The Anti-Missile Folly

...no deployment action was taken...

...PERSPECTIVES The Anti-Missile Folly By Jeremy J. Stone After years of American speculations and delays, based on the alarms and retractions of our intelligence services, it looks as if the Russians have gone and done it...

...And he must recognize that the West Germans would eventually want what protection we might have achieved...

...Russian breakthrough...

...They are caught between an expense that is unaccepta-bly large and one that though currently acceptable is unnecessary and may entail vast future spending...

...The first projection suggested that by 1975 at a cost of $1.5 billion, a full fallout shelter program would hold U.S...

...One is tempted to guess that the Republicans will put out a paper on this subject, refer to it in their platform, issue some statements, and then try to talk about something else...

...But the job of defending against Soviet missiles still seemed too hard and the Chinese bomb was yet to be exploded...

...Despite all the improvements, however, defending against the panoply of Soviet offensive power still looked prohibitively difficult...

...And because the range of these Nike-Zeus interceptors was so long, it was contended, only a relatively small number of batteries would be necessary to cover the entire country in an "area" as opposed to "point" defense...

...Will the system become McNamara's folly when some new weapon or tactic reveals its ineffectiveness and vulnerability...

...Back in May he would only conjecture that "if" they have decided to go ahead, they are repeating "the same error" in cost-effectiveness that some years ago led them to squander money on an obsolescent air defense system...

...Nevertheless, a defense gap will not be as telling an issue as the 1960 missile gap which could easily be translated into destruction of our sac deterrent...

...Most of these arguments have been familiar in the Pentagon for some time...

...He must wonder if the anti-missile system would give more prestige to the Chinese advances than they are worth...

...The Pentagon statement for fiscal 1967 predicted that such defenses might remain highly effective against the Chinese threat for some time????resumably as long as the Chinese do not develop the more sophisticated offense for which our anti-missile defense would provide a most compelling incentive...

...fatalities in the range of 20-95 million...

...Many influential Americans, however, seem to be choosing an irrational response: They are urging deployment of the Nike-X, our own prodigiously intricate and expensive anti-missile system, until now safely relegated to the less exorbitant realm of Research and Development...

...On the other hand, enthusiasm for a limited area defense against the Chinese seems to be growing in the Pentagon, though McNamara himself has not indicated his support...

...Sprint was fast enough to permit delays in firing until the atmosphere had screened out the lighter decoys from the incoming missile...

...Fortunately the U.S...

...that he reduced the request to about $70 million...

...Meanwhile, inside the Defense Department, the Secretary has been trying to prevent the decision to go ahead from being forced upon him by stages...

...For in the summer of 1965...

...Similarly tenuous is the argument that the U.S...

...In answer to questions, the Secretary told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Chinese would not be able to strike us with missiles "in any number at all, [deleted] on our continent, in less than a decade...

...The course of anti-missile development????hich provides interesting lessons for today????gan in 1959, when the Pentagon was considering a system called Nike-Zeus, involving an interceptor missile which would try to destroy incoming missiles at a range of 50 to 200 miles above the earth...

...But the statement said that because either a limited or comprehensive defense could be built when the Chinese began deploying missiles, no decision was necessary now...

...If the cultural revolution continues to make China seem a country gone mad, the 1968 campaign might produce charges that we have neglected to prepare for Chinese irrationality and malevolence...

...with the range of Nike-Zeus extended to about 400 miles and the radar equipment comparably improved, the Pentagon realized that much higher intercepts and hence the use of much larger warheads were now possible...

...It is not easy to argue with a Secretary of Defense about technical matters, and when the Secretary is as well informed and as articulate as Mc-Namara, the opposition risks looking amateurish and badly briefed...

...The upshot of the analysis, as far as the Secretary of Defense was concerned, was discouraging...

...The U.S...

...offensive capability...

...casualties remaining in each case even if our offensive missiles were fired preemptively...

...Johnson has the Vietnamese war expenses to worry about, and the danger of inflation...

...In early 1966, the Defense Department released a table showing several possible defensive programs involving shelters and/or anti-missiles, the 10 year costs of each program, and the high U.S...

...In fact the amount already spent will always be advanced as an argument for spending more...

...His most spirited assertion of opposition to anti-missile deployment appeared in the House Appropriations Committee Hearings early this year: "Unless the Congress and the people were to accept such a [full fallout shelter] program, I would strongly recommend against deployment of Nike-X because Nike-X itself can be completely negated by an attack outside of the effective zones of that defensive system...

...If the Soviets did react strongly, a further $6 billion would be required to reduce American deaths to a slightly higher level (25-110 million...

...but that he discovered the Secretary would agree only to $4 million worth of engineering drawing (reducing lead time by six months...

...Since the Soviet defense will be ineffective against our steadily improving offensive panoply, a reasonable response would be cynical satisfaction at their waste of resources, and relief that Moscow continues to prefer defensive expenditures to offensive ones...

...did not deploy this system, for a few years later, recognizing that the incoming missile might be hidden in a cloud of decoys, the Department shifted to considering the Nike-X...

...The Chinese tested a short range missile with a nuclear tip on October 27, however, suggesting that they may be ahead of Pentagon predictions...

...But McNamara's very hard-hitting and emphatic responses to Goldwater may dampen the enthusiasm of Republicans for such attacks...

...For in an atmosphere roiled by impending elections and by an enormously silly "defense gap" debate, what he assumes is Soviet stupidity, Congress may imagine is a secret and devastating Jeremy J. Stone, formerly of the Hudson Institute and Harvard, now teaches at Pomona College...

...This one questionable decision might well absorb all the money he has saved in countless courageous and difficult struggles...

...This fear, suggesting that the Russians have found a way of stopping at least several hundred Polaris missiles and many land based missiles as well, is straight from Strangelove...

...It would be necessary, I think, to strengthen our bomber defenses and to provide certain other defenses as well...

...should be "second to none" in every way????hould have everything the Soviets have...

...But the Chinese bomb has led some to advocate a limited defense against this new threat alone...

...All the "defense gap" illogic, finally, succumbs to the considerations of cost-effectiveness...

...Relatively crude incoming missiles might be located and identified in time to be shot down at high altitudes in an area defense...

...From the President's point of view, the problematic advantages of any system????hether oriented toward the Chinese or toward the Russians—must be balanced against the enormous peacetime cost, against the unlikelihood of nuclear war, and against the continuing expenditures for offensive weapons which are designed to deter rather than mitigate the holocaust...

...The gaps about to be revealed are not really defense gaps, but gaps between the 1960 fears of Soviet aggression and the complacency of today, between the relative ineptitude of Eisenhower's Secretaries of Defense and the extraordinary ability of Johnson's...

...has just vastly increased its budget for penetration aids, has greatly improved offensive efficiency, and in the future will be able to change its offense to circumvent any new defense the Soviets may deploy...

...Yet to make the advantage seem significant, they will have to argue that it might lead the Soviets to believe they could defend against all parts of our offense they cannot knock out in a first strike...

...The Soviet defense can have only a marginal effect, because the U.S...

...What we are about to see, if we see anything, seems likely to be a reflection of the past...

...The Secretary is likely to slap them down hard and wait to see what happens next...

...The President and the Secretary are now contemplating a compromise alternative to a massive program...

...Given the fact that a Soviet defensive improvement affects only our offenses, not our defenses, this push for Nike-X seems illogical...

...These do not vitiate the case against deploying a massive antimissile system...

...does not now have, or want, as many submarines or men or as much air defense as the Russians...

...Our air defense system was made to look silly by Soviet missiles that could eliminate its unhardened control centers and pave the way for Soviet bombers...

...Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara recently reported "considerable evidence" that the Soviets are deploying an anti-ballistic missile system...

...All likely Republican candidates seem amenable to using a "defense-gap" issue...

...It is now apparent that his warning was not heeded in Moscow...

...Another projection—based on the unlikely assumption that the Soviets would not react by readying more missiles and bombers if we spent an additional $20 or $30 billion—indicated U.S...

...But it may be actuated less by logic than by the huge sums of money the program would concentrate on a few fortunate localities????nd by the Republican desire to avenge John F. Kennedy's "missile gap" campaign of 1960 with an "anti-missile gap" campaign in 1968...

...The new concept combined the longer range Nike-Zeus interceptor with a very fast short range interceptor called Sprint...

...The only real concern, escalated arms competition, should be allayed by the recognition that there is no compelling reason for us to join it...

...Soviet defenses are, and seem, much more innocuous...

...Mc-Namara must consider what kind of leadership he should provide to the military establishments of both countries...

...And the public is likely to yawn...

...Although McNamara remains convinced that the Russians, like all his opponents, are wrong, their decision places him in a difficult position...

...For five year costs of $8-10.6 billion, illustrative figures suggested that attacks which would otherwise cause 6-12 million fatalities could be held down to no more than 6 million and possibly reduced to zero...

...Is he now going to follow the Soviet lead and duplicate the error he earlier claimed they were making...

...Those advocating deployment of Nike-X maintain that the new Soviet system will give Moscow an advantage...

...And because the Secretary is the man he is, he must wonder whether his decision will have longer run effects on the arms race itself...

...From the point of view of the Secretary, other considerations are uppermost...

...The Director of Defense Research and Engineering, John Foster told the Senate Committee on Appropriations that the Army requested $180 million for long lead time items necessary to deploy Nike-X...

...And since fallout is less important in a small attack, the Pentagon suggests that "something less" than a full shelter program could suffice...

...the Soviets may be building systems worse than those we have already discarded or could build...

...high-speed neutrons, gamma rays and x-rays, unhindered by an atmosphere, would jam electronic components in incoming missiles and, possibly, cause the missiles to burn up on reentering the atmosphere by creating microscopic holes in the warheads' casings...

...Then, in a warning presumably calculated to prevent the Soviet deployment, he declared that to negate an effective Soviet anti-missile system the Defense Department would spend its whole budget, if necessary, on improving U.S...

...Moreover, our experimental antimissile system may well be second to none...

...Even if we were to have a national fallout shelter program at a cost of something on the order of perhaps $2.5 billion, I would still be inclined to recommend against Nike-X unless at the same time the Congress was willing to take the other actions necessary to provide a balanced defense...

...A decision to go ahead might forestall the day when we and the Soviets can halt installation of new or modernized missiles, might prevent reductions in military budgets with their important political significance, and might arouse such emotion that frank and sensible discussions on halting the arms race will be impeded for some years...

...They can take certain limited and premature steps associated with a Chinese threat, save most of the money, and blunt the political attack against them...

...Their reasoning is based on new advances in antimissile technology...

...In addition, at those airless heights, a new "kill mechanism" could come into play...

...Then to complicate all the deliberations, there is the 1968 presidential campaign...

...Were the Congress willing to take all of those actions, I would still recommend against the defensive systems, including Nike-X, at this time because, as I say, I believe the Soviets could with relative ease and at low cost to themselves offset our defenses by strengthening their own strategic force...

...But both must realize that such a program, which would establish the principle of missile defense, might engender intense pressures for a larger system...

...fatalities to 90-135 million depending on whose missiles were generally fired first...

...Then he must be alive to the danger that if we install anti-missile defenses, they will be difficult to jettison even if they prove useless, and will entail ever larger on-going expenditures as the Soviet offense improves...

...Ultimately at stake in his decision may be funds approaching $100 billion that might otherwise be available for domestic programs...

...Obviously, building such a system seemed a technically sweet idea, combining felicitously several new possibilities...

...This also proved fortunate...

...The new elements relevant to our missile defense derive not from the Soviet deployment but from technological developments and the new Chinese bomb...

...An antimissile system of dubious effectiveness may ultimately cost as much as $50 billion, may require other expenses equally large, and may be nullified for a small fraction of that amount by changes and improvements in the Soviet offense...

...and there is even less reason for us to keep up in anti-missiles when they are putting their money not in missiles but in missile defense...

...In a different table, the Department considered several programs against the Chinese threat...