What is the 'counterforce problem'?

...The idea is that the Soviets would have to fire two warheads at each of these shelters to have high confidence of destroying a single MX missile...

...The assumptions and judgments that underpin the counter-force problem look like this: There is actual fighting in Europe or extreme tension between the Soviet Union and the United States, on the order of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 where there was a real chance of nuclear war...

...He also could launch a slow or prompt soft-target counterattack against military targets like airfields...

...THE EDITORS ONE OF THE MILITARY issues at the very center of the current arms debate is the' 'counterforce problem.'' The term" counterforce," of course, refers to the orientation of weapons or strategy toward the enemy's military forces, especially strategic nuclear forces, rather than toward industrial or population centers...

...These would be people killed instantly...

...Thus, the idea is that the Soviets would be deterred from attacking the system in the first place...

...The president would then be faced with the choice of either allowing the ICBMs to be destroyed or launching diem against Soviet civilian centers or military targets (some of which would already have been fired...

...ICBM silos, submarines in port, and bombers not on alert is based upon three undisputed facts: Flight tests of ICBMs show that accuracy has reached the point where, when combined with explosive power, there is a very high probability of being able to destroy a fixed target, even if it is extremely well-protected by concrete...

...Today's counterforce problem is largely reducible to the issue of the vulnerability of U.S...

...has no feasible way to protect its ICBMs from such a counterforce attack in the next several years except for a policy of launch-on-warning or launch-under-attack which some view as risky...

...b) the Soviets could launch a small number of submarine-launched missiles (SLBMs) or other ICBMs against U.S...

...This is a system which has one missile moving periodically into any one of twenty shelters...

...Indeed, he could order a strike against military targets near Soviet cities to inflict about the same number of casualties as the U.S...

...The president would find himself in a quandary: either strike at Soviet cities and invite a counterattack on American cities or do nothing...

...warning networks and command, control, and communications systems would be on a wartime footing...

...ICBMs to be destroyed and not fire them before they were hit...

...In the kind of grave crisis postulated, U.S...

...should not do anything about ICBM vulnerability because: (a) the Soviets might be willing to take "irrational" risks in a crisis...

...Within ten minutes or so, the president would know the size and destination of a Soviet attack...

...and to move toward the deployment of the MX mobile missile system...

...ICBMs lessens, the value of the whole enterprise drops off sharply...

...Like the rest of the panel's work, this analysis is a consensus statement and does not take up the moral questions surrounding nuclear strategy or make recommendations (see our comments, "The Whirlpool of Weapons," Jan...

...In other words, doing something about ICBM vulnerability is a hedge against Soviet technological breakthroughs that might make these other two legs vulnerable...

...They would deploy existing Minuteman missiles in a mobile system that in theory could be be ready a year or so before the MX system...

...There are other approaches under discussion-an anti-ballistic missile system to defend ICBM silos, other forms of mobile ICBMs, submarines that could be located just off-shore, and so on.cated just off-shore, and so on...

...YET ANOTHER WAY of looking at this counterforce or ICBM vulnerability issue is to see it as being neither at the core of the Soviet-American strategic balance nor as a non-problem...

...Under these circumstances, a Soviet planner could calculate mat (a) the Soviets could launch about one-third of their high-quality ICBMs (say about 200 SS-18s, each with 10 warheads) with high confidence that these 2,000 warheads would destroy almost all of the 1,000 U.S...

...Others believe that the Carter administration approach is too little, too late...

...They would also have to believe that the nuclear environment created by the first explosions would not cause subsequent attacking warheads to explode far short of their targets-the so-called problem of "fratricide...

...fixed ICBMs...

...From Soviet eyes, what incentive would the president have for not firing the ICBMs before they were destroyed...

...president's problem would stem from the fact that after the Soviet attack, he would have only a few weapons (say between SO and 150 warheads) that he could use quickly against hardened targets, with the remaining 3,000 to 4,000 warheads being good mainly against "soft" civilian and military targets or against hardened targets within several hours...

...It has the advantage of being a description that satisfied the strategic specialists of differing viewpoints who-served on the Carnegie panel...

...forces would be on increased alert, and in particular, U.S...

...In neither case would he be compelled to strike fully at Soviet cities...

...The concern that the Soviet Union might launch a counterforce attack against U.S...

...Of the greatest political significance, the Soviet leadership (if it believed in this scenario) might also conclude that the very knowledge that the U.S...

...ballistic missile-firing submarines in port with a high prospect of being able to destroy about fifty percent of the U.S...

...would face this quandary could make American leaders reluctant about standing up to Soviet challenges...

...He could launch a slow hard-target counterstrike with the remaining bombers and cruise missiles...

...to leave open the possibility of a launch-under-attack policy...

...Second, even if Soviet leaders could assume perfection in a totally novel situation with the greatest of risks and stakes, they would also have to assume that an American president would simply allow U.S...

...When that problem is multiplied by 200, the number of deployed MX missiles, the Soviets would not have enough hard-target-killing warheads to destroy all MX missiles and still have many prompt hard-target warheads left in reserve...

...For example, the president's choice is not necessarily limited to a prompt hard-target counterstrike or nothing...

...For a variety of reasons, such as not wanting to take any chances of launching when there might be some error in the warning system, U.S...

...Nonetheless, political leaders might well shrink from staking everything on the success of an immensely difficult attack...

...This knowledge would come from surveillance satellites and warning radars...

...Many millions more would die later from radiation and other effects.' What basis would Soviet leaders have for assuming that American leaders would consider this a "limited" or "surgical" attack, not calling for a response to "even the score...

...strategic triad than to try to assure the indefinite survivability and viability of the sea-based and bomber legs of the triad...

...intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to a Soviet first strike...

...While it is theoretically possible to keep initial American casualities under ten million, they could be as high as twenty million...

...SOME FIND this scenario to be flawed technically and questionable in logic...

...As the chances for perfection decrease, as the prospect of actually being able to destroy almost all U.S...

...This is because Soviet leaders would find it extremely difficult to make certain other assumptions that are necessary for making the decision to attack: First, they would have to assume they could carry out a perfect attack...

...The Soviet planner then could conclude that the likely U.S...

...counterforce problem to be highly implausible...

...Others consider the scenario taking advantage of the U.S...

...suffered in the Soviet first strike...

...They argue that once the situation is taken out of the hands of the Soviet planner and his computer and put into the meeting room of the Soviet leadership, the answers would be different...

...Third, Soviet leaders would have to assume that, even though millions of Americans would perish in this first Soviet counterforce attack, the president still would not choose to attack at least enough Soviet cities to even the score, whatever else he might do to retaliate against Soviet military forces...

...about three times as many hard-target killing warheads that can be quickly fired...

...Rather, the issue can be seen this way: Given that it is prudent to assume that there is some ICBM vulnerability, how should the United States plan its forces to deal with the problem...

...submarines and bombers...

...b) many people believe in the fallacy and there is a problem of perceptions...

...The U.S...

...To make the assumption of perfection, Soviet leaders would have to believe that the split-second timing and coordination of hundreds of missiles could be achieved...

...Many nuclear experts would respond that there are sound technical reasons to believe that these problems can be resolved-indeed, have been resolved...

...ICBMs in concrete-hardened silos...

...At that point, everything could get out of hand, and all the calculations about limiting the war would go up in flames...

...and (c) it is better to try to preserve the land-based leg of the U.S...

...They would have to believe that missile accuracy in tests conducted principally on an east-west axis could be duplicated by missiles flying north-south over the North Pole, where the effects of gravity and other forces would be somewhat different...

...leaders have refused to rely entirely on a launch-under-attack plan to deal with ICBM vulnerability...

...choice would be to do nothing and to concede the issues that had prompted the crisis in the first place...

...Those who take this approach say that the counterforce quandary is a classic case of the "fallacy of the excluded middle''-the U. S. is not with the dilemma of surrender or Armageddon, and therefore all arguments that depend on that premise are false...

...It is, we believe, an extremely clear, brief statement of an issue looming very large in current debates about military spending and arms control, and it succinctly outlines the assumptions involved in viewing the "counter-force problem' ' as a serious threat...

...strategic bomber airfields and against U.S...

...The point is that there is sufficient tension so that each side is bound to contemplate the possibility of the other side striking first...

...It does not follow, however, that the U.S...

...From the Soviet planner's point of view, the U.S...

...The Carter administration's approach to the counterforce problem was to develop command, control, and communication capabilities and warning systems...

...c) there would be a reasonable chance of being able to keep initial American fatalities to under ten million...

...Some Soviet spokesmen have stated that launch-under-attack figures prominently in Soviet strategic thinking...

...Security and the Future of Arms Control, established a year ago by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace...

...and so, under certain assumptions, the Soviet Union could use only about one-third of its high-quality ICBMs with MIRVs (multiple warheads which can be independently targeted) to destroy virtually all U.S...

...The Soviets have a great many more of such ICBMs and warheads than the U.S...

...But in recent years, especially, they have called attention to the potential for doing this in order to add to Soviet uncertainties...