Abstract
SALT is a political dialogue not only about how many and what kinds of weapons each superpower will have to deter the other, but also about the forces each would have if deterrence should fail. Both the United States and the Soviet Union reject initiation of nuclear war by a surprise attack “out of the blue” as an instrument of national policy. Both expect that if nuclear war occurs, it will arise out of a crisis. At the same time, each superpower suspects the other of harboring dark designs for a surprise attack should the circumstances appear propitious or if some desperate and reckless leader should come to power. In all cases, the “bottom line” is how each superpower proposes to “lay down” its weapons: What targets are to be attacked? What degree of damage is to be inflicted? What are the politico-military objectives, if any, of strategic nuclear strikes once deterrence has failed for whatever reason?
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Notes
Current U.S. MIRVed ICBMs and SLBMs are not effective against hard targets by design. For example, the current Poseidon missile does not have a stellar update component in the guidance system, which would have made it much more accurate. As currently proposed, the MX ICBM will have the combination of accuracy and yield required to attack missile silos. Whether similar proposals will be made for future SLBM designs remains to be seen.
Cited in Raymond L. Garthoff, Soviet Strategy in the Nuclear Age (New York: Praeger, 1958), p. 72.
Ibid., pp. 72–73; italics apparently in the original Russian language source.
Voennaia strategiia (Moscow, 1962), repeated on p. 235 of the 3rd ed. (1968).
Ibid., 3rd ed., p. 255.
Nedeliia, no. 36 (September 1967).
“Maximum-fatality” targeting is an optimization routine that maximizes the fatalities inflicted by the Nth weapon. Such optimization routines are feasible for computer simulations, usually described as “analysis,” but are difficult to execute with missiles or aircraft actually deployed on either side. United States proponents of the “mutual-assured-destruction” (MAD) strategy usually have used the results of “maximum-fatality” computer simulations to show the outcome of the strategy in terms of the population losses on both sides.
General of the Army S. P. Ivanov, “Soviet Military Doctrine and Strategy,” Military Thought, no. 5, 1969 (FPD no. 0116/69):47; italics added. For a more recent statement of these principles, except for the reference to the overseas adversary, see General N. A. Lomov (chief editor), Nauchno-tekhnicheskii progress i revoliutsia v voennom dele (Moscow, 1973), pp. 138–39. Lomov’s book is written by a collective of line military officers and military commissars and is the latest volume in the Officers’ Library Series.
Unfortunately, all references to the declassified issues of Military Thought are to U.S. translations because the originals were not available. Even the translations are difficult to acquire.
Ivanov, “Military Doctrine and Strategy,” p. 48. (See note 9.) Soviet military writers routinely reference this statement by Brezhnev, like earlier statements by Khrushchev, as the political guidance for seeking “victory” in a nuclear war.
Rear Admiral V. Andreyev, “The Subdivision and Classification of Theaters of Military Operations,” Military Thought, no. 11, 1964 (FPD no. 924, June 30, 1965):15. The acronym TVD used for convenience here is a transliteration of the Cyrillic letters. Translated, the acronym is TMO.
Ibid.
Colonel M. Shirokov, “Military Geography at the Present Stage,” Military Thought (FDD no. 0730/67, no. 11, 1966):57.
General, Lieutenant G. Semenov and General Major V. Prokhorov, “Scientific-Technical Progress and Some Questions on Strategy,” Military Thought, no. 2, February 1969 (FPD no. 60/69, June 18, 1969):23; italics added.
Shirokov, “Military Geography,” p. 59; italics added.
Colonel M. Shirokov, “The Question of Geographic Influences on the Military and Economic Potential of Warring States,” Military Thought, no. 4, April 1968 (FPD 0052/69):36.
Ibid., p. 34.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 37–40.
Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 280–83.
Ibid., pp. 278–79, for Speer’s observations not only on the ten thousand antiaircraft guns and hundreds of thousands of troops assigned to defending German cities, but also on the consequences of air defense demands on German electronic and optical industries.
Shirokov, “Geographic Influences,” p. 38.
Ibid., p. 39.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 36. None of this is to argue that the Soviets have not considered the alternative of targeting cities and population, nor is it to argue that no senior Soviet officers have proposed such targeting. The Soviets may well have considered such alternatives but do not seem to have adopted them.
As the Soviet leaders frankly said to the Yugoslays: It is also necessary to emphasize that the services of the French and Italian CPs to the revolution were not lesser but greater than those of Yugoslavia. Even though the French and Italian CPs have so far achieved less success than the CPY, this is not due to any special qualities of the CPY, but mainly because after the destruction of the Yugoslav Partisan Headquarters by German paratroopers, at a moment when the people’s liberation movement in Yugoslavia was passing through a serious crisis, the Soviet Army came to the aid of the Yugoslav people, crushed the German invader, liberated Belgrade and in this way created the conditions which were necessary to the CPY to achieve power. Unfortunately, the Soviet army did not and could not render such assistance to the French and Italian CPs. [The Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute (Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1948), p. 51]
This frank statement of what happened in Eastern Europe and, implicitly, what the Soviets would have done for Western Europe had they had the opportunity should not be dismissed as obsolete Stalinist rhetoric. Even today, the Soviets say essentially the same thing more subtly when they credit World War II with creating the “world socialist system”. And as the postwar history of Hungary and Czechoslovakia has shown, the Red Army is prepared to “liberate” Eastern Europe more than once.
Colonel Ye. Rybkin, “XXV S’ezd KPSS i problema mirnogo sosushchestvovaniia sotsializma i kapitalizma,” Voenno-Istoricheskiy Zhurnal, no. 1 (1977):3, 4.
For the typical Soviet view, expressed by another articulate military commissar, that nuclear weapons are instruments of political policy like any other weapon, see Colonel S. Tiushkevich, “Razvitie ucheniia o voine i armii na opyte Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny,” Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, no. 22 (1975):14. Tiushkevich writes: “The premise of Marxism-Leninism on war as a continuation of policy by military means remains true in a situation of fundamental changes in military affairs. The attempt of certain bourgeois ideologists to prove that nuclear missile weapons lead war outside the framework of policy and that nuclear war moves beyond the control of policy, outside the framework of policy, ceases to be an instrument of policy and does not constitute its continuation, is theoretically incorrect and politically reactionary.”
Shirokov, “Military Geography,” pp. 59, 60; italics added.
In Lomov, Nauchno-teknichestii progress, p. 139, the alternative objectives of nuclear targeting are given as “annihilation, destruction, neutralization,” distinctions also found in Military Thought articles. The nature of the target probably determines the degree of damage in most cases. Thus, missiles in silos, or nuclear weapons in storage, must be annihilated or destroyed, but airfield runways do not have to be cratered as long as the aircrafts are rendered inoperable and their crews killed. On the other hand, targets to be neutralized in one theater could be destroyed in another depending on the politico-military objectives of operations in the various TVDs.
Marshal S. A. Krasovskiy, ed., Aviatsiia i kosmonavtika SSSR, (M. 1968), p. 347.
General of the Army V. Tolubko, Raketnye voiska strategicheskogo naznacheniia,” Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal (VIZ), no. 4 (1975); and (same title) no. 10 (1976).
Ibid., no. 4, p. 54; no. 10, p. 21.
Ibid., no. 4, p. 54; no. 10, p. 20.
Ibid.
Ibid., no. 10, p. 20.
Ibid., p. 22, where Brezhnev is mentioned along with Ustinov and most of the military men previously cited, with the addition of Marshal A. M. Vasilevskiy and Marshal of Artillery N. D. Iakolev, as the political, state, and military leaders who directed missile development and the formation of the early missile units. Marshal of the Soviet Union Brezhnev achieved one-star rank as a political officer in 1943, was promoted in 1953, and made four stars in 1975. Biographic information from William F and Harriet F. Scott, The Armed Forces of the USSR (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978). For Brezhnev’s position as Chairman of the Military Council, probably since he became First Secretary in 1964, see Hârriet Fast Scott, “The Soviet High Command,” Air Force (March 1977).
Tolubko, VIZ, no. 10, p. 21.
The Council of Defense has existed, under one title or another, since 1917–1918. During most, and probably all, of this period the Council has been headed by the reigning First Secretary of the Communist party, who probably approves or disapproves, funds or denies funding, for all major weapons system development and production deployment programs; see H. F. Scott, “Soviet High Command.”
The upper limit of 950 total SLBM launchers and 62 “modern” ballistic missile submarines is permitted only upon retirement of Soviet SS-7 and SS-8 launchers deployed before 1964. The Soviets are in the process of completing this trade-off; see statement to Congress by General George S. Brown, USAF, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, On the Defense Posture of the United States for FY 1977 (prepared January 20, 1976), p. 37.
Just how many operational SLBM tubes in “modern” nuclear-powered submarines the Soviets had in May 1972 when the Interim Agreement was signed is difficult to determine precisely, but it probably was less than 500 tubes, compared to 656 tubes in the U.S. fleet. Nevertheless, the Interim Agreement credited the Soviets with 740 SLBM tubes in May 1972. This number apparently included 48 Yankee-and Delta-class boats operational or under construction and the 10 Hotel-class boats, but that would have totaled some 742 tubes on these nuclear-powered classes without counting the tubes on diesel-powered Golfclass boats. The whole question of where these SLBM numbers really originated and how, if at all, they were reconciled with U.S. intelligence is obscure and confusing. The reader may consult John Newhouse, Cold Dawn; The Story of SALT (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), pp. 245–49; General George S. Brown, U.S. Military Posture for FY 1977, p. 36; Secretary of Defense Elliot L. Richardson, Annual Defense Department Report FY 1974 (March 27, 1973), p. 32, which gives the total nuclear-powered Soviet SLBM operational force as 560 tubes as of mid-1973; Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird, statement before the House Armed Services Committee, Fiscal Year 1972–76 Defense Program and the 1972 Defense Budget (March 1, 1971), p. 45, which puts the Yankee-class operational force at that time at 17 boats, with another 15 boats “in various stages of assembly and fitting out,” for a total of 512 tubes, plus the Hotel-class and diesel-powered boats. According to General Brown’s statement (cited above), the Soviets did not reach the SLBM force credited to them in May 1972 until sometime in 1975.
In Tables 1, 2, and 3, psi values have been translated into PVN values for the purpose of calculations. The results shown are approximate, but adequate to illustrate the range of yields required, given the targets and the evolution of strategic ballistic missile CEPs. All calculations in these tables on the effectiveness of Soviet missiles were made on a hand computer; D. C. Kephart, “Damage Probability Computer for Point Targets with P and Q Vulnerability Numbers,” RAND R-1380-PR, February 1974.
Henry S. Bradsher, “New Missile Key to Soviet War Strategy,” Washington Star, March 22, 1977.
Robert Sherman, “A Manual of Missile Capability,” Air Force (February 1977):39, which gives the CEP of the SS-11 as 1 nm and.3 nm for the SS-19. See also the subsequent discussion of newly released data of Soviet missile characteristics and calculations of their effectiveness.
Henry S. Bradsher, “U.S. Offer Leaves Soviets Ahead in Blast Power,” Washington Star, April 8, 1977, gives the CEP of the SS-19 ICBM as.25 nm. More recent data are presented and analyzed in Figure 1 and Table 3.
Statement of Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger, U.S. and Soviet Strategic Doctrine and Military Policies, U.S. Congress, Senate, hearing before the Subcommittee on Arms Control, International Law, and Organization of the Committee on Foreign Relations, March 4, 1974 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), p. 8. Mr. Schlesinger’s Soviet “counterdeterrent” appears to be a mirror image of the U.S. “overt public doctrine” of “only going against cities,” while actual U.S. nuclear targeting has concentrated more on military targets and, presumably, industries in urban areas.
Jeffrey Record, “Sizing Up the Soviet Army,” (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, August 1975), p. 40. On pp. 6–7, Mr. Record cites “growing recognition of the unusability of strategic nuclear arms” as one of two reasons for the “restoration in 1967 of a separate command for Soviet ground forces.” Nothing could be more at odds with the earlier citations from previously classified Soviet literature, the subsequent deployment of ICBMs at IR/MRBM sites, the growth of Soviet SLBM forces under the very generous SALT ceilings, and the development and deployment of the SS-20. The voluminous Soviet literature on military doctrine, strategy, combined-arms operations, and operational art also are at odds with Mr. Record’s judgments. Last, but not least, several other political and military factors — the Brezhnev-Kosygin leadership, modification of Soviet doctrine to allow for a non-nuclear phase in a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict, reevaluation of the role of aircraft, the middle East and Vietnam wars — appear to be much more plausible explanations for the resurgence of the Soviet ground forces in the late 1960s.
Statement by Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird before a joint session of the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees, “Fiscal Year 1971 Defense Program and Budget” (February 20, 1970), pp. 35, 36. Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, “The 1970 Defense Budget and Defense Program for Fiscal Years 1970–74,” p. 42, gives U.S.S.R. forces as of September 1, 1968, as 900 ICBM and 45 SLBM launchers. The latter figure obviously included only the Yankee-class boats since, in American eyes, the 100 odd SLBMs deployed on Golf-and Hotel-class boats for strategic operations in the Eurasian TVDs were not really “strategic.”
For some reflection of how the uncertainty concerning the capabilities and intent of the three-warhead version of the SS-9 affected SALT, see Newhouse, Cold Dawn, pp. 160–61.
Soviet MIRVs often are depicted as a response to U.S. MIRVs. The evidence does not support this contention. The concept obviously was clear to the Soviets by the mid-1960s since the SS-7 triplet was first flight-tested in 1968 at the same time as the MM III and Posiedon MIRV tests. The concept probably originated in the United States, although one cannot be sure even of that. The Soviets lagged in execution, as was to be expected, but the decisions to go ahead with the development of MIRVed missiles probably occurred at about the same time, and for quite different reasons, in the two countries.
The throw weight of the SS-11 has been reported at 2,000 pounds and that of the SS-19 with 6 RVs (MIRV) at 7,000 pounds by Sherman, “Missile Capability,” p. 39. The SS-17 throw weight probably is in the same neighborhood, while the SS-16, being a solid propellant missile and a candidate for mobile deployment, probably is not much more powerful than the SS-11.
Some 400 U.S. military organizations are listed in the Pentagon phone book. Some are located at the same military installation, but more than one warhead must be delivered on large, complex installations.
Newhouse, Cold Dawn, p. 240, suggests that the Soviets only agreed to the limitation of SS-9 silos to avoid U.S. deployment of “hard-site” defenses to protect U.S. silos, which would make sense from the Soviet point of view. For the limitations on ICBM and SLBM launchers and the permitted substitution of new SLBMs for old ICBMs up to the 950 limit, see the protocol to the Interim Agreement in Newhouse, pp. 280–81. On p. 265, Newhouse says: “Moscow wanted an ABM treaty, but had little reason to negotiate on offensive weaponry, since the Americans were not building more strategic weapons. Granted the Soviets didn’t negotiate seriously until they had established a big enough lead in the number of offensive missiles they possessed.” The first sentence is wide of the mark: the Russians could not negotiate too strenuously on offensive weaponry because the United States had started deploying their MIRVs some. two years before the Soviets could begin to flight-test theirs. But the second sentence is very accurate.
For initial testing of the current family of Soviet ICBMs, see Schlesinger, U.S. and Soviet Strategic Policies, p. 4.
All this, of course, was well known to L. V. Smirnov who, as head of the Military Industrial Commission (VPK), had been managing the development of the new systems since their inception. His U.S. counterparts, who were surprised to meet Smirnov in the final stages of the negotiations (Newhouse, Cold Dawn, p. 251), did not know what was going on in Soviet missile development. U.S. intelligence was of little help (see Newhouse, Cold Dawn, pp. 244–45, 247–48). Even years after the current generation of Soviet ICBMs began flight testing, U.S. officials were still asking: “What are the Soviets up to?” The same question recurred when the SS-20 duly appeared on the scene. It is being asked again about the four new ICBMs now reported under development. The inability of U.S. officialdom to answer this question is exceeded only by the abundance of information, much of it unclassified, needed to answer the question.
Scheslinger, U.S. and Soviet Strategic Policies, p. 5.
Deployment of SS-11 ICBMs with IR/MRBM units has been reported by several sources, including Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird, “National Security Strategy of Strategic Deterrence,” Annual Defense Department Report for FY 1973, pp. 36, 40, 45. This probably reflects the global targeting of Soviet ICBMs against targets in all TVDs, not merely the transoceanic TVD, in line with statements at the Twenty-fourth Party Congress in 1966 concerning Soviet capabilities to strike targets in any geographic quarter; see Leon Goure, Foy D. Kohler, and Mose L. Harvey, The Role of Nuclear Forces in Current Soviet Strategy (Coral Gables, Fla.: Center for Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, 1974).
Bradsher, “New Missile Key.”
New house, Cold Dawn, pp. 201–202.
General Major V. Zemskov, “Wars of the Modern Era”, Military Thought, no. 5, 1969 (FPD No. 0116/69):60.
For a discussion of SS-20 effectiveness, see William T Lee, Understanding the Soviet Military Threat: How CIA Estimates Went Astray, Foreword by Eugene V. Rostow (New York: National Strategy Information Center, 1977), pp. 43–45.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Annual Defense Department Report, FY 1978, January 17, 1977, p. 62 and Table 2.
The use of the words peripheral and central here is precisely the reverse of common U.S. usage, which applies the terms strategic and central only to those systems that can strike the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. respectively. This also was the Soviet definition for the purpose of SALT, so that the strategic forces they perceive as central, or at least equally strategic, would be outside the negotiations.
Although they would never say so publicly, the Soviets probably are very unhappy over the U.S. decision to drop the B-1 and deploy long-range, low-altitude cruise missiles instead; the Soviets have spent a great deal of money developing defenses against the bombers.
If anyone has evidence from Soviet sources to the contrary, the author would be most grateful to be informed of such evidence.
The SS-9 and SS-18 were not included because they are designed for hard targets and their effectiveness against such targets was discussed in connection with Table 2.
Development of this new SLBM has been reported in several sources — for example, Richard Burt, “Soviets Build Sub Designed to Fire Multiple Warhead Missiles,” Washington Star, October 29, 1977.
After a number of denials, this linkage has been acknowledged by President Carter and other U.S. officials.
By citing the crime, unemployment, and poverty found in large U.S. cities, such as New York, the Soviets have gotten in a few licks of their own on the issue of human rights.
Presumably, some of the earlier Y-class submarines could be converted to other strategic missions in the Eurasian TVDs without being counted as “strategic” systems as defined in SALT. After all, the oldest Y-class subs were launched a little more than a decade ago, which is not exactly a scrapping age for major naval combatants.
In addition, the Soviets obviously were genuinely annoyed at the United States for, in effect, throwing out the Vladivostok agreements. The Soviets had put a lot of effort into those negotiations and probably had built their strategic force planning for the next five to ten years around the latitude offered to Soviet ambitions by the provisions of the Vladivostok agreements.
Semenov and Prokhorov, “Scientific-Technical Progress,” p. 23.
U.S. estimates of Soviet missile characteristics have a range of uncertainty of at least ± 10 percent. In effect, Soviet designers can develop new missiles within a range of at least ± 15 percent before the U.S. can claim they are “new” missiles as defined in the treaty.
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Lee, W. (1980). Soviet Nuclear Targeting Strategy and Salt. In: Rosefielde, S. (eds) World Communism at the Crossroads. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7631-4_4
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