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DE-MIRVING SUBMARINES CUTS THE NUCLEAR GORDIAN KNOT

By: Jeremy Stone and Paul Warnke

(Note: This article originally appeared in the January/February edition of
the FAS Public Interest Report.)

Notwithstanding the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the announced new Presidential guidelines, US strategic force posture continues to emphasize time-urgent targeting of the strategic forces and the command and control sites of Russia. This policy, which could be implemented as a first strike or quick second strike (launch-on-warning) is completely unnecessary in the post-Cold War era. It is accident prone in requiring quick judgements of what to do. And it induces the Russian command to set its decaying and accident prone forces to fire on warning (which also means that a US disarming attack would be likely to fail anyway).

Moreover, maintaining a launch-on-warning/disarming attack option against an alerted Russian force may limit future disarmament to as many as two thousand warheads on missiles and bombers, thought by some to be necessary to maintain the option. And so long as the Defense Department can argue that it is instructed to maintain this option on a minute-to-minute basis, de-alerting of warheads would also be limited since de-alerting, by definition, does not leave weapons available at a moment's notice.

How to Change the Policy?
The United States should resolve all these problems by moving away from an unnecessary, useless and dangerous launch-on-warning/disarming attack strategy to a policy of secure reliance on a deterrent-only force. But how to organize this decision? Should we look toward a formal Presidential proclamation after a study by a blue-ribbon panel? Or should we seek an informal resolution through a series of de-alerting measures that try to peel away the onion until the warheads on minute-to-minute alert are insufficient to permit the disarming attack option to be carried out without re-alerting?

A third way would have the President instruct the Defense Department to study a START III proposal to eliminate all sea-based MIRVs on both sides and to reduce the overall number of ballistic missile warheads to about 500. Such a proposal would precipitate the needed debate in a context of prospective bilateral disarmament. And the debate would focus on a weapon whose unfortunate characteristics were well-advertised even before then-Congressman Al Gore championed criticisms of MIRVs. Sea-based MIRV is the Key START II implementation will eliminate all land-based MIRVs. From every point of view, the most natural, and politically most acceptable, way to eliminate additional large numbers of deployed ballistic missile warheads is to de-MIRV in START III the US and Russian submarine forces by replacing all but one warhead per missile with dummies. This requires no change in naval deployments; for example, the US force of 18 submarines has a total of almost 3,500 warheads on its 432 missiles and would be permitted 1,750 even under START II. De-MIRVed it would have 432 warheads with about 288 of them on station at sea in non-alert periods. Yet such a force, invulnerable when on station, is at least ten times more than enough to deter a Russian attack.

But a sea-based force of this kind complemented by some land-based Minuteman III missiles within an overall limit of 500 ballistic missile warheads would not be enough to constitute a realistic threat to a comparably sized Russian force composed of, say, 200 fixed land-based missiles, 200 road-mobile missiles that could be dispersed, 20 airfields to which bombers might disperse, a submarine base or two (hosting about 100 submarine-launched missiles), and dozens of command posts. Happily the Russians are ready and eager to move toward much lower levels of strategic weapons than we have already proposed, and the force sketched above for them is one to which they could readily move after START II by de-MIRVing their submarines. Most important, such an offer would help secure Russian ratification of START II itself, by reducing Russian fears of a US first-strike capability. And to the extent that this proposal requires some comparable action from other nuclear powers to limit and de-MIRV their forces, they could and should be included. De-MIRVed, the planned British and French submarines would be an equally secure deterrent for those countries but would carry only 48 and 64 ballistic missile warheads respectively. The Chinese have now approximately 100 ballistic missile warheads on unMIRVed missiles and could be asked to stay below some agreed number.

Declassification of Documents Needed
To provide public support for the abandonment of a posture which few experts believe is still necessary, the President should declassify documents showing the realities of a President trying to decide, within ten minutes, whether to fire on warning of attack. Today's nuclear Gordian knot can best be severed by abandoning, through a disarmament proposal, an anachronistic US policy requirement for a launch-on-warning/disarming attack. To help get the Russians off alert, to help them ratify START II and to make it possible for our own de-alerting measures to be expanded we should orchestrate today, within the United States Government, a suitable offer to ban MIRV at sea just as START II banned MIRV on land. Jeremy Stone is the FAS President and Paul Warnke is the former Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. This proposal was reviewed and approved by the FAS Council. Endorsed by Alton Frye, Senior Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Steve Fetter, former Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, Morton Halperin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense-designate for International Security Affairs, Townsend Hoopes, former Undersecretary of the Air Force, Carl Kaysen, former Deputy National Security Adviser to the President, John Pike, Director, FAS Space Policy Project, George Rathjens, Secretary General of Pugwash, Herbert York, former Director of Defense Research and Engineering in DOD and Director of the Lawrence Livermore Radiation Laboratory.