Abstract
In Chapter 10, we explored the possibility that strategic innovation might, as it has in the past, compensate for the impending collapse of extended deterrence. In this chapter, we will study new technologies to determine whether they might enable the US to maintain its extended commitments in light of the strategic developments discussed in Chapter 7 and the operation of the ‘theorem’ introduced in Chapter 8.
Sappi che non son torri, ma giganti, e son nel pozzo intorno da la ripa da l’umbilico in giuso tutti quanti.
(Know that they are not towers, but giants, and that they are every one in the pit, round its banks, from the navel downward.)
Canto XXXI, Inferno
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Notes and References
J. R. Schlesinger, The Theatre Nuclear Force Posture in Europe, A Report to the United States Congress in Compliance with Public Law 93–365, 1 July 1975; see also James A. Thomson, ‘Nuclear Weapons in Europe: Planning for NATO’s Nuclear Deterrent in the 1980s and 1990s’, Survival 25 (May-June 1983), pp. 101–2.
D. R. Cotter, J. H. Hansen and K. McConnell, The Nuclear Balance in Europe: Status, Trends and Implications, USSI Report 83–1 (Washington: United States Strategic Institute, 1983), p. 29.
N. Polmar, Strategic Weapons: An Introduction (New York: Crane, Russak, 1982) pp. 97–101
H. Scoville, Jr, MX: Prescription for Disaster (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981), p. 14; other accounts have estimated the range to be as great as 8000 miles, Leslie Gelb, ‘As a Bargaining Chip, MX May Be No Bargain For the Soviets’, New York Times 24 April 1983, p. E1.
Basing in existing Minutemen silos was endorsed by the US Senate, following a similar approval by the US House of Representatives one week earlier, on 26 July 1983. ‘Senate vote OKs MX construction, despite criticism’, Daily Texan, 27 July 1983, p. 1; see also, US Congress, Congressional Budget Office, The MX Missile and Multiple Protective Structure Basing — Long Term Budgetary Implications (Washington: GPO, June 1979). Congress has appropriated funds for 50 MX with the proviso that no further funds will be forthcoming unless a more secure basing mode is used.
R. Jeffrey Smith, ‘Another In a Series of Counterforce Weapons,’ Science 216 (7 May 1982) p. 598
see also R. C. Aldridge, The Counterforce Syndrome: A Guide to US Nuclear Weapons and Strategic Doctrine (Washington: Institute for Policy Studies, 1978), p. 38.
Robert Sherman, ‘A Manual of Missile Capability’, AIR FORCE, February 1977, pp. 37–8
Lynn E. Davis and Warner Schilling, ‘All you ever wanted to know about MIRV and ICBM calculations, but were not cleared to ask’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 17 (June 1973).
G. Smith, Doubletalk, The Story of SALT I (New York: Doubleday, 1980), p. 504.
See the excellent account in S. Talbot, Endgame: The Inside Story of SALT II (New York: Harper & Row, 1979).
Michael Getler and Robert Kaiser, ‘Intelligence Estimate Said To Show Need for SALT’, Washington Post 31 January 1980, p. 1, reporting on the 1979 US National Intelligence Estimates, NIE 11–8–79, Soviet Strategic Offensive Forces.
See e.g., Christopher Paine, ‘Running in Circles with the MX’ The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 37 (December 1981), p. 5
Herbert Scoville ‘First Strike’, New York Times, 8 October 1981, p. A27
Stephen S. Rosenfeld, ‘The Other Half of the MX Debate’, Washington Post, 9 October 1981, p. A31.
Quoted in Gelb, ‘As a Bargaining Chip, MX May Be No Bargain for the Soviets’ New York Times 24 April 1983, p. 1E.
John C. Toomay, ‘Technical Characteristics’, in Cruise Missiles: Technology, Strategy and Politics, R. K. Betts (ed.), (Washington: Brookings, 1981), pp. 31–5. Subsequent references to articles drawn from this collection will be referred to as Betts (ed.), Cruise Missiles.
For a good, general summary of cruise missile technology see Kosta Tsipis, ‘Cruise Missiles’ in B. M. Russett and B. G. Blair (eds) Progress in Arms Control? (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1979), pp. 171–80.
Ron Huisken, ‘The History of Modern Cruise Missile Programs’ in Betts (ed.), Cruise Missiles, p. 83; see also R. Huisken, The Origin of the Strategic Cruise Missile (New York: Praeger, 1981). The account offered here is drawn principally from these sources.
Fiscal Year 1974 Authorization for Military Procurement, Research and Development, Construction Authorization for the Safeguard ABM, and Active Duty and Selected Reserve Strengths, Hearings before the Senate Committee on Armed Service, 93rd Congress, 1st Session (Washington: GPO, 1973), part 2, pp. 1026, 1171–2; see also Henry D. Levine, ‘Some Things to All Men: The Politics of Cruise Missile Development’, Public Policy 5 (Winter 1977), pp. 117–68.
For a discussion of the standoff and penetrating bomber alternatives, see G. K. Burke, ‘A Case for the Manned Penetrating Bomber,’ Air University Review 28 (July/August 1977), pp. 15–26.
A. A. Tinajero, ‘Cruise Missiles (subsonic): US Programs’, IB 76018 (Washington: Congressional Research Service, 1976), p. 19.
A. H. Quanbeck and A. L. Wood, Modernizing The Strategic Bomber Force: Why and How (Washington: Brookings, 1976).
John Rhea, ‘Tomahawk and ALCM: Cruise Missile Decision Pending’, Sea Power (December 1976), p. 26.
Stanley Hoffmann, ‘NATO and Nuclear Weapons: Reasons and Unreason’, Foreign Affairs 60 (Winter 1981–2), p. 336.
Statement of Rear Admiral William A. Williams III, Director, Strategic and Theatre Nuclear Warfare Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, before the Subcommittee on Strategic and Theatre Nuclear Forces, Senate Armed Services Committee 3 October 1981, quoted in Joel S. Wit, ‘American SLBM: Counterforce Options and Strategic Implications,’ Survival 24 (July/August 1982), p. 163.
US Congress, Senate Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1981, part 6, Research and Development (Washington: GPO, 1980), p. 3514.
US Congress, Senate Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriation for Fiscal Year 1982, part 7, 97th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington: GPO, 1981), p. 4026.
J. R. Schlesinger, US Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, US-USSR Strategic Policies (Washington: GPO, 1974), p. 37.
See Polmar, Strategic Weapons pp. 63–6; for the history of British policymaking regarding its strategic forces and the rationale behind a reliance on SLBMs, see L. Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (London: Macmillan, 1980), and Lawrence Freedman, ‘The Rationale for Medium-Sized Deterrence Forces’, in The Future of Strategic Deterrence p. 50.
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© 1988 Philip Bobbitt
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Bobbitt, P. (1988). Alternative Nuclear Weapons Technologies. In: Democracy and Deterrence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18991-5_11
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