Theater Nuclear Arms Control and Forward-Based Systems

A principal component of the U.S. theater nuclear force posture in Europe concerns forward-based systems.¹ This term primarily denotes USAF F-III and F-4 fighter-bombers and Navy carrier-based A-6 and A-7 aircraft capable, by virtue of their geographic deployment, of delivering nuclear strikes against forces and assets within the western military districts of the Soviet Union. These forward-based systems, coupled with MIRVed Poseidon SLBMs assigned to SACEUR for targeting purposes, allied nuclear-capable delivery vehicles, and the projected NATO force of Pershing II ballistic and Tomahawk ground-launched cruise missiles (and possibly sea-launched cruise missiles in the future), contribute to the central leg of NATO’s flexible response triad. The triad consists of conventional, tactical/theater nuclear, and central strategic nuclear forces intended to deter and, if necessary, respond to Warsaw Pact aggression at any level it should occur.

During both the SALT I and SALT II negotiations (1969-79), the U.S.S.R. persistently attempted to effectuate limitations on FBS, which it considers but an extension of U.S. strategic forces along with ICBMs, SLBMs, and B-52 heavy bombers. With equal adamancy, the United States refused to countenance raising the FBS issue in the SALT context. However, now that negotiations specifically focused on U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range (1000-4000 mile range) nuclear forces are under way in Geneva as of 30 November 1981, the West can no longer avoid discussing FBS at the bargaining table, especially if NATO is to succeed in achieving negotiated restraints on the burgeoning Soviet SS-20 IRBM force and the Backfire bomber. What weapon systems will fall within the scope of the talks or the type of arms control restrictions that will be produced, however, are questions that remain far from resolved.

The purpose of this article is to review the role FBS has played in the SALT negotiations and to address the problems likely to be encountered during the INF negotiations.

An Awkard Linkage

Although both the SALT I Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms and the SALT II Treaty refer, for example, to ICBM launchers in terms of range in excess of the shortest distance between the northeastern border of the continental United States (CONUS) and the northwestern border of the U.S.S.R., or a distance over 5500 km, Moscow has never been entirely satisfied with this definition in a generic sense. Rather, the Soviets understand strategic to include any weapon that can impact upon their territory. Thus, just as the U.S.S.R. pressed for removal of foreign military bases and the creation of nuclear-weapon-free zones during the era of massive retaliation, so too during the early period of SALT did it demand offsets for FBS by way of either U.S. withdrawal of the aircraft from Europe or vicarious compensation through being allowed a higher ceiling on strategic nuclear delivery vehicles than that permitted the United States.

Washington, naturally, found this approach totally unacceptable and countered that its nuclear-capable aircraft were intended primarily for the defense of Europe and not for strategic missions inside Soviet territory, and that if Moscow wished to raise that issue, then FBS could not be discussed in isolation from the Soviets’ own Eurostrategic forces. In response, Moscow claimed that its bombers and missiles targeted on NATO Europe were irrelevant because they could not reach the United States and, thus, were not strategic.

Although the debate was eventually resolved in favor of the U.S. position in the 20 May 1981 joint communiqué, as Thomas W. Wolfe notes: "the Soviet Union’s claim that it deserved compensation for ‘geographic and other considerations’ [FBS] . . . appears to have been taken partly into account in the differential ceilings of the Interim Agreement favoring the Soviet side of ICBM and SLBM numbers."² More specifically, as Joseph J. Kruzel, a member of the SALT I delegation, wrote in 1973: the FBS issue, "more than any other reason, is why there is an interim agreement rather than a permanent treaty on offensive forces."³

At SALT II, the Soviets again raised the FBS issue with proposals for the dismantling of U.S. fleet ballistic missile submarine bases at Holy Loch, Scotland, and Rota, Spain (the latter unilaterally deactivated in 1979—forfeiture of a potential bargaining chip?) and for restricting carrier movement in European waters while refusing to consider limits on Soviet theater nuclear forces. Intervention at the highest level during the 1974 Vladivostok summit set aside FBS for the second time, but, as before, not without substantial American concessions: FBS would be excluded from SALT II but at the price of the United States abandoning its quest for a cutback in Soviet heavy SS-9/SS-l8 ICBMs, which pose a growing threat to Minuteman, and constraints on the controversial Backfire medium bomber. Furthermore, FBS also figured in the decision to set the SALT II strategic nuclear delivery vehicles ceiling at 2400 instead of the 1800-2000 ceiling proposed by Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance in March 1977 as well as being used to defeat renewed attempts at that time to secure limits on the Soviet heavy ICBM arsenal.⁴

Thus, whereas the United States successfully barred FBS from both SALT agreements, certainly, in at least a tacit sense, a linkage was established between SALT and a few hundred United States Air Force and Navy fighter-bombers.⁵The caveat to this background connection, however, concerns a proposal explicitly offering an FBS package advanced by the West on 16 December 1975 at the NATO-Warsaw Pact negotiations on mutual and balanced force reductions in Vienna.

Known as Option III and occasioned by Dutch initiative and U.S. congressional concern over the rationale and security of the American nuclear munitions stockpiled overseas, the plan offered the withdrawal of 29,000 USAREUR troops and 36 Pershing I-A launchers, 54 Phantoms, and 1000 nuclear warheads (tied to obsolescent systems like Sergeant and Honest John SSMs, Nike Hercules SAM, and atomic demolition mines) in exchange for the withdrawal of a five-division tank army from the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (68,000 troops and 1700 tanks). But instead of acknowledging a tradeoff between armored strength (a Warsaw Pact advantage) and tactical/theater nukes (a NATO advantage in terms of warheads, although the vast majority are tied to systems of under 100-mile range), the Warsaw Pact responded in 1976 with an offer to trade 54 Fitter aircraft of unspecified type (the Soviets deployed at that time both the advanced C/D Su-l7/20 and older A Su-7 in Poland and the U.S.S.R.) for 54 Phantoms, an equal but unspecified number of Scud missiles for Pershing launchers, 36 SAM-2 for Nike Hercules, and the withdrawal of an unspecified number of nuclear warheads.

Although Option III was abandoned by NATO in December 1979 in favor of exclusive concentration on manpower reductions (both sides, however, subsequently undertook unilateral partial compliance with Option III’s provisions), it is illuminating by way of adumbration for the INF negotiations to note the inequities of the 1976 Warsaw Pact counteroffer. For example, although the Soviets did not specify which generation Fitter they contemplated withdrawing, neither the A nor C/D type is equivalent in capability to the Phantom. The Fitter A is a 20-year-old system, as is the F-4, but of inferior range and payload capacity. The Fitter C/D, introduced over 1973-76, has improved avionics and capability for low-level penetration and delivery of air-to-ground ordnance ⁶but falls short of the Phantom’s combat radius and payload capacity (a more appropriate match being the MiG-23/27 Flogger).⁷Because the Fitter A was being phased out as part of the Soviet Frontal Aviation modernization program, however, it is plausible that it was this type which the Soviets had in mind for arms control, thus rendering the gesture essentially meaningless.

To be sure, as Army Colonel John G. Keliher, former representative on the U.S. MBFR delegation, argues, regardless of which generation plane would be withdrawn, the geographic disparity could not but work in the Soviet’s favor: "Returning the 54 F-4’s to Europe would require a long over-water flight involving mid-air refueling. For the Soviets, Fitters based in western Russia could be back into the area literally in a matter of minutes."⁸ Of course, the same could be said of any U.S.-Soviet aircraft trade which involved withdrawal to the homeland, illustrating one of the formidable complications attendant on prospects for fashioning an INF regime encompassing FBS, to which we now turn.

Where to Begin

There can be no question that the Soviets will demand inclusion of FBS in an INF agreement. Although Moscow reportedly conceded to the American position that the Geneva negotiations should be phased (i.e., agreement secured on land-based intermediate-range missiles prior to discussing aircraft and shorter-range systems),⁹as Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko informed the United Nations General Assembly on 22 September 1981: ". . . the question of limiting medium-range nuclear weapons and those of corresponding forward-based systems of the United States should be examined and settled concurrently in an organic interrelation with due account of all factors determining the stragetic situation."^l0 In other words, the durability of a first phase INF agreement on Soviet SS-20s, SS-4s, and SS-5s, and U.S. Pershing II and cruise missiles will be directly tied to whether a satisfactory follow-on FBS agreement will obtain. And, as noted in the preceding section, even if the Europe-centered Geneva negotiations had never evolved, no SALT III (or, to employ the new bureaucratic acronym, START—Strategic Arms Reductions Talks) agreement could cover Soviet heavy ICBMs and the Backfire in isolation from FBS.¹¹ Yet prior to the fashioning of serious proposals, agreement on counting rules is obviously fundamental—but what touchstone should be used?

According to former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown,¹²USAF has 1000 aircraft apart from the B-52s that are capable of delivering nuclear weapons whereas the Navy maintains about 120 A-6 Intruders and 280 A-7 Corsairs as part of its carrier wings. Within the 1000 figure approximately 324 F-4s and 156 F-111s are based in Western Europe, and two carriers are normally on duty in the Mediterranean with a total of 20 Intruders and 40 Corsairs aboard. In addition, USAF F-l6s being deployed in Europe as of January 1982 will also contribute to the theater nuclear force posture. Although only about 30 to 50 percent of the Euro-based force is thought to be actually allocated to the nuclear role, ¹³ all could accomplish sorties against target areas in the Soviet Union in that role. Further, given appropriate warning, "additional USAF aircraft could fly to Europe and four more carriers could be brought forward. This would roughly double the number of nuclear capable aircraft forward based in a position to strike the Soviet Union."¹⁴Indeed, as part of the NATO 1978 Long-Term Defense Program, the United States is planning for the capability to triple the number of combat planes in the European theater within seven days and is moving forward with programs to provide shelter and support facilities for rapidly deploying tactical aircraft.¹⁵ Yet as Brown also noted:

While the Soviets are not very likely to accept these disclaimers with equanimity, an enormous quantitative gap is nevertheless apparent between U.S. and Soviet dual-capable aircraft at various levels. For example, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies,¹⁷ if the criterion is set at a 1000 km unrefueled combat radius assuming high-level transit, low-level penetration of air defenses, and average payload, a five-to-one ratio in favor of the Soviet Union obtains with the U.S. total at 176 (156 F-l11 E/F and 20 A-6E) and the Soviet total at 980 (65 Tu-22M/-26 Backfire B, 310 Tu-16 Badger, 125 Tu-22 Blinder, 480 Su-24 [Su-l9] Fencer). Including 84 F-111D and 60 FB-111A CONUS-based aircraft that might be assumed available to reinforce Europe, the U.S. total increases to 320. But if one sets the criterion at 400 km combat radius, then the Soviet total jumps to 3095 (adding 500 MiG-23 Flogger D, 700 Su-17 Fitter C/D, 165 Su-7 Fitter A, 750 MiG-2l Fishbed J-N) while the U.S. total, including the aforementioned CONUS-based aircraft, only increases to 684 (adding 40 A-7E and 324 F-4). Even when NATO European allied and French dual-capable aircraft are added, the ratio stands at 3095:1314 in favor of the Warsaw Pact. Given these numbers, coupled with the air defense advantage accruing to the Soviets (the NATO/Warsaw Pact ratio in field SAM launchers stands at 1768:6293 excluding the 10,000 SAM launchers of the Soviet strategic air defense force PVO-strany), even to suggest that parity can be achieved through negotiation would be absurd.

Combat radius, however, obviously does not afford ideal negotiating guidance, especially given the fact that shorter-range Soviet fighter-bombers could easily be deployed forward in East Germany or Poland and strike a wide target array on NATO soil and return to friendly territory while, for example, "the F-4 would have to be staged close to the FEBA, carry external fuel tanks and fly at an altitude which maximizes its range (in turn making it very vulnerable to intercept) to penetrate into the Soviet Union."¹⁸ Yet if one looks to other criteria, the imbalance in favor of the U.S.S.R. does not diminish. Comparing all Euro-based U.S., allied, and French dual-capable aircraft with comparable Soviet aircraft yields a warhead ratio of 263:122 favoring the U.S.S.R. in terms of arriving warheads (i.e., a measure obtained by factoring the number of available warheads [896:526 favoring the U.S.S.R.] and survivability, reliability, and penetration probabilities). And as Army Lieutenant General Edward L. Rowny informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 12 July 1979, a comparison of U.S. FBS with equivalent Soviet systems yields a Soviet potential destructive power ten times that of the United States and megatonnage 20-25 times as great.¹⁹

In addition, a complex verification issue manifests itself. How can it be discerned whether a given aircraft is actually allocated to the nuclear role or capable of loading nuclear ordnance within a short time frame? How are the munitions aboard aircraft with internal bomb bays to be verified? What of cruise missiles on external store points with either conventional or nuclear warheads? Certainly the SALT II technique of functionally related observable differences would be of only tangential avail in these cases, and declaratory measures are hardly the foundation for an enduring and stable agreement (or one that would withstand Senate scrutiny). Yet although the Reagan administration has apprised the Soviets that future arms control accords will require on-site inspection and other verification measures beyond "national technical means,"²⁰ Soviet President Brezhnev has stated, "We are convinced that each side’s own means guarantee the necessary verification."²¹

Lastly, it should also be observed that given the vast Soviet Frontal Aviation modernization program over the past decade, it is unlikely that Moscow will be willing to grant concessions that would even begin to restore the situation to some semblance of parity or appreciably mitigate the offensive orientation of its frontal aviation. The air threat to NATO Europe has drastically changed from one oriented primarily to air defense toward a posture indicating increasing all-weather, close air support, deep interdiction capabilities, enhanced payload capacity and payload versatility, and improved ECM and range. Indeed, roughly 80 percent of frontal aviation now consists of aircraft introduced over the past ten years. As Secretary Brown warned:

Although Brown noted that Soviet avionics, munitions, pilot training, and flying time do not approach U.S. requirements, this translates into an arms control qualifier about as smoothly as it engenders occasion for smugness. For as the International Institute for Strategic Studies observes, "the Warsaw Pact’s aircraft appear to be better able to survive and penetrate to their targets than NATO’s" given the facts "that Soviet aircraft are generally newer than NATO’s and that Pact air defences are somewhat denser."²³

On the other hand, "Combat performance of late model US aircraft, F-l4, F-15, and F-l6 is markedly superior to the Soviet Flogger, Fitter, and Fencer . . . ."²⁴ The General Dynamics F-16 is slated to serve in a theater nuclear role. Consideration should also be given to assigning a nuclear ground attack mission to the McDonnell Douglas night, all-weather F-15 Strike Eagle. As Lieutenant Colonel Hiram Hale Burr, Jr. (USAF), rightly suggests: ". . . the F-15 is a tremendous air superiority fighter and at present is assigned only this single mission . . . . Why not buy the bomb racks and air-to-surface munitions and train the pilots for the multi-mission capability the F-l5s inherently possess?"²⁵ Presumably the McDonnell Douglas multimission F/A-18 Hornet will inherit the nuclear strike mission of the Navy A-7E it has been developed to replace.

It should also be noted that the projected force of 572 Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles, with late 1983 initial operational capability, may allow some dual-capable aircraft to be released from early commitment to the nuclear reserve for conventional missions. The GLCMs in particular could assume the fixed targets assigned presently to aircraft so that more aircraft could be used against high priority, time sensitive mobile targets and thus enhance the operational flexibility of the FBS posture.²⁶It must be stressed, however, that deployment of these missiles will not redress the overall INF imbalance favoring the U.S.S.R. in the absence of additional NATO defense and arms control initiatives.

Prospects

Upon reflection, the following exchange at a congressional hearing succinctly sums up the forward-based system problem:

Because the INF negotiations have begun, the United States can no longer "recoil," yet given the numerical imbalance between U.S. and Soviet dual-capable aircraft, the geographic asymmetry, and verification impediments, a "manageable" solution is not readily conceivable. However, a comprehensive result is probably not desired at least in the initial phases. Therefore, a follow-on accord to a settlement of the politically sensitive issue of intermediate-range land-based missiles might deal only with bombers rather than attempt to cover shorter-range tactical aircraft. For example, according to the data that the U.S. negotiators apparently are using in Geneva,²⁸an agreement which covered U.S. F-111s is in Britain and West Germany, CONUS-based FB-111s and F-111s, British Vulcan and French Mirage IV bombers, and Soviet Backfires, Badgers, and Blinders would yield almost identical ceilings of approximately 400 aircraft for each side. Although London and Paris are not participating in the negotiations, the Soviets count British and French nuclear forces and allied nuclear-capable delivery vehicles (West German Pershing I short-range ballistic missiles) to support their claim that an overall INF balance exists and are likely to insist that they be applied toward the American total. Although objections might be raised to including CONUS-based aircraft, in principle inclusion of these aircraft is akin to what the United States is asking of the Soviets in connection with a Phase I intermediate-range nuclear forces agreement, that is, coverage of Soviet SS-20 missiles based in the Far East targeted on the People’s Republic of China.²⁹Moreover, since the FB-111 and F-111 were excluded from SALT, it is only logical that they are appropriate candidates for the INF negotiations. This rough balance, however, is dramatically upset when the Su-24. Fencer, which has a combat radius only 300 km less than that of the F 111E/F and equal to the Mirage IV A, is added. If the Fencer is excluded, then some form of compensation should be granted to the United States in another area of the agreement such as land- or sea-based forces.

But farther down the combat-radius scale, ceilings do become increasingly unmanageable and the role of potential aircraft candidates for arms control more ambiguous. It would not prove impossible to imagine the sundry sources of casuistry and deadlock that could arise between (and within) the two delegations. Indeed, it is informative to note in this context that although the Soviets consider U.S. F-111s, FB-111s, F-4s, A-6s, and A-7s all eligible for the Geneva negotiations, their own estimates of their forces include only the bombers mentioned above while excluding the almost 3000 Su-17s, Su-24s, and MiG-27s,³⁰ which obviously is not only a position the United States cannot tolerate but one that casts doubt on whether either side seriously expects the Geneva negotiations to produce agreement across the entire theater nuclear force spectrum.

However, an agreement that exempted tactical aircraft, especially Soviet Frontal Aviation units, would at once prove artificial and inconsonant with other positions the United States has advanced in Geneva. For example, American officials have stated that subsequent agreements must include "collateral restraints" prohibiting increases in the number (and presumably range) of shorter-range Soviet missiles (SS-12, SS-22, SS-N-5) which could, if deployed in and around Eastern Europe, cover a large percentage of targets now covered by the intermediate-range SS-20, SS-4, and SS-5. Otherwise, as Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle stated, an agreement on the latter systems would be "Hopelessly vulnerable to circumvention."³¹ Likewise, the Soviets could argue that American plans to deploy several hundred sea-launched cruise missiles on attack submarines³²and possibly surface units for the U.S. central strategic reserve would circumvent an agreement on ground-launched cruise missiles since those missile platforms will be operating near Soviet territorial waters (and this argument can be used against the Soviets as well in relation to U.S.S.R. cruise-missile submarines and cruisers). By applying this same rationale to aircraft, it could also be said that excluding Soviet shorter-range aircraft would invite circumvention of an accord limiting Backfire and older medium-range bombers since tactical MiGs and Sukhois could be forward-based on short notice near NATO borders and cover targets assigned to bombers based in the U.S.S.R.

One possible solution worth examining would involve not negotiated ceilings, even though no arms control accord can be exactly symmetrical but restricted-deployment zones wherein the basing of certain tactical aircraft would either be forbidden or constrained at a certain level on a permanent or rotational basis. Movement of prohibited aircraft into the zone would justify immediate suppression and automatically give warning of impending aggression. Restrictions on ordnance, nuclear munitions storage sites, forward maintenance facilities, and fuel stocks, among other things, would complicate an aggressor’s task, while on-site inspection at airfields could assist in verifying compliance.³³ Although RDZs would not affect the size or ultimate capability of air forces in the same sense reductions, mothballing, and dismantling would, and possibly hamper conventional readiness unless high-confidence verification could be agreed on to distinguish nuclear-assigned from conventionally assigned aircraft—and probably neither side would prove unequivocally eager to allow intrusive inspection—such zones avoid the arcane technical dilemmas associated with quantitative/qualitative tradeoffs.

In the final analysis, however, the United States cannot expect the Kremlin to adopt a philanthropic attitude, and neither side at the INF rounds will have available to it the dilatory tactics that affected the SALT I / II negotiations. Thus, serious thought must be devoted to examining modifications necessary to revitalize the FBS posture so that potential inducements for Soviet concessions are not unilaterally forfeited and so that inflated expectations of the role arms control can play in restraining widely disparate force compositions do not defeat vigorous defense efforts to preserve and enhance the viability of the NATO theater nuclear force posture. Especially in an era that has witnessed an evolution from capabilities limited to mutual assured destruction to increased emphasis on counterforce, it is not at all evident how the deterrence continuum can remain vital and credible given a significant quantitative inferiority in the crucial theater component as well as a narrowing technological gap. As the Geneva negotiations proceed, a spirit of constructive negotiation will be as important as adherence to the realistic principle that "our arms control efforts will be an instrument of, not a replacement for, a coherent allied security policy."³⁴

I am indebted to Julie Shimel for her invaluable assistance in the prepartion of this manuscript.

J. B.

1. Lieutenant General Edward L. Rowny, former Joint Chiefs of Staff SALT representative and current Chief U.S. Negotiator for Arms Control and Disarmament, testified that FBS is actually a Soviet-inspired designation. "In fact, we used to use another term which never got much currency: ‘AROS’ [allied regional operational systems]. Somehow FBS caught on because people listened to the Soviet argument more than to ours." U.S., Congress, Senate, The SALT II Treaty, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, 9-12 July 1979, Part I (Washington: GPO, 1979), p. 551.

2. Thomas W. Wolfe, The SALT Experience, a RAND Corporation Research Study (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger, 1979), p. 102.

3. Joseph Kruzel, "SALT II: The Search for a Follow-on Agreement," Orbis, Summer 1973, p. 344.

4. Strobe Talbott, Endgame: The Inside Story of SALT II (New York: Harper Colophon, 1980), p. 72.

5. ". . . to suggest that the Soviet Union made a concession to exclude forward-based systems is ludicrous because we have excluded all those vastly superior [Soviet] systems." Statement by General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., U.S., Congress, Senate, Military Implications of the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms and Protocol Thereto (SALT II Treaty), Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 23-26 July 1979, Part 1 (Washington: GPO, 1979), p. 383.

6. Statement of Rear Admiral Albert L. Kelln, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1981, U.S., Congress, Senate, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 4-6, 11, 13, 14, 18 March; 22 April; 5 June, 1980, Part 4 (Washington: GPO, 1980), p. 1935.

8. John G. Keliher, The Negotiations on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions: The Search for Arms Control in Central Europe (New York: Pergamon, 1980), p. 102.

9. "Schmidt Again Defends Plan to Deploy New Missiles in ‘83," New York Times, December 4, 1981, p. 6.

10. "Excerpts from Speech by Gromyko to the U.N.," New York Times, September 23, 1981, p. 6. Emphasis added. On 10 February 1982, the Soviet news agency TASS published an outline of the Soviet position at Geneva. The TASS article stated that the U.S.S.R. had proposed a two-thirds reduction of INF by 1990, covering not only U.S. FBS but British and French missiles and aircraft. John F. Burns, "Soviet Publishes an Outline for Missile Cuts in Europe," New York Times, February 10, 1982, p. 6. This position has been rejected by the Reagan administration, which instead has advanced the "zero option" plan offering cancellation of Pershing II/GLCM deployment if the Soviets dismantle all SS-4, SS-5, and SS-20 missiles.

11. Office of the Secretary of Defense, mimeo, undated (Ca. 1980), p. 5. My thanks to Walter Slocombe for providing these materials.

12. Statement of Harold Brown, U.S., Congress, Senate, Military Implications of the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms and Protocol Thereto (SALT II Treaty), Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 23-26 July 1979, Part I (Washington: GPO, 1979), p. 96.

15. Harold Brown, DOD Annual Report Fiscal Year 1981 (Washington: GPO, 1980), p. 110.

16. Brown, U.S., Congress, Senate, Military Implications of the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms and Protocol Thereto (SALT II Treaty), Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 23-26 July 1979, Part I (Washington: GPO, 1979).

17. Data derived from The Military Balance 1981-1982. Differing estimates exist, however, not only between United States and Soviet negotiators but in Western estimates as well. See Drew Middleton, "Scope of Negotiations Likely to Be a Major Early Issue," New York Times, November 30, 1981, pp. 1,8; Flora Lewis, "A Start on the Nukes," New York Times, December 28, 1981, p. 19. Unless otherwise noted, all figures are taken from The Military Balance.

18. Brown, U.S., Congress, Senate, Military Implications of the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms and Protocol Thereto (SALT II Treaty), Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 23-26 July 1979, Part I (Washington: GPO, 1979).

20. Leslie H. Gelb, "U.S. Tells Soviet Any Arms Pacts Must Include On-Site Verification," New York Times, September 2, 1981, p. 1.

21. "Excerpts from Brezhnev’s Answers to a German Magazine," New York Times, November 4, 1981, p. 6. Emphasis added.

22. Brown, U.S., Congress, Senate, Military Implications of the Treaty on the Limitations of Strategic Offensive Arms and Protocol Thereto (SALT II Treaty), Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 23-25 July 1979, Part I (Washington: GPO, 1979), p. 103. Emphasis added.

25. "The Modernization of Soviet Frontal Aviation: What Does It Mean?" Air University Review, January-February 1981, p. 33.

26. See for example Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States Military Posture for FY 1982, A Supplement to the Chairman’s Overview (Washington: GPO, 1981), p. 77. Of course, in view of the Soviet air threat, it cannot be taken for granted that diminishing the level of Quick Reaction Alert aircraft to free them for conventional missions will permit NATO the luxury of later "conserving" returning aircraft for a possible nuclear role. The effectiveness of second-strike-capable cruise missiles, further, naturally will depend on their being deployed in sufficiently large numbers and in a survivable basing-mode to saturate defenses. Only 108 Pershing II missiles, with a first-strike capability, are planned. See Lieutenant Colonel Richard L. Hodgkinson, "USAF and Theater Nuclear Warfare: A Proposal," Air University Review, September-October 1981, pp. 89-93, and the response by Lieutenant Colonels Donald J. Alberts and Thomas A. Cardwell, pp. 93-97.

29. In this regard consider the formulation of the 10 February 1982 Soviet proposal (cited in note 10): the agreement would cover all systems with a combat radius of 620 miles and over "deployed in the territory of Europe and in the adjacent waters or intended for use in Europe." Under this wording, the Soviets could argue the SS-20s targeted on the Far East are not intended for use in Europe but claim that CONUS-based U.S. aircraft are intended for such use.

32.As announced on 2 October 1981 by President Reagan. Richard Halloran, "Reagan Drops Mobile MX Plan, Urges Basing Missiles in Silos; Proposes Building B-1 Bomber," New York Times, October 3, 1981, pp. 1, 9.

33. See especially Jonathan Alford, "Confidence-Building Measures," in Jonathan Alford, editor, The Future of Arms Control: Part III, Confidence-Building Measures, Adelphi Paper no. 149 (London: IISS, 1979), pp. 10-11.

34."Arms Control for the 1980’s: An American Policy," Address by Secretary Haig before the Foreign Policy Association in New York on 14 July 1981, Current Policy no. 292 (Washington: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, 1981), p. 2.

John Borawski (B.A., Duke University), a former research assistant at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, is a third-year law student at Washington University in Saint Louis. His articles and commentaries have appeared in Orbis, The Washington Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, Survival, Parameters, and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

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.