Bush’s Faustian Deal On Mobile Missiles

The White House has just announced that the Bush Administration has struck a bargain with Senator Sam Nunn, Congressman Les Aspin and others concerning mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. In broad outline, the deal involves the following:

 

• The executive branch will agree to find almost 1 billion additional defense dollars to invest in the development of the Midgetman ICBM over the next four years.

 

• Congress is supposed to agree that it will approve the Administration’s funding request for both a rail-mobile version of the MX and a road-mobile Midgetman missile.

 

• Once that is done, the Administration will abandon President Reagan’s proposal in the draft START treaty which calls for a complete ban on such mobile systems, offering instead schemes for constraining permitted numbers of mobiles and for verifying such limitations.

Each of the component parts of this deal are transparently flawed. What is worse, the sum of the parts is a political compromise that makes no sense fiscally, strategically or in terms of prudent arms control.

The Mobile Missile Plan is Politically Problematic:

Serious analysts of the current budget cycle recognize that there is little likelihood of both the two mobile missile programs sought by the Bush Administration actually being approved by Congress. There are even serious suggestions that neither the MX nor the Midgetman can muster the necessary support to field them in, respectively, rail- or road-mobile configurations.

A coalition of liberal and conservative members of Congress has begun to take shape, forged for the purpose of terminating the investment of upwards of $25 billion in the Midgetman system. Some who fancy that program have threatened to retaliate by denying the more modest $5 billion required to put the 50 MX missiles now deployed in fixed silos into specially-configured rail cars.

The most optimistic assessment is that the two missile program can somehow squeak through one more year. As Congressman Nicholas Mavroules put it: "I think we ought to give the president some assurance [on funding for both missiles] for this year and this year only." It is naive to believe — the serious strategic and arms control shortcomings of this program aside — that the $1.3 billion requested for the two weapon systems this year will amount to other than money poured into a black hole. Budget realities and mounting (although entirely predictable) unease about the political costs of actually deploying mobile ICBMs in the continental United States make it virtually certain that the even larger amounts needed next year and beyond will not be forthcoming.

The Mobile Missile Plan is of Dubious Strategic Value:

It is inconceivable that the United States can operate mobile ICBMs — either rail-based or road-mobile — in a manner comparable to those of the Soviet Union. The Soviet SS-24 (a ten-warheaded ballistic missile capable of being launched from railroad cars and fixed silos) and SS-25 (intercontinental variant of the intermediate range SS-20, currently assessed to be equipped with one warhead) are deployed in ways that take full advantage of the barrenness and enormity of the Soviet land-mass, and the absolute priority enjoyed by the military in that society. They are frequently exercised, involving widespread dispersal — usually employing an array of concealment and deception practices designed to maximize their survivability by confounding U.S. monitoring and targeting capabilities.

By contrast, American mobile missiles — if they can be deployed at all — seem certain to be constrained operationally in ways that will impinge upon (if not eliminate) the benefits that ostensibly attend their mobility. For example, the Air Force plans to deploy the rail-mobile MX’s on Air Force bases from which they would be dispersed in times of crisis or conflict. Unless and until they are dispersed, these missiles would be even softer targets than they would if left in their present silo launchers. They simply could not escape the operating bases in the event of a surprise attack. It is even a debatable point whether the nation’s political leadership would be willing, in a time of escalating tensions — but before warning of an actual attack, to disperse the MX force onto the rail network. The paralyzing fear would almost certainly be that such an action would be interpreted by the Soviets as an indication of threatening intent on our part.

Similarly, Midgetman may have its own survivability problems. Cost considerations will probably preclude the dispersal of significant numbers of these single-warheaded missiles in a day-to-day or "alert" posture. Those not so dispersed will be readily targetable. Those that arespetznaz) or other means may represent too inconsequential a military capability to deter such a Soviet attack in the first place. dispersed may also be susceptible to attack or disabling, given the unique security environment that applies in most of the United States, even on large and generally desolate military reservations. Moreover, the numbers of such warheads borne by surviving Midgetman missiles following an attack against this force by nuclear weapons, special forces (

In other words, under any foreseeable circumstances, U.S. investment in an effort to mimic Soviet mobile missile programs is unlikely to produce strategic benefits commensurate with the cost in defense resources. An alternative approach, featuring preferential defense of austere silos between which missiles might be transported using the "carry-hard" technology, is more likely to produce the required survivability at an affordable cost.

The Mobile Missile Plan is a Formula for an Arms Control Disaster:

The Bush Administration and Congressional supporters of its mobile missile plan have set the stage for a rout in the arms control negotiations. The Soviets have been put on notice that the United States is not serious about its current proposal in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks which calls for a complete ban on such missiles. Evidently, in exchange for what have proven in the past to be utterly ephemeral congressional commitments to provide funds for MX and Midgetman (as far as can be determined at present, the duration of this commitment is not even specified!), the Administration has promised that it will, instead, introduce a proposal for limits on mobile ICBMs.

Unfortunately, there is simply no way to verify such limitations. As the Reagan-Bush Administration stressed in its defense of the INF Treaty (which prohibited the testing, development, production and deployment of intermediate-range mobile missiles), a complete ban was essential to a verifiable accord governing mobiles. This is every bit as true of intercontinental-range mobile missiles.

Over the years, a variety of possible solutions to this intractable verification conundrum have been considered and found wanting: on-site inspections, perimeter-portal monitoring, operational constraints, tagging, etc. have all proven inadequate to the task of deterring Soviet cheating and, should the USSR opt to do so, of reliably detecting it.

What is more, were mobile missiles to be permitted under START, militarily significant Soviet cheating would be greatly simplified. Mobile launchers enable non-deployed and/or covertly stockpiled missiles to be utilized rapidly and with a minimum of discernable preparations. Sufficient Soviet capability could be retained under any identified limitation scenario to permit the USSR to minimize — if not largely offset — the strategic effect of reductions stipulated by a START treaty.

Conclusion:

In short, the Bush Administration’s decision to acquiesce to congressional and other demands for development and deployment of mobile MX and Midgetman missiles — despite the obvious pitfalls such an approach entails — amounts to a Faustian deal that will: 1) divert and ultimately squander vital defense resources; 2) oblige the United States to abandon the only sensible arrangement for constraining mobile ICBMs in the context of a deep reductions accord; and invite and facilitate Soviet cheating on such a START agreement.

The manner in which the Administration decided to enter into this understanding with mobile missile enthusiasts in Congress is also deeply troubling. This specific details of the deal were agreed without thorough interagency review. To the contrary, the Administration had, only a short time before, agreed on instructions to the START negotiating team that validated the position calling for a ban on mobile missiles. Following as it does on the heels of hasty and ill-considered decisions on short-range nuclear forces and conventional arms control in the context of the NATO summit, this action suggests that President Bush will increasingly be approaching the tough and technically complex issues of contemporary weaponry and arms control without the benefit of adequate inputs from competent governmental experts. Too often in the past, as at the Reykjavik summit, such an approach has proven to be a highly risky one for U.S. interests.

It is time for those who consider themselves "serious" about arms control and responsible about national security to recognize the new deal on mobile missiles for what it is: an impermanent marriage of convenience that will make effective strategic arms reductions even more problematic and preclude steps urgently needed to provide for the common defense. Resources should be applied differently, namely to development and deployment of effective strategic defenses and to less ambitious ICBM modernization programs — programs that are compatible both with U.S. deterrent requirements and with verifiable arms control agreements, if such agreements can be negotiated.