Air University Review, January-February 1980
John M. Collins
SALT II is so complicated and such an emotional matter that salient issues consistently get lost in the shuffle. Still, the task confronting our Senate is straightforward, when defined in the following terms: Should the pact signed by Presidents Carter and Brezhnev be approved in its present form because it is better than nothing?
objectivity is the objective
There are many different ways to fill out the accompanying chart, depending on personal persuasion. Paul Warnke would postulate one set of problems, responses, and implications. Paul Nitze another. All sorts of shades are possible in between.
This assessment, which sticks strictly to military considerations, simply demonstrates a structural framework for decision-making. In the process, it shows how severe critics, even cynics, just possibly could arrive at unexpected conclusions if they consciously battle their own built-in biases.
SALT II is shot full of problems. The most pressing pertain to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
practical problem
Problem one is practical. Its cause is no secret. U.S. strategists stress a Principle of War called Economy of Force. The Soviet side stresses Mass. Those incompatible principles, applied to ICBMs, have spawned diametrically different policies over the past two decades.
We chose quality instead of quantity. The Soviets chose both. We chose missile accuracy instead of size. The Soviets chose both. SALT II institutionalizes consequent U.S. inferiority in fixed-site ICBMs, especially "heavy" models with many large multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) that will soon be a Soviet specialty.
The payoff was predictable. Most students of the subject seem to agree that a Soviet first strike could smother America's Minutemen by the mid-1980s. No SALT proposal over the past seven years would have prevented that predicament.
So what is the prognosis? Follow the chart from top to bottom and left to right to trace the present pact's influence.
SALT II, to start with, leaves us in the lurch but is better than nothing because it limits the level of Soviet launchers and the stock of Soviet warheads with single-shot hard target "kill" potential. Conservatives, using long-time liberal arguments, say those constraints are close to inconsequential. The Kremlin would not increase its holdings even if SALT were scuttled, since present programs are ample. That position, however, presumes that we know what is enough from the Soviet Union and that they would take no steps to counter U.S. improvements in the absence of a SALT II pact. Put a check in the "SALT Helps" column.
U. S. abilities to verify the quantities and characteristics of Soviet ICBMs have always been imperfect at best, even with Iranian listening posts in place. SALT II, however, improves our prospects because it prohibits deliberate interference with national technical means. It also simplifies surveillance, by insisting that some telemetry remain "in the clear, " and so on. Chalk up a second plus for SALT.
Prelaunch survival for U.S. ICBMs would be better if we substituted mobile models for missiles in silos. The SALT II protocol forbids flight-testing from mobile platforms before 1982, but lead times to produce components will take at least that long, so it does not make much difference.
The Soviets, however, may yet contend that U.S. systems under study, including "shell games" and trenches, are incompatible with the pact because they depend on deliberate concealment for success. Acceptance of the treaty consequently should be contingent on public reconciliation of Soviet reservations. Otherwise, all bets should be off. Meanwhile, the chart lists SALT II influence as a murky "Unknown."
Active defense plays almost no part in this country's deterrent plans. Second-strike U.S. ICBMs depend entirely on silos for protection. That exposed posture, coupled with comparatively low U.S. force levels, makes Soviet missiles most dangerous.
SALT II, however, permits us to change our policy. SALT I is the only barrier to ballistic missile defense.
perceptual problem
Problem two suggest that U.S. steps to duplicate Soviet countersilo capabilities, in conformance with our quest for "essential equivalence," might shore up perceptions of this country’s strength but would poorly serve practical purposes.Disciplines of that school concede that SALT is no way would keep the United States from installing large MX ICBMs in silos. Mobile missiles with the same wallop may also prove acceptable. Still, U.S. powers would by no means match Moscow’s, even if our force equaled theirs exactly in quantities and characteristics.
This country, you see, is committed to a second-strike strategy. Cosmetic abilities to crack Soviet silos would lack much meaning if Soviet first-strike missiles took flight before SAC’s force arrived.
Countersilos inequities, caused by Soviet SS-18s and SS-19s for which we have no counterparts, are consecrated by SALT. That shortcoming can be condoned, provided the administration swaps Minutemen in silos for some mobile model—not necessarily a semimobile system like multiple shelters, the so-called "racetrack," or miles of trench.
Bonus effect could be considerable because masses of Soviet MIRVs serve an important purpose only as long as U.S. ICBMs present static targets. Moscow’s missiles would lose much of their practical punch if we went mobile. Real force reductions conceivably could result in the long run, since relatively few Soviet warheads would be required to cover U.S. cities and other countervalue targets.
So much for the land-based ballistic missile leg of the beleaguered U.S. triad. What about heavy bombers?
Something like 75 B-52Ds were delivered to SAC in 1957. The last B-52H models entered service in 1962. Those aging aircraft suffer from fatigue, and penetration probabilities are hard-pressed to keep pace with improvements in Soviet air defense.
Two possible solutions, singly or in combination, are most often posed.
We could deploy air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) in sufficient quantities to saturate Soviet air space. The most restrictive SALT II limit would allow 2400 ALCMs on 120 bombers, which so equipped could cover many more targets than 300-odd B-52s in their present configuration. SAC could strike with well over twice that quantity on a combination of cruise missile carriers as long as American ballistic missile with MIRVs remain at present levels, which are well below allowable limits.
Alternatively, or in addition to ALCMs, we could develop and deploy superior manned penetrating bombers as a substitute for B-52s. The overall SALT II ceiling on launchers is the only control, and it would not stop us. Budgetary limits are more likely.
U.S. ballistic missile submarines face no serious problems in the foreseeable future, with or without SALT II. Their survival at sea still seems assured. Our stock of 40-kiloton range Poseidon warheads is sufficient to cover 200 Soviet cities, with many remaining for "soft" military targets.
That part of the Soviet population and production base in blast shelters would probably survive if we struck, but surface installations would suffer severely from submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) until Soviet active and passive protective measures degrade U.S. retaliatory powers more drastically than they do at present.
Higher SALT levels would do less to counter possible progress in Soviet civil defense than hard target capabilities for our SLBMs, a course that is technologically feasible and is not SALT constrained.
No consideration of SALT would be complete without a look at strategic defense, a forgotten quantity in U.S. deterrent equations.
The Continental United States (CONUS) at this stage is almost completely vulnerable to nuclear attack. There is little protection of any kind for second-strike U.S. systems, the American people, or our production base. Collateral casualties and damage could be colossal, even in a carefully controlled counterforce war with the Soviets.
SALT II places no prohibitions on any steps to improve U.S. active or passive defense posture.
The SALT I Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972, with its subsequent protocol, would permit U.S. scientists and technologists to push research in that field to the fullest extent possible, confined solely by the state of our art. It does, however, exclude development of exotic systems and deployment, which is pay dirt. SALT I, consequently, shows as a culprit.
The absence of CONUS defense also creates dilemmas for this country's friends, overseas. The so-called "nuclear umbrella," which U.S. leaders still promise to allies, has leaked like a sieve since we lost nuclear superiority during the last decade. Massive retaliation against the Soviet Union would no longer be a rational response for this unprotected nation if Moscow tried to seize NATO territory or struck U.S. consorts in other countries. That fact of life also dilutes deterrent powers of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons because we cannot control escalation by threatening to strike the Soviet homeland with our Sunday punch.
No changes in SALT II ceilings to ensure "equality" could cure that situation. The crucial requirement is for CONUS defense, which is constrained by SALT I, not SALT II.
Some critics fault SALT II for failing to control theater nuclear systems, but not everyone considers those findings well-founded.
Sophisticated Soviet Backfire bombers are basically problems for our allies and associates along the Soviet periphery, not the United States, according to the U.S. intelligence community. So are SS-20 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) with MIRV warheads. Our arms controllers have struggled unsuccessfully to limit such "theater" systems since 1965, when we seriously started to pursue mutual and balanced force reductions (MBFR) in Europe. SALT II conferees struck the same stone wall, partly because of complications caused by U.S. forward-based fighter aircraft, which we have not considered negotiable for SALT purpose.
SALT II, however, does not restrain U.S. and allied strategists from creating comparable capabilities by installing medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and more medium bombers (such as FB-111s) on allied soil. Intermediate-range ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) would also be acceptable once the protocol expires in December 1981, provided development is complete.
The question, therefore, is not whether we can station new nuclear systems in Western Europe with the express purpose of striking the Soviet Union. The question is whether we should. Brezhnev says we would be "playing with fire," and some respected U.S. analysts believe him. Return strikes conceivably could incinerate targets in the United States, instead of Western Europe.
Finally, better air defenses for U.S. allies are perfectly permissible as a means of balancing the Backfire menace. An ABM shield for friends remains beyond reach because SALT I restrictions forbid us to pass them present or future technology in that field.
The foregoing summary of SALT implications culminates with seven conclusions concerning this country's nuclear strategy and force requirements, if the illustrative input suits your fancy and you accept the procedures:
We should therefore approve the SALT II pact in its present form, provided a mobile ICBM system of our choice is admissible and the administration takes immediate steps to install it.
The foregoing assessment is, of course, incomplete. Many other military matters might be mentioned. Economic and political linkage, if you like, is missing.
No attempt has been made to sell SALT or scuttle it. The purpose simply was to demonstrate a decision -making technique which shows that calculations concerning SALT can lead to sound conclusions only in context with strategies. Playing a simple "numbers game" is simply not enough.
Alexandria, Virginia
Contributor
John M. Collins
(M.A., Clark University) is Senior Specialist in National Defense, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. With more than 20 years in strategic and tactical planning, he prepared contingency plans for Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. He was a member of the faculty at the National War College (1968-72). He is author of Grand Strategy: Principles and Practices (1973) and American and Soviet Military Trends: Since the Cuban Missile Crisis (1978). Collins is a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, Armed Forces Staff College, and National War College, and he is a previous contribution to the Review.Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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