THE LOGIC OF NUCLEAR ESCALATION

...Reagan told the Senate these weapons would become vital "bargaining chips" in (as yet unscheduled) arms control talks with the Kremlin, and insisted that a failure to build them would undermine the U.S...

...A much more likely response would be for the Soviets to adopt a "launch on warning" position, where they would hurl their warheads at us once they received electronic warning that we had opted for a first strike...

...He reasons that emplacement of the MX in existing silos, which many Pentagon officials believe could not withstand a Soviet bullseye, would make sense only if we plan to launch the MX upon warning of a Soviet strike— unless, of course, we decide on ^preemptive strike...

...Sam Nunn is one who suspects this will soon be so...

...He noted that the highly accurate MX missiles—each armed with ten powerful warheads—would be based at least temporarily in existing Titan or Minuteman missile silos...

...There has been great reluctance on the part of the military and civilian leaders to trade away weapons systems once they reach advanced stages of development," warns retired Admiral Eugene Carroll of the Center for Defense Information...

...position...

...nuclear arsenal promote the cause of arms reduction and peace...

...The soundness of Warnke's position would seem obvious...

...But as Paul Warnke, formerly the chief U.S...

...command received during a recent eighteen-month period...

...We have this from no less an authority than President Reagan himself...

...As Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia pointed out, there is no guarantee that the Soviet leadership would consider adopting Carter's "race track" scheme, one that Reagan himself has dismissed as unworkable...

...The admiral fears that the Kremlin, too, will come to rely on these robot-guided bombs that can strike targets without ever leaving the Earth's atmosphere, are difficult to detect while in flight, and, because of their inconspicuous size, easily defy efforts at monitoring compliance with any arms control treaty that might seek to limit their numbers...

...In December, just before a big vote on the military budget, he wrote a letter urging Senators to go along with the House of Representatives and approve funding for construction of 100 super-accurate MX missiles, 100 B-l nuclear bombers, thousands of airborne and submarine-based cruise missiles, and an array of other items needed to wage an extended nuclear war...

...Instead of noting the Orwellian ring to the President's message (War is Peace, 10,000 new nukes promote arms control), Senate leaders echoed Reagan's "bargaining chip" argument...

...Unfortunately, the notion that commanders could survive to control a drawn-out nuclear war—as Pentagon planners insist will be possible—also makes such a war, once thought to be unthinkable, all too thinkable in military circles...

...These are expensive "bargaining chips"—so expensive that the Pentagon Inspector General's office might be reluctant to risk them in combat, citing the Reagan campaign against waste, fraud, and abuse in government...

...military does not swiftly become a body without a head...

...Under the circumstances, any serious political crisis could have catastrophic results...

...The threats of a first strike, accidental war, and an accelerating arms race are serious enough consequences of the Reagan armaments program in themselves...

...The Senate voted 84-to-5 to approve the largest military spending bill in history— $208.7 billion for 1982, including $1.9 billion for the MX and $2.4 billion for the B-l...

...arsenal, is in reality an elaborate ploy to promote arms control...

...Neither we nor the Soviet Union can win a nuclear war," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...

...belated call for fewer medium-range missiles in Europe, the White House letter seemed to carry considerable weight in the Senate...

...the MX could be effective only if launched first...

...It's going to be a long winter...

...Coming as it did shortly after Reagan's Richard Thaxton covers military affairs in Washington...

...No decision on how to deploy the MX permanently has yet been made, but that program is expected ultimately to cost well over $30 billion...

...A Pentagon official says it is likely the Soviet warning system is at least as prone to error as our own...

...Unfortunately, one has to doubt the IG's office would carry much weight with the Joint Chiefs if we were teetering on the brink of World War III...

...Several of these were taken seriously enough for U.S...

...so that the U.S...

...Once new systems are under development on both sides, they will become the floor, the minimum level, upon which each country will establish its negotiating posture and security requirements...

...For the answer, we can turn first to Under Secretary of Defense Fred Ikle, who laid out the rationale in a recent Senate hearing...

...But the danger here is that once a weapons program gets under way, there will be too much momentum, too much possessiveness in the Pentagon, for the goods to be scrapped later as part of some arms-control deal...

...Thus, according to Ikle, deployment of the MX would make the Kremlin fear an American first strike against its land-based nuclear force...

...Each side would be more prone to interpret a false alarm as the real thing and to launch on warning...

...The idea that a nuclear war could be won has actually been endorsed by some Administration officials, including Vice President Bush...

...Nor can either country win a nuclear arms race...

...forces to take steps toward "retaliation" before the mechanical errors were detected...

...Ikle predicts that the Kremlin, faced with the heavy cost of building its own "race track," would be more forthcoming at the negotiating table, to avoid squandering rubles...

...We may even get the chance to destroy this "global village" in order to save it...

...The Logic of Nuclear Escalation More bargaining chips' will raise the ante of the arms race BY RICHARD THAXTON The Reagan Administration's $180 billion nuclear arms program, which will add 10,000 atomic weapons to the U.S...

...So we must face the question squarely: Just how will a dramatic build-up of the U.S...

...If such plans were intended simply to deter any Soviet effort to "decapitate" the U.S...

...MIRV was described by some as a bargaining chip, but in the end both sides acquired it, warheads proliferated, the arms race accelerated, and mutual fears of a first strike against missile silos grew enormously...

...But these dangers are compounded because they are the necessary byproducts of a drive by the Administration to prepare to wage an extended nuclear war...

...military, they would have some merit...

...Launch on warning is a frightening prospect—witness the 147 false alarms of atomic attack the U.S...

...Cost estimates on the B-l, meanwhile, have risen astronomically in recent months—from $15 million apiece, to $20 million, to $30 million...

...But perhaps this is why it has been so little heeded by the Reagan Administration, which seems drawn not to the logical and the sensible but to the risky and the confrontational—to brinksmanship in the name of peace...

...so that the President and his generals can be whisked to safety in the skies and, from their command jets, communicate effectively with surviving forces on land and sea...

...These talks proceeded as the United States—quickly emulated by the Soviet Union—developed the technology for multiple independent re-entry vehicles (MIRVs)—single missiles crowned with many warheads...

...Likewise, says Carroll, the President's plan to arm submarines, B-52s, and B-l bombers with some 3,000 cruise missiles is unlikely to be bargained away...

...arms control negotiator, points out, serious planning to fight a nuclear war is "an immensely dangerous strategy...

...To make matters worse, the Reagan program may lead us into a launch-on-warning posture as well...

...That Ikle's scenario is highly tenuous, and the Reagan approach to nuclear war extremely dangerous, should be clear to anyone...

...it reflects logic and common sense...

...The thrust of his logic is that the United States is quite prepared to threaten the holocaust to reduce world tensions...

...Carroll says the SALT negotiations prove his point...

...Over the next six years, $18 billion will be spent to strengthen communications and control systems so the military command can endure under the firestorm of a nuclear assault...

...Thus, the world faces a situation where each superpower, fearing a first strike from the opposite side, may be putting its nuclear arsenal on much more of a hair trigger...

...He says this apprehension would force Kremlin planners to consider an expensive mobile missile basing scheme to confuse American targeters—a scheme similar to Jimmy Carter's idea of shunting American missiles from shelter to shelter in a desert "race track...

...In his letter to the Senate, President Reagan implied that in future arms-control negotiations, the United States would be willing to barter away parts of its new weaponry in exchange for Soviet concessions...

...Specially hardened with steel and concrete, the silos would still be unlikely to withstand direct hits in any Soviet nuclear strike...

...And each side, fearing the other was about to strike first, would be tempted to beat it to the punch...