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Reykjavik and Beyond Deep Reductions in Strategic Nuclear Arsenals and the Future Direction of Arms Control (1988) / Chapter Skim
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4. The Impact of New Technologies and Noncentral Systems of Offensive Reduction Regimes
Pages 27-33

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From page 27...
... The Matador, as it was called, was about two or three times the gross weight of the present cruise missile and had less than two-thirds the range. Technological improvements, mainly in the warhead and guidance accuracy, allowed cruise missiles to shrink, become more highly proliferated, and harder to verify all characteristics that we have referred to during this seminar.
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From page 28...
... When we use the loose term "strategic defense," people immediately think of an ABM system and, more particularly these days, of the space-based ABM system; but in fact, there is a very large and expensive system of air defenses in the Soviet Union. These air defenses comprise thousands upon thousands of surface-to-air missile launchers and thousands of interceptors and all the racier equipment.
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From page 29...
... If you go to shrinking down to smaller and smaller numbers, the so-called ragged attack, it would matter or could matter—because certain selected targets could be protected. There are certain possibilities that people argue about: unanticipated technical advances in submarine detection; anticipated improvements in guidance accuracy, with the result that hard silos could be destroyed even with nonnuclear warheads; failure ofthe ballistic missile warning system on which the bombers depend.
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From page 30...
... Thus, when we talk about 3,000 warheads, we are actually down to 1,500 that would be available for retaliation. As one gets down to those levels, we may be talking about having the entire ballistic missile submarine force consist of about six to eight submarines, of which three to six might actually be out on patrol at any given time.
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From page 31...
... Space launchers thus are another worry, and here there is an asymmetry between ourselves and the Soviet Union. Some people say that the Soviet space program is better and bigger than ours because they have 100 launches per year to our 10 or 12.
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From page 32...
... It is really quite important to recognize some of these factors as we move in the direction of deep cuts in strategic offensive forces. Because of the relatively small numbers of launch platforms that may be involved as we go to 3,000 warheads and below, we really have to consider modifying our launch platform concepts.
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From page 33...
... One final point: I want to comment that I am not unmindful of the problems of third-country forces. I deliberately excluded them as a limiting factor because ~ think some of these other things will come into play even before the third-country forces.
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Key Terms

  • ballistic missiles
  • ballistic missile
  • guidance accuracy
  • air defenses
  • technological improvements

  • space launchers
  • missile defenses
  • structural composite
  • structural weight
  • soviet space

  • limitation treaty
  • practically carries
  • racier equipment
  • people argue
  • antiship missile

  • transport aircraft
  • shorter range
  • missile warning
  • modern cruise
  • launch platforms

  • complicated ant
  • extracting cruise
  • reentry vehicle
  • conventional warhead
  • defense robert

  • intrusive relationship
  • offensive forces
  • bombers depend
  • highly proliferated
  • advanced structural


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