The MX in an Age of Defense
Lord, Carnes
THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR envVOL. 19, NO. 1 / JANUARY...
...Midgetman is being designed to carry one warhead approximately the size of one of the ten carried by MX...
...An upgraded Minuteman could not substitute indefinitely for a new ICBM: Minuteman is an aging system that will have to be retired in any case by the end of the century...
...Why not begin, then, with a terminal layer designed to protect Minuteman, MX, and perhaps other critical military targets...
...The new Trident D-5 sea-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) will share to some degree MX's ability to destroy hard targets, but severe difficulties in communicating with sub-marines at sea, as well as other operational problems, will limit the effectiveness of SLBMs for the foreseeable future...
...intelligence analysts now believe that the accuracy of Soviet heavy ICBMs has been significantly overestimated...
...Whatever leverage the MX program may once have provided has by now greatly diminished...
...In addition, there are a number of measures we could take to make the Minuteman force as a whole more survivable and more capable...
...The best way to create this leverage would surely be to resurrect plans for an MX force of 200 missiles...
...Some senators who have opposed MX in the past have indicated support for near-term defense of ICBMs...
...strategic triad...
...Dissatisfaction with the vulnerability of the proposed basing mode has led Congress to impose a ceiling of fifty deployable MX missiles, pending identification of a more "survivable' basing mode for the remaining fifty...
...Congressional interest in active defense for MX appears to be on the rise...
...Whether or not the U.S...
...And they generally fail to appreciate the ad-vantage of a system that "preferentially" defends a set of hard targets such as ICBM silos—that is, defends a random silo with two, three, or more interceptors while leaving others unprotected, thus forcing the offense to expend a disproportionate number of warheads to assure the success of the attack...
...Midgetman will be no exception...
...While the goal of SDI re-mains the comprehensive defense of the United States and its allies, Ad-ministration spokesmen have said that any such defense is likely to comprise multiple layers, and that the development and deployment of these layers is likely to be sequential rather than simultaneous...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1986 13...
...But it should at least provide an insurance policy against the political erosion of the MX and Midgetman programs, and buy critical time in which to gauge Soviet intentions, the promise of strategic defense, and the merits and liabilities of a variety of new basing modes...
...1 / JANUARY 1986...
...the luxury of two new ICBMs...
...We do not need a system invulnerable in the face of some hypothetical ballooning of the offensive threat—only one that creates substantial uncertainty in the minds of Soviet decision-makers about the prospects for a successful attack...
...Several recent developments, how-ever, should make us re-address the en-tire issue of ICBM modernization...
...might take to compound these difficulties...
...The rationale for the MX or a missile like it remains compelling...
...periments and recent analysis of older data by the Defense Nuclear Agency indicate that the area subject to cratering by a high-yield explosion is considerably smaller than previously supposed...
...Narrowing the attack corridor would likewise make mid-course and terminal ballistic missile defense easier...
...At least for the present, however, any such effort would be politically quixotic...
...But the Administration's program, it should be recalled, is itself only half of the original MX deployment proposed by President Carter and embraced by the Reagan Administration in 1981...
...A preferential defense would be particularly effective when combined with a scheme of deceptive basing, under which an increase in the offensive threat could be countered by in-creasing the number of shelters rather than the missiles or interceptors themselves...
...In a proposed amendment to this year's Defense Authorization Act, thirty-three senators voted in favor of building a missile comparable to the Soviet SA 12 for nationwide air and ballistic missile defense, partly because of the protection it would afford land-based missiles...
...They could also serve as a concrete response to Soviet violations of existing arms control agreements...
...issue of its basing mode pose serious questions that will assume increasing political weight as the program matures...
...Of particular interest in this connection is the possibility of "active defense...
...The crippling liability of MX to date has been its relative vulnerability when based in existing Minuteman silos, and the apparent absence of an acceptable basing alternative...
...The existing silos could be hardened to a level at least comparable with Soviet silos, which should make them much less vulnerable even to the new generation of Soviet missiles now being deployed...
...intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force...
...Only MX will reliably threaten high-priority and extremely hard Soviet targets, and at the same time offer the flexibility and control required for deterring limited attacks...
...strategic defense not be permitted to overshadow the issue of the U.S...
...Finally, as the talks in Geneva continue, it is vital that the issue of U.S...
...Dramatic advances in "superhardening"—making the missile silo less vulnerable—together with recent fmdings on nuclear cratering effects, have revived interest in the idea of deploying MX in new fixed silos...
...MX also has decided advantages over a small ICBM like the Midgetman...
...Strategic Defense Initiative...
...Also very attractive is the new "carry-hard" option, which uses mobility and deceptive basing in shelters that could be cheaply proliferated...
...Finally, and most importantly, the hard-target capability of the Minuteman force could be substantially improved by retrofitting some or all of the existing missiles with the Advanced Inertial Reference Sphere guidance package which has been developed for the MX...
...Several of the basing modes under 12 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1986 consideration seem especially promising...
...It has created the impression that the ICBM question has been resolved, at least in principle, thereby removing it from the center of the debate over the future of strategic forces (which has now come to be occupied by the Administration's...
...Yet the Administration has thus far done little to encourage such support, or to clarify the relationship between active defense of MX and SDI...
...In light of this new knowledge, basing MX in fixed silos becomes much more attractive...
...Is there an alternative to enlarging the MX program...
...They represent a reasonable American response to the continuing growth of Soviet ballistic missile warheads, and to the need for leverage against these warheads in arms control negotiations...
...This being the case, failure to create negotiating leverage in U.S...
...The point is not that ICBM vulnerability should be tolerated, but rather that a less than perfect remedy may be adequate for practical purposes...
...Mobile missile systems generally must pay a penalty in size, cost, readiness, and command and control...
...The Soviets, who pioneered in this area, already have silos two to three times as hard as ours...
...Yet the Administration has thus far done little to encourage such support, or to clarify the relationship between active defense of MX and SDI...
...The Scowcroft Commission recommended deployment of 100 MX missiles in existing Minuteman silos and development of a small, mobile, single warhead ICBM for the 1990s and beyond...
...In military terms, the case for an MX force of 200 or more missiles is stronger than ever, given the steady increase in the number of Soviet targets and the Soviet advances in hardening silos and other critical military installations...
...But they would also be highly cost-effective, and should be politically sustainable...
...ICBMs, too little attention is paid to the difficulties the Soviets would face in designing an attack and to measures the U.S...
...Simulation ex...
...That the Commission's report was less than successful in its principal task—to provide a rationale for a substantial MX deployment—is now plain...
...In assessing the vulnerability of U.S...
...Whether the mobile launcher for Midgetman can be made sufficiently hard and elusive to survive barrage attacks is also uncertain: It cannot simply be assumed that mobility by itself will solve the problem...
...Under these circumstances, it is not at all certain that this system can be counted on to sustain the ICBM leg of the U.S...
...Stealth bombers and cruise missiles may some day assume certain ICBM missions, but such systems will remain slow and vulnerable in their basing and support structures...
...Such defenses are dismissed out of hand by many (including some who recognize the need for modernizing ICBMs and support the principle of an eventual nationwide defense) on the grounds that they could be too easily defeated by a proliferation of offensive warheads...
...Securing Congressional approval of the Administration's request for 100 MX missiles will be difficult, but not impossible if an appropriate basing mode is offered...
...offensive forces is likely to preclude any possibility of a strategic arms control agreement for the foreseeable future...
...At the same time, criticism of the proposed small ICBM (popularly known as Midgetman) has increased...
...But it now appears that disabling a silo, even in this fashion, is much more difficult than had been thought...
...And they could be implemented flexibly, in direct and open linkage with Soviet force developments and arms control behavior...
...These measures would be expensive...
...It will also have difficulty accommodating higher yield warheads that may be needed tothreaten the increasingly hard Soviet target base...
...T. years ago, a presidential commission under the chairmanship of former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft attempted to resolve the perennially controversial issue of modernizing the U.S...
...Yet this situation may now be changing...
...indeed, it is likely the Soviets expect the program to die a slow death at the hands of Congress...
...Such a remedy is surely achievable in the relatively near future...
...They could be defended in a preferential mode by one or several initial layers of a ballistic missile defense system...
...offensive deterrent's future...
...Finally, an arms control agreement involving deep cuts in offensive forces is not likely to permit the U.S...
...proceeds with development of comprehensive strategic defenses, and whether or not an arms control regime of deep reductions can be achieved, the maintenance of a survivable and effective ICBM force throughout the rest of the century will remain a fundamental requirement of American policy...
...As currently con-figured (under a congressionally imposed weight restriction), it will be unable to accommodate a significant number of penetration aids, or larger, more sophisticated guidance packages...
...But the Administration is obviously—and reasonably—unwilling to trade Iimited cutbacks in Soviet offensiveforces for the liquidation of a defensive program (SDI) whose payoff, though ill-defined, is potentially enormous...
...Spacing the silos very close together, and thus narrowing the line of attack, compounds the problems of timing and "fratricide"—the possible collision of incoming warheads—that would face Soviet attack planners...
...Moreover, U.S...
...There has also been growing interest in Congress in the possibility of near-term defense of MX...
...First of all, by deploying fifty additional MX in new superhardened silos we would not have to retire fifty perfectly serviceable Minuteman III missiles, carrying three warheads each, as called for by current planning...
...And the life-cycle costs of a thousand-missile Midgetman force (which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated at some $107 billion over twenty years) may prove too high in proportion to its likely effectiveness...
...These critics underestimate the technological trends favoring smaller and cheaper defensive systems...
...In political terms, a case can also be made for retaining at least the option of a larger MX force for bargaining in the START talks in Geneva...
...Some senators who have opposed MX in the past have indicated support for near-term defense of ICBMs...
...In an unheralded but potentially revolutionary advance, new techniques have been developed that allow us to harden missile silos by as much as fifty times present levels...
...Carnes Lord THE MX IN AN AGE OF DEFENSE Is there an ICBM in your future...
...Obviously, a serious commitment to improving the existing Minuteman force would raise questions concerning the need for a single-warhead small missile and the future of ICBMs generally...
...Such silos would essentially be in-, vulnerable to anything other than a , direct hit, in which cratering would disturb the silo's orientation...
...The likely costs of Midgetman, its limited capability, and the unresolved Carnes bold is director of international studies at the National Institute for Public Policy in Fairfax Virginia...
...In another sense, however, the Scowcroft Commission has succeeded all too well...
...As a result, its ability to survive Soviet anti-missile defenses (certainly a possibility by the 1990s if not sooner) is questionable at best...
Vol. 19 • January 1986 • No. 1
