
Redundant industrial facilities are in active production. Industrial
and other economic facilities have been equipped with blast shelters
for the work force, and detailed procedures have been developed for the
relocation of selected plants and equipment. By planning for the
survival of the essential work force, the Soviets hope to reconstitute
vital production programs using those industrial components that could
be redirected or salvaged after an attack.
In addition, the USSR has greatly emphasized mobility as a means of
enhancing the survivability of military assets. The SS-20 and SS-25,
for example, are mobile. Rail-mobile deployment of the SS-X-24 is
expected before the end of the decade. The Soviets are also developing
an extensive network of mobile command, control, and communications
facilities. Soviet Statements on the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative
These extensive Soviet activities in strategic defense, combined with
the large Soviet buildup in offensive forces over the past two decades,
have been eroding the retaliatory capabilities of U.S. strategic forces
on which deterrence has long rested. If the USSR in the future were
unilaterally to add an effective advanced defense against ballistic
missiles to its offensive and other defensive forces, it would pose a
very serious new threat to U.S. and allied security.
The U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative is designed to counter the trend
in the Soviets' favor. It is thus not unexpected that Soviet reactions
to the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative have been strongly negative.
Through an intensive, worldwide propaganda campaign, the USSR evidently
hopes that it can dissuade the United States from pursuing this
research program, thereby preserving the possibility of a Soviet
monopoly in effective defenses against ballistic missiles - a monopoly
that could give the USSR the uncontested damage-limiting first-strike
capability that it has long sought.
Thus, Soviet statements on the SDI must be seen in light of the
extensive, long-term growth in Soviet offensive and defensive forces
and of their major research effort to develop advanced weapons for
defense against ballistic missiles. They should also be viewed in light
of comparable Soviet propaganda campaigns on other issues. The USSR
engaged in a major propaganda effort in the late 1970s and early 1980s
to preserve its monopoly in longer range intermediate-range nuclear
forces, and has adopted many of the same tactics to prevent the United
States from acquiring an operational ASAT system to balance its own.
On April 22, 1983, a month after the President's announcement of the
Strategic Defense Initiative, a published letter signed by more than
200 senior Soviet scientists denouncing the initiative appeared in the
New York Times. It is interesting and instructive to note that a number
of the signatories have been instrumental in the development of both
traditional and advanced ballistic missile defensive systems: Petr D.
Grushin, Vladimir S. Semenikhin, Fedor V. Bunkin, Yevgeniy P. Velikhov,
Vsevolod S. Avduyevskiy, Aleksandr M. Prokhorov, and Nikolay G. Basov.
Velikhov, for example, was for several
years the director of the Institute of Atomic Energy laboratories at
Troitsk, where lasers for strategic and tactical applications are being
developed. Avduyevskiy has long been involved with strategic weapons
research and now has responsibility for a number of projects concerned
with the military use of space, including a space-based laser weapon.
Other signatories have spent their careers developing strategic
offensive weapons and other military systems: Vladimir N. Chelomey,
Valentin P. Glushko, Aleksandr D. Nadiradze, and Viktor P. Makeyev in
ICBMs and SLBMs; Oleg K. Antonov and Aleksandr S.Yakovlev in military
aircraft; Nikolay Isaninin nuclear submarines; Yuliy B. Khariton in the
Soviet military nuclear energy program; and Martin I. Kabachnik in
chemical warfare. The U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative
The U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative offers the possibility of a
better, more stable deterrence based increasingly on defenses that are
survivable, militarily effective, and cost effective relative to
offensive forces. If our research shows that such defenses against
ballistic missiles are feasible, they would allow us to move from
deterrence based solely on the threat of nuclear retaliation, toward
enhanced deterrence characterized by greater reliance on defensive
capabilities that threaten no one. The Strategic Defense Initiative is
also a prudent and necessary response to the very active Soviet efforts
in offensive and defensive forces. It responds directly to the ongoing
and extensive Soviet anti-ballistic missile effort, including the
existing Soviet deployments permitted under the ABM Treaty. The SDI
research program provides a necessary and powerful deterrent to any
near-term Soviet decision to expand rapidly its ABM capability beyond
that contemplated by the ABM Treaty. It also provides insurance against
an eventual Soviet attempt to deploy an effective advanced system for
defense against ballistic missiles unilaterally.
SDI research complements our efforts to achieve significant, equitable,
and verifiable reductions in nuclear forces. In the near term, we are
seeking reductions of strategic and intermediate-range nuclear forces,
and discussing defensive and space arms, in the U.S. Soviet
negotiations which opened in Geneva in March 1985. The United States
and the Soviet Union have agreed that there is a fundamental
relationship between offensive and defensive systems and that neither
can be considered in isolation.
In the longer term, if we were to deploy advanced defenses against
ballistic missiles, such defenses could increase significantly the
incentives for further negotiated deep reductions in offensive nuclear
forces because they could reduce or eliminate the military utility of
ballistic missiles. Such significant reductions would, in turn, serve
to increase the effectiveness of defensive systems.
The SDI research program emphasizes advanced non-nuclear defensive
technologies. It will provide to a future President and Congress,
possibly in the early 1990s, the technical knowledge required for a
decision on whether to develop and later deploy advanced defensive
systems. Extensive discussions with our allies would take place prior
to any future decision to move beyond research to development and
deployment.
Any future deployment would also be a matter for discussion and
negotiation as appropriate with the Soviet Union, as provided in the
ABM Treaty. Even now we are seeking to engage the Soviets at Geneva in
a discussion of the relationship of offensive and defensive forces and
of a possible future transition to greater reliance on defensive
systems.
While we could not allow a Soviet veto over a decision which would have
such a major impact on U.S. and allied security, it is our intention
and hope that - if new defensive technologies prove feasible - we and
the Soviets would be able both to move to a more defense reliant
balance. What we envision is thus just the opposite of an arms race or
a search for military superiority. We seek instead an approach that
would serve the security interests of the United States, our allies,
the Soviet Union, and the world as a whole. ANNEX
Offensive Forces
Soviet military doctrine and strategy call for superior offensive
forces capable of executing a successful first strike. The Soviet
buildup inoffensive forces over the last two decades has been designed
to move in that direction.
Soviet strategic offensive forces introducedsince 1971 include:
- four new types of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)
- the SS-17,18, 19, and 25. In addition, the USSR probably has deployed
the SS-16 in violation of the SALT II Treaty;
- five new types of ballistic missile-carrying submarines;
- four new types of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs);
- five improved versions of existing SLBMs;
- long-range cruise missiles; and a new variant of the BEAR bomber carrying strategic air-launched cruise
That buildup is all the more striking when compared to the
relative restraint exercised by the U.S. in its acquisition of nuclear
weapons systems during the same period. The number of strategic and
tactical nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile peaked in 1967. We had
one-third more nuclear weapons then than we have now.Moreover, the
total explosive power (measured in megatonnage) of our nuclear weapons
was four times greater in 1960 than it is today.
Our latest B-52 bomber was built in 1962. Although we modernized the
missiles our submarines carried with the POSEIDON C-3 in 1971 and
TRIDENT I C-4 in 1979, we did not introduce a single new ballistic
missile-carrying submarine from 1966 until 1981, when we began
deploying the TRIDENT submarine at the rate of about one a year. In
fact, our ballistic missile submarine force declined by one-fourth
between 1966 and 1981, from 41 boats to 31.During the time we were
decreasing the number of our SSBNs, the Soviet Union deployed 62 new
ballistic missile-carrying submarines.
Similarly,
the U.S. began deploying its newest ICBM, the MINUTEMAN III, fifteen
years ago; today, we have fewer ICBMs than we did in 1967. By contrast,
the Soviet Union has added about 800 ICBMs to its arsenal since that
year. Of greatest concern for strategic stability has been the
development and deployment of the SS-18 and SS-19 ICBMs. Since the late
1970s, the USSR has deployed more than 300 SS-18s, each twice as large
as the U.S.PEACEKEEPER/MX and carrying ten warheads, and 360 SS-19s,
each approximately the size of the PEACEKEEPER/MX and carrying six
warheads. The Soviets already have enough hard-target-capable ICBM
warheads today to attack all U.S. ICBM silos and launch control centers
and will have a larger number of hard-target capable warheads in the
future. (A weapon with hard-target capability has sufficient accuracy
and yield to destroy targets that have been hardened to withstand the
effects of a nuclear detonation.)
In addition to the rapid growth in its ICBM force, the Soviet Union is
engaged in a major modernization and expansion of its strategic bomber
and submarine forces. The bulk of Soviet strategic offensive nuclear
warheads has traditionally been on ICBMs, while the U.S. has maintained
a balanced force, with fewer than one-quarter of our strategic weapons
on ICBMs. The growth in modern Soviet strategic offensive forces of all
types is thus not only exacerbating the imbalance between U.S. and
Soviet ICBMs, but also steadily eroding the traditional countervailing
U.S. advantage in SLBMs and strategic bomber systems.
When the SALT I Interim Agreement on Offensive Arms was signed in 1972,
the USSR had roughly 2,300 strategic ballistic missile warheads, and
the throw-weight of its ballistic missile force was about 3 million
kilograms. (Throw-weight is a basic measure of ballistic missile
destructive capability and potential.) By the time the SALT II
agreement was signed in 1979, the Soviet strategic arsenal had more
than doubled to roughly 5,500 strategic ballistic missile warheads with
a ballistic missile throw-weight of about 4 million kilograms. Today,
the Soviet Union has over 8,000 strategic ballistic missile warheads
and a ballistic missile throw-weight of about 12 million kilograms.
Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that the USSR's offensive
nuclear force buildup continues unabated, with a large number of new
systems at or nearing deployment. For example, the Soviets are:
- continuing production of the BEAR H bombers which carry the AS-15
long-range air-launched cruise missile. They are also developing a new
strategic bomber, the BLACKJACK, which, when deployed before the end of
the decade, will be larger than either the U.S. B-1B or B-52; - completing development of the SS-X-24 and have announced
deployment of the SS-25 ICBM. The SS-25 violates the SALT II agreement,
since it is a prohibited second new type of ICBM; - deploying
two new classes of nuclear powered ballistic missile-carrying
submarines (SSBNs), the DELTA IV and the TYPHOON, and associated SLBMs.
They are also testing a new sea-launched cruise missile, the SS-NX-21.
The combination of U.S. restraint and Soviet expansion and
modernization of its strategic offensive forces means that U.S. forces
are becoming increasingly obsolete. We are therefore modernizing our
strategic nuclear forces to ensure the balance necessary for continued
deterrence. That program includes development of the PEACEKEEPER/MX
ICBM, a smaller single-warhead ICBM (popularly known as MIDGETMAN), the
B-1B bomber, an advanced technology bomber, and the TRIDENT II SLBM. We
are also deploying long-range air and sea-launched cruise missiles and
TRIDENT SSBNs. Our strategic modernization program is essential not
only for the military balance, but also to induce the Soviets to agree
to negotiated offensive force reductions which would enable us to
maintain the balance at far lower levels of armaments.
The Soviet Union has also greatly expanded its nuclear forces of
less-than-intercontinental range, which primarily threaten our friends
and allies. The USSR has developed an entirely new generation of
nuclear short-range ballistic missiles. Of gravest concern has been the
creation and subsequent rapid expansion of the SS-20 longer-range
intermediate-range missile force, which threatens our friends and
allies in Europe and Asia. NATO had no equivalent systems when the USSR
began to field this modern, mobile, highly accurate, triple warhead
missile. As of September 1985, the Soviets had deployed 441 SS-20s,
with over 1,200warheads. Not only is the SS-20 force continuing to
grow, but the Soviets are also testing a modified version of the SS-20
which is expected to be even more accurate. In contrast, NATO plans to
deploy 572 single-warhead PERSHING II and ground-launched cruise
missiles and stands ready to reduce or reverse those deployments if we
can reach an equitable, verifiable arms reduction agreement with the
USSR.
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