The great revelation of the 1976 elections, both primary and general, both congressional and presidential, was that the majority opinion on the worth of military power, and on the present adequacy of American forces, was no longer marked by the discouraged inattention of the late years of Vietnam and Watergate. The substance of the great change in the popular outlook was manifested in the campaigning stance of the winning candidates: those who could not offer themselves as promoters of American military power (even if only in the guise of efficiency experts) found it wise to say as little as possible upon the subject.
In his campaign the new President did of course speak of budgetary cuts, but he spoke of a strong defense also, and made it very clear that the cuts would be quite small, the consequence of efficiency rather than of force reductions. In any case, one could hardly recognize the lineaments of a unilateral disarmer in the former naval person from Georgia. Now that the new administration has taken office, its final intentions in this respect are somewhat cloudier. But the national debate over the proper form of American power, and the importance of the military element within it, has if anything become sharper. (It is, one supposes, inevitable that just as the terms of the defense debate last fall were set by the hurried slogans of a political campaign, so the policy debate today is defined equally simplistically in terms of the personalities of the President’s appointees.)
As for the dimensions of the change in public attitudes, these were charted quite precisely by the opinion surveys. According to the most authoritative compilation,1 in 1976 it was the public consensus that the United States remained slightly superior to the Soviet Union in overall national power, but a majority of the public also believed that the United States was losing ground rapidly and that the Soviet Union would become the superior power within the next decade.
Having made the prediction, a majority of those questioned evidently did not like its result: 52 per cent of the sample agreed with the proposition that the United States should maintain its dominant position as the world’s most powerful nation at all costs, even going to the very brink of war if necessary. It would be interesting to know how much greater the percentage might have been had the question embodied the more reasoned assumption that a restoration of American supremacy would deter conflict rather than provoke it. But the extreme terms of the question make the result all the more significant: in 1974 only 42 per cent of the sample had agreed with the same proposition, and the 1972 figure was 39 per cent. In fact, it was only in the pre-1968 period that the 50 per-cent mark had been exceeded.
Opinion on the proper level of military expenditure has evolved in similar fashion: 28 per cent of the 1976 sample declared themselves in favor of an increased military expenditure. This proportion hardly denotes an overwhelming enthusiasm, and yet the sober (and far from hawkish) compilers of the survey were moved to write that “the nationwide extent of increased approval for military and defense spending that we found in 1976 is little short of phenomenal.” For the real meaning of the 28 per cent only becomes apparent in the context of the trend in the balance of opinion: the proportion of respondents who favored cuts in the defense budget has declined from 37 per cent in 1972 and 33 per cent in 1974 to 20 per cent in 1976; while those satisfied with the present level of the defense budget increased from 40 per cent in 1972 and 1974 to 43 per cent in 1976; and those who would not pronounce themselves declined from 9 per cent in 1972 and 6 per cent in 1974 to 5 per cent in 1976. The candidates who were competing for office in 1976 did not need to be skilled trend analysts to interpret correctly the meaning of the numbers. By a common instinct they converted the 28 per cent who favored increased military expenditures into a net majority, for they could see how many of the 43 per cent in the middle actually belonged with them.
The depth and consistency of this change in mass opinion were evident in the response to questions which tested the public’s willingness to sanction the actual use of military power. In 1974 and 1975 only 48 per cent of the sample would approve of the use of American troops to defend “major European allies” attacked by the Soviet Union; by 1976 the proportion had increased to 56 per cent. In the case of Japan, a similar evolution has been observed: in 1974 only 37 per cent of those questioned were willing to approve the use of American forces to defend Japan in the event of war, while the 1976 figure was 45 per cent, with another 18 per cent undecided and a distinct minority of 37 per cent against. The new concern with the adequacy of American military strength is thus directly connected in the public mind with the actual needs of Western defense, and cannot be dismissed as the manifestation of a pointless national machismo, as some would have us believe.
The major theme of the great attack on the military which opened with the 1969 ABM debate was that social programs deserved a greater share of public money, and the call for a “realignment of national priorities” continued to be heard even while the Pentagon’s budget declined year by year to a quarter of the federal total. It is therefore particularly interesting that at a time of waning support for all social programs, it turns out that majority opinion favors increases in only two items of government expenditure: the defense budget as a whole, and an item described in the polls as “maintaining U.S. military bases throughout the world.”2
It was the new attitude of the public which insured a fair hearing for both sides in the controversy over the national defense. For years the quality media had largely conveyed the views of those who saw only one strategic threat, the threat emanating from our own “military-industrial complex.” In 1976 we could hear once again the other side also, the voices of those made anxious by the dynamic growth of Soviet military power. A debate which had long been necessary thus became possible. It remains, however, most difficult to resolve. It is not the requisite information which is lacking. Facts are available in great quantity, with only the most abstruse details still guarded by security controls; indeed much of the debate features rival selections from the vast totality of the facts.
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In the strategic-nuclear dimension of military power—the dimension of the long-range weapons of nuclear deterrence or nuclear war—we are offered seemingly precise comparisions of the intercontinental weapons deployed on both sides: 1,054 land-based ballistic missiles for the United States versus 1,450 for the Soviet Union; 656 ballistic missiles on board American nuclear submarines versus 880 on Soviet submarines; and 382 American strategic bombers versus 210 for the Soviet Union. In the overall totals, the Soviet advantage is significant: 2,540 vehicles versus 2,092 for the United States. But on one side of the debate it is argued that this advantage is entirely meaningless, since the quality of the American weapons is much higher. In particular, the advanced multiple-warhead design of American missiles means that they can launch many more separate nuclear strikes. At the last count, 8,500 American bombs and warheads were deployed versus 4,000 for the Soviet Union. Moreover, American ballistic warheads are more accurate, while the superior quality of American bombers further widens the margin.
True, says the other side, there are indeed more American ballistic warheads, but they are also much smaller because American ballistic missiles are themselves so much smaller than the Russian.3 Almost 70 per cent of warheads on American missiles have an explosive yield of less than fifty kilo-tons (i.e., 1,000 tons of TNT equivalent), and only a further 7 per cent have a yield of more than one megaton (one million tons of TNT equivalent). Soviet ballistic missiles are by contrast much larger, and their warheads have far higher yields. In fact, 70 per cent are in the megaton class, and a further 10 per cent have super-heavy warheads, with yields in excess of twenty megatons. The superior quality of American bombers is conceded also, but it is pointed out that the net difference in real bomber capabilities is much smaller, for American bombers would suffer heavy losses to Soviet air defenses, while the United States is virtually undefended against bomber attack. The Soviet Union deploys some 2,500 fighter-interceptors and 10,000 anti-aircraft missiles to defend its airspace, but no strategic SAM’s remain in service to defend the continental United States, while the number of manned interceptors has declined to a mere 341, not enough to provide a realistic air defense.
Such exchanges do not by any means settle the debate. In answer to the argument that Soviet ballistic missiles have far greater delivery capacities and can therefore launch bigger warheads, it is stressed that accuracy counts for much more than yield: to destroy small and protected targets (such as the ballistic-missile housings themselves) a one-megaton warhead with American levels of accuracy can be as effective as a Soviet warhead with twenty times its yield.4 To this the other side may reply that the American advantage in accuracy cannot offset the Soviet advantage in the size of the missiles and the yields of their warheads, since accuracy is always an uncertain and delicate ability, while yield is assured.
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And so the debate goes on, with neither side quite able to dispose of the other’s case. But as soon as the comparison proceeds beyond a mere listing of numbers, and the evolution of the actual weapon inventories is compared, those who take the more anxious view of Soviet strategic power have the better of the argument. A massive and broadly-based strategic build-up has been under way in the Soviet Union since the mid-1960’s, and it still continues with some urgency and a surprising abundance of means across the full spectrum of strategic weaponry.
In the case of the land-based missiles, for example, the United States has only one new type of weapon, the Minuteman-3, and that is now out of production; research and development in this field are also limited to a single new type, the MX. On the Soviet side, by contrast, no fewer than four different new types of intercontinental ballistic missiles are in production: two different medium-sized weapons fitted with separately targeted multiple warheads (SS-17 and SS-19), one smaller missile comparable to the Minuteman and seemingly meant for land-mobile deployments (SS-16), and one weapon which is very large indeed, the SS-18, whose “throw-weight” is about six times as large as that of the Minuteman-3.
Of all the crosses that SALT enthusiasts and doves in general have to bear, none is heavier than this heavy Russian missile. The SS-18 is simply too large to be an ordinary deterrent weapon meant for attacks on cities, and it is altogether too costly to be explained away as a mere experiment in variety. In fact, the development of the SS-18 can only be explained in rational terms by those who take the more somber view of Russian intentions. While the SS-17 and SS-19 are both more efficient as deterrent weapons aimed primarily at American cities, the SS-18, which can carry up to eight separate megaton-range warheads, is much more effective for attacks against heavily protected missile housings and command centers. The nuclear peace cannot be the sturdy child of reciprocal terror if one side can disarm the other at the outset of a nuclear war, and the SS-18 has all the traits of a weapon designed to do just that to the American land-based missile force.
The inference is much reinforced by the sheer scale and urgency of the Soviet effort. The American strategic nuclear force of 1,054 land-based intercontinental missiles consists of 54 large but old Titan-2’s, in place ever since 1962; 450 small Min-uteman-2’s built since 1965; and 550 slightly larger Minuteman-3’s first deployed in 1970. The number of American ballistic missiles has not increased since 1967, though the quality of the force has been upgraded. The Soviet Union overcame its disadvantage in the gross numbers by 1969 when it attained numerical equality with the American force. A one-for-one modernization effort by the Russians was still to be expected, but that is not what happened. Instead, the number of Soviet missiles increased to pass the 1,400 level by 1970. At the same time, the massive upgrade program involving the development of the SS-16’s, SS-17’s, SS-19’s, and the heavy SS-18’s, was also under way.
It was natural that the Soviet Union would want to emulate the American development of separately targeted multiple warheads (MIRV) and no sinister intent need be imputed to this Russian effort. But like the proverbial innkeeper who raises his prices, and serves in smaller glasses, and dilutes the wine, the Russians have added both numbers and MIRV, and they are producing the heavy SS-18 on top of all that.
Much the same pattern is observable in the evolution of the ballistic missile forces on board nuclear submarines. Again, the United States had both numerical and qualitative superiority during the 1960’s, while the Soviet development of the technology lagged behind the spectacularly successful effort which produced the Polaris missiles deployed on board highly reliable nuclear submarines. Again, the United States, as an exercise in unilateral arms control, subjected itself to a numerical limit of 656 missiles on board 41 submarines, which had already been attained by 1967. Since then, the size of the force has not increased, though the Poseidon missile (with MIRV) was introduced in 1971. It was not until 1968 that the Soviet Union managed to complete the development of a submarine-missile combination comparable to the Polaris, the SS-N-6 missile on board Y-class submarines. But then they were mass-produced so rapidly that by 1972 the number of submarine missiles deployed or under construction exceeded American levels.
Totally unconstrained by the SALT-1 agreement of 1972, which merely ratified Soviet plans, the Russian missile submarine force has continued to grow. In 1973 there appeared a new D-class submarine fitted with SS-N-8 missiles much larger than the American Poseidon, and by 1976 yet another new submarine type appeared, the D-2, with sixteen tubes for the SS-N-8, which has a much greater range and “throw-weight” than the only submarine-launched ballistic missile now being produced in the United States, the Poseidon.
Until the SS-N-8 appeared, the United States had both greater range and a much more effective warhead package in its complement of Poseidons on board thirty-one of the forty-one submarines in the force. With the introduction of the SS-N-8, the Soviet Union gained a major advantage in range (4,000 vs. 2,500 nautical miles), but it could not realize the potential of the large “throw-weight” of its new missiles since they had single warheads and not MIRV’s. In late 1976, however, the SS-N-8 was tested with MIRV warheads. The United States is now developing a missile in the SS-N-8 class, the advanced Trident C-4; but by the time these weapons will be operational on the Ohio-class submarines, there will probably be yet another Soviet sea-based missile at least as effective as the Trident.
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When the SALT-1 agreements were signed in Moscow and criticized in Washington, Henry Kissinger justified the net superiorities conceded to the Russians (1,618 land-based ballistic missiles for the Soviet Union against 1,054 for the United States; 740 submarine-launched missiles for the Soviet Union against 656 for the United States) on the grounds that the United States had a greatly superior force of long-range bombers. And indeed, the 405 heavy B-52 bombers and 66 light F-111 bombers which the Strategic Air Command had in 1972 were a far more powerful force than the 140 old long-range bombers in Soviet service. Of course there was the corresponding difference in air defenses (American bombers flying into the Soviet Union would suffer losses, while the Russians would have a free ride), but it was certainly true that the bombers and the bombers alone could balance the strategic equation.
Hence the importance of preserving the American advantage in this particular sector of strategic power—and hence the development of the B-1 bomber over which so much ink has been spilled and against which so much opposition has been mounted. The B-l is a replacement for the old B-52’s which were designed in the 1950’s and which, although repeatedly modernized with new weapons and new electronics, are outdated in basic structure. (The B-52 force has already declined to 316 operational aircraft.) Very advanced and highly effective, the B-l is also expensive, with a unit cost now estimated at somewhere around $90 million, or roughly twice the cost of an ordinary wide-body passenger jet, sans its advanced features and sans all the combat electronics.
Where the B-l is concerned, as in so many other areas, while we have been debating the Russians have been building, in this case the Backfire bomber.5 Much larger than a non-strategic bomber has any need to be, not quite large enough to be a full-size intercontinental bomber with all the trimmings, the Backfire is certainly advanced and certainly capable of reaching most American targets, if only because we have no effective air defense.
In the SALT negotiations of 1975-76 the Russians have steadfastly claimed that the Backfire should not be counted against the total weapon ceiling which a new agreement is to impose; and much of the argument between the State Department and the Pentagon over the SALT negotiations has revolved around the precise military role of the Backfire. The entire controversy is far removed from the realities of military power, and a typical product of the artificiality that the SALT process has engendered. Even if our official weapons theologians finally agree that the Backfire is not “strategic,” this will not cause it to disappear. Even if we could be certain that this weapon is not aimed at the continental United States, this can only mean that it would be aimed at Europe and China, and our overall strategic position would be affected just as much. It hardly seems worthwhile to go to great lengths to find the legal formula that will solve the negotiating problem in SALT if the only consequence is to give the Soviet Union a free license to deploy Backfires against those whose security we cannot divide from our own. In the meantime, the Soviet Union has already built about 70 Backfires.
But the conflict between substance and form in the pursuit of arms control is much sharper still in the case of the cruise missile. This new class of weapons embodies a variety of advanced technologies in the deceptively familiar guise of pilotless aircraft. Thanks to highly efficient engines, they can have sufficient range to serve as strategic weapons while still being quite small and rather cheap (a cruise missile no larger than a torpedo tube will have a range in excess of 2,000 miles); thanks to miniature electronics and new techniques of guidance, cruise missiles are highly accurate, and so can execute many strategic missions with much smaller nuclear warheads than those fitted on the less accurate ballistic missiles.
Their small size and compact form also make it possible to deploy cruise missiles in any number of ways: they could be launched from bombers or converted transport aircraft, from ships or submarines, or even from the backs of trucks. For strategic stability this is very important, since a deterrent force of weapons so small, mobile, and dispersed could not possibly be destroyed in a surprise strike. If both sides deployed cruise missiles instead of the much larger and more vulnerable ballistic missiles, it would therefore be quite easy to achieve a stable balance of mutual deterrence. And a force of cruise missiles would also be inherently cheaper than a comparable array of ballistic missiles. In other words, the introduction of cruise missiles would much advance the substantive objectives of arms control, stability, and economy.6
One would therefore have thought that the arms-control enthusiasts would have welcomed the new technology; but not at all. The fraternity has been almost unanimous in its opposition. For it turns out that the very quality which makes cruise missiles so fully compatible with the substance of arms control—their ability to avoid detection at the launch point—also happens to make it impossible to keep track of them for the purposes of an arms-control treaty. Apparently most of the arms-control professionals attach greater importance to the procedural side of things, the long negotiations and the ceremonial signing of treaties, than to improvements in the substance of the strategic relationship. (Only this, by the way, could explain their continuing enthusiasm for the 1972 SALT-1 accords, which have brought higher force levels, greater expenditures, and new instabilities in their wake.)
The future of American strategic cruise missiles remains in doubt, but surely not that of their Russian counterparts. If an agreement prohibiting these weapons were to be signed, it would inevitably have to rest on little more than faith, since satellite observation would not do and even on-site inspection would be useless. At present, the United States still enjoys a lead of several years in the requisite technologies, but it is certain that the Russians are now making an all-out effort to develop the new-style cruise missile also; and the Soviet Union already has many launchers for (tactical) cruise missiles on board both ships and submarines. While we conduct our own leisurely debate, they will no doubt go ahead and build.
Finally, of all the components of the strategic balance, none is more controversial than civil defense. The U.S. has essentially abandoned the ambition of providing realistic protection for its population in the event of nuclear war. The Russians plainly have not. A nationwide program is now under way in the Soviet Union featuring evacuation procedures, industrial dispersal, emergency supply and temporary shelter provisions, the whole being directed by a special corps of civil-defense forces. The scale of the effort is undoubtedly very great, and its importance is demonstrated by the seniority and prestige of the people in charge. What remains in doubt is the effectiveness of Soviet civil defense in the conditions of a nuclear war with the United States. Clearly what the Russians have done so far in this area would not suffice to negate the effects of an all-out American strategic strike against Soviet cities and industrial areas. But is it realistic to evaluate Soviet civil defense by this standard? As against the 1,054 land-based missiles, 656 sea-based missiles, and 382 bombers of the intact American inventory of forces, Soviet civil-defense preparations would indeed be grossly inadequate. But suppose a Soviet first strike against the American strategic arsenal; then the number of surviving, operational, and reliable weapons would be a fraction of the initial inventory, and the Russians may well believe that they can indeed provide real protection for their population against a depleted American second strike. In any case, it would clearly be grossly imprudent to dismiss Soviet civil defense as a chimera, not to be taken into account in our evaluation of the strategic balance.
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All strategic weapons are nuclear, but not all nuclear weapons are strategic. Both the United States and the Soviet Union deploy many thousands of tactical nuclear weapons7 in the shape of aircraft bombs, tactical missiles and rockets, artillery shells and mines. It is not at all clear what part such weapons might have in a European war. Ever since 1967 it has been official NATO doctrine that even a full-scale war in Europe would be waged without using nuclear weapons for as long as possible. Soviet doctrines and plans once called for the immediate use of nuclear weapons, but this may have changed of late. Regardless of what the official doctrines might be, the weapons are there and they are apt to be used, if only because the sudden outbreak of conflict after thirty-odd years of peace is likely to cause cataclysmic panic and massive confusion in which the tactical nuclear weapons alone might serve to avert defeat. No meaningful comparison is possible between the tactical nuclear forces deployed on each side, for the significance of the weapons depends on the pattern of their use on both sides, and that is a mystery which we may all hope will never be revealed.
In between the tactical nuclear weapons and the intercontinental-range strategic weapons, the Soviet Union deploys an intermediate class of nuclear weapons to which there is no American counterpart. These include roughly 500 medium bombers of various types8 (to which the Backfires may be added) as well as 600 ballistic missiles with ranges from 1,000 to 3,000 miles and more. All these weapons are deployed against targets in Western Europe and Asia, and they are more than sufficient to offset the small nuclear forces of Britain, France, and China.9 Yet Russian negotiators in the SALT talks have persistently tried to obtain a significant margin of superiority in intercontinental-range weapons on the grounds that the Soviet Union has several nuclear enemies while the United States has only one. More remarkable still, this argument has been accepted—and echoed—by some American arms-control experts.
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The destructive capacity of nuclear weapons is awesome, but it is the non-nuclear balance of military power which presents the more pressing problem for American policy. For a comparison of the navies, the ground forces, and the tactical air power of the two sides reveals much sharper differences and more disturbing trends; and these are acknowledged even by some who are inclined to dismiss the strategic balance as an abstract calculus of meaningless capabilities.
Because of the sudden emergence of the Soviet fleet over the horizon of public visibility, and also perhaps because of the new concern over the security of American raw-material imports, the naval question has become central to the defense debate. Again, the facts are not in serious dispute. Always a major continental power, and with a claim to primacy on land ever since Napoleon’s defeat, Russia was never more than a middle power on the oceans of the world. This remained so after the Bolshevik revolution and in the immediate postwar period, when the uncontested supremacy of the United States provided the ultimate guarantee against a major failure of containment. During the 1950’s and until the early 1960’s, the navies of the world were either allied to the United States or insignificant. But seemingly overnight a great change took place. After 1967 the public suddenly learned of the existence of a large and rapidly growing Soviet navy which was actively contesting American naval supremacy. From the first revelation the picture became steadily darker, as increasingly disturbing comparisons of the Soviet and American fleets were widely published; and in a famous pronouncement, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt announced that the U.S. had lost control of the vital sea lanes to Europe and the Middle East.
There followed the great controversy that is still with us. In hundreds of newspaper articles and in endless congressional debates, the two navies have been compared, most often in simple numerical terms. More so than the other defense sub-debates, the naval controversy has engendered wild exaggerations and gross distortions on both sides of the fence. A warship is not a unit of measurement, and yet much of the controversy has featured the exchange of rival sets of ship numbers, in which 90,000-ton aircraft carriers and 500-ton corvettes are frequently counted as equal units, or in which the strength of allied navies is added directly to the American, as if these were equally fit and equally available under American command.
In retrospect the causes of the initial surprise and of the subsequent confusion are not obscure. From the mid-1960’s the Soviet navy began for the first time to operate beyond in-shore waters. By 1964 a standing patrol was present in the Mediterranean, by 1968 another appeared in the Indian Ocean, and by 1969 Soviet ships were frequently to be seen in the Caribbean. At the same time Soviet fleets began to conduct large-scale exercises in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. These ships had not been built overnight but were the fruits of a large naval armament effort which began immediately after the end of World War II. What changed so quickly after 1964 was not the Soviet fleet but the pattern of its operations.
By coincidence, the years in which the Soviet fleet made its sudden appearance on the oceans of the world also happened to be the years in which the U.S. navy was faced with the block obsolescence of the warships built in the great wave of wartime construction of 1943-45. Hence the drastic decline in the number of navy ships from 917 in 1964 to 489 in 1977. In the meantime, the 450-ship force gradually built by the Russians made its entrance on the world scene, and immediately gained for the Soviet Union the new status of an oceanic power.
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However, the direct comparison of U.S. and Soviet naval forces is peculiarly misleading. The two navies have fundamentally different strategic tasks, and their capabilities must be evaluated by quite different standards. The American fleet must keep the sea lanes secure to reinforce NATO and to import raw materials in wartime; the Soviet fleet need only deny secure transit to cripple NATO and insulate the United States. Hence a true naval parity requires the United States to be much stronger at sea, because it is so much easier to attack targets of choice in a stream of merchant shipping than to defend the whole population of tankers and freighters. To be sure, the American navy also has other tasks, primarily to assist the ground and air forces in the event of war by operating on the maritime flanks, off Norway and in the North Sea, in the Mediterranean, and in the seas around Japan and Korea. But all these missions first require a reasonable measure of control over the sea areas concerned.
Although it is the much-photographed surface ships of the Russian navy which have attracted the world’s attention, the major Soviet strength is still its attack-submarine fleet, by far the largest in the world; at the last count there were 84 nuclear and some 150 diesel submarines. These numbers may be compared to the 57 infinitely less capable U-boats that Doenitz had at his command at the outbreak of World War II. Of course, there has been much progress in anti-submarine warfare techniques since then, but the peculiar properties of sea water continue to shield well-built and well-handled submarines from detection. On the other hand, the effectiveness of the nuclear submarine is altogether greater than that of the wartime U-boats. The modern nuclear submarine is a true underwater vehicle. By contrast, the wartime U-boats were only small warships which could dive to shallow depths, there to crawl at low speed.
The United States has 70 nuclear submarines of its own, and many would be used as hunter-killers, to ambush Soviet boats as they pass through narrow seas, or even as they leave their ports. In addition, there are some 140 destroyers and frigates to protect convoys and hunt submarines in cooperation with 388 long-range patrol aircraft based on land.10 This is an impressive array of forces, but it would be wildly optimistic to assume that it is adequate. The logic of the struggle against the submarine heavily favors the latter, and just as it takes a watchman at every door to keep out the single sneak thief, it takes several ships and aircraft to find and destroy the single submarine.
The major question is, of course, the strategic purpose of the Soviet naval build-up. The fact that the Soviet Union, until recently a land power with strictly continental interests, is now in the process of becoming an oceanic power as well, would certainly seem to justify the anxieties of those who believe that the Russians have moved into an expansionist phase. If the United States were to accept naval parity with the Soviet Union—and some have suggested a naval counterpart to SALT—we would be dividing equally what is now ours, while the Russians would continue seeking the continental hegemony which is already partly theirs.
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In the nuclear and naval dimensions the United States can still reasonably expect—if the right policies are followed—to maintain a rough parity, or even a small margin of superiority. As far as the land forces are concerned, any hope of parity has long since been abandoned, and the sharp inferiority of the American ground forces is only very partially offset by the high quality of American tactical air power.
There are now some 170 divisions in the Russians army versus 16 U.S. army and 3 marine divisions. These numbers mean little; Russian divisions are smaller, and roughly one-third are only partly-manned cadre units, little better than the divisions of the U.S. National Guard. But the comparison of the overall manpower figures is meaningful. There are some 1.8 million Soviet ground troops (and 450,000 militarized security troops) versus 978,000 men and women in the American army and marine corps. And the wide margin of the Soviet advantage is no longer offset by inferior equipment. While a few Soviet weapons may still be inferior in quality, more are not, and they are all available in abundance. Besides, the quality of Soviet tanks, armored carriers, and artillery has been improving rapidly.11
The United States does, however, retain a substantial margin of superiority in tactical air power. While the Soviet Union has more combat aircraft, the American advantage in quality is still very great and especially in air-to-air combat, quality is decisively more important than the mere numbers.12 And in the whole range of air-to-ground weaponry the United States is far ahead.
But the great difficulty is that tactical aircraft as a whole can no longer operate freely over the battlefield. The Russians have clearly been aware of their weakness in the air, the inevitable consequence of a less creative science and technology. And they have found a solution for their weakness in the mass deployment of anti-aircraft weapons. In October 1973 the SAM-6 attracted much attention even though it was the Soviet anti-aircraft cannon which shot down most Israeli aircraft; by now the SAM-6 has been joined by two still newer battlefield missiles. In any major theater of war, the Russians will have very dense battlefield air defenses, and these are likely to absorb much of the American superiority in tactical air power.
In the context of a European war, the United States would of course fight with its allies; but the Soviet Union has its Warsaw Pact subject armies to strengthen its own forces, and when all the forces are counted its superiority is not seriously diminished. In the crucial sectors of Northern and Central Europe, there are now 635,000 NATO troops against 910,000 troops for the Warsaw Pact.
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Thus, while the loudest American voices ceaselessly argue that mere numbers are meaningless, if not that military power is itself passé, the Russians are building missiles, bombers, and warships to acquire a worldwide strategic reach, while at same time continuing to strengthen their traditional array of continental forces in Europe and on the borders of China. In spite of an economy which has ceased to be dynamic, in spite of the strangulation of scientific and technical creativity which the general repression of Soviet society has inevitably caused, the political leaders of the Soviet Union have their people so well regimented that their military power continues to grow relative to our own.
Many in America continue to say that we should settle for parity wherever we had superiorities and tacitly accept inferiorities elsewhere. Yet it is now clear that the Soviet Union will not permanently accept parity in any dimension of military power. To its leaders, parity obviously means no more than the transitory moment in which the ascending curve of their strength meets the descending curve of our own.
It has by now become hard to deny that this growing strength signifies an expansionist intent. Indeed, Russian imperial strategy has already emerged fully formed in the classic mold, with Cubans sent to Angola, North Koreans not long ago fighting in Syria, and South Yemen guerrillas newly dispatched to the ex-Spanish Sahara, with the whole network being supported by the modern equivalents of the 19th-century coaling stations—missile depots, airfields, logistic bases, and naval facilities in Somalia, South Yemen, Cuba, Iraq, Angola, Guinea, and probably soon Mozambique also.
The disarray engendered by the Vietnam war, the best hopes and worst delusions encouraged by détente, and the revulsion caused by a President for whom “national security” was not much more than a good cover for a bad cover-up, have all contributed to the indirection of American military policy over the last decade. There is a great need to frame a purposeful strategy for Western security. In the final analysis, neither the bureaucratic instincts of the armed services, nor Anglo-Saxon pragmatism, nor even the sudden military enthusiasms of an intermittently aroused public, will suffice to direct the necessary evolution of American military power in the face of the Soviet Union, a country where nothing works except for the army, and whose leaders understand very little except for the uses of power, which they understand all too well.
1 Walter Slocombe, Lloyd A. Free, Donald R. Lesh, and William Watts, The Pursuit of National Security: Defense and the Military Balance (Potomac Associates), pp. 28-39.
2 Edwin L. Dale, Jr., Donald R. Lesh, Lloyd A. Free, Priorities in an Uncertain Economy: Inflation, Recession, and Government Spending (Potomac Associates), p. 23.
3 The most meaningful measure of the magnitude of ballistic missiles is their delivery capacity (“throw-weight”) over stated ranges. While all but 54 of the land-based ballistic missiles in the American arsenal (Minuteman-2's and -3's) have “throw-weights” of roughly 2,500 pounds each, the Soviet Union has some 290 missiles with “throw-weights” of 10-15,000 pounds, and the “throw-weights” of the three new ICBM's now being deployed—the SS-17 and SS-19 “mediums” and the SS-18 “heavy”—are respectively 4,000, 6,000, and 15,000 pounds. (See my Strategic Power: Military Capabilities and Political Utility, Washington Papers No. 38 [Sage], p. 25.) The “throw-weight,” however, only measures the potential of missile forces; actual capabilities depend on current warhead yield-to-weight ratios, and, of course, accuracies (as well as technical and operational reliability).
4 Missile accuracy is measured by the CEP (Circular Error Probable), this being the radius from the aiming point within which half the warheads launched are expected to fall; CEP is therefore the expected median inaccuracy. The effectiveness of a warhead against its target is a function of target hardness (measured in the pounds-per-square-inch of peak overpressure which would initiate disintegration), the energy yield, and median inaccuracy.
5 “Backfire” is the NATO code name; the Soviet designation of this aircraft is thought to be TU-26.
6 And the minimization of damage in the event of a nuclear war; high accuracy would allow the use of low-yield warheads against many targets. This could greatly reduce the collateral damage of a limited nuclear exchange.
7 With ranges of up to several hundred miles. The term defines weapons meant for theater deployments against military targets, even though these weapons could also be highly destructive if used against civilian populations.
8 TU-16's and TU-22's in air-force service; another 300-plus are deployed by the Soviet navy.
9 Mainland China deploys some 70 medium bombers, and perhaps 100 land-based ballistic missiles of various types; the British have four nuclear submarines with 64 missiles (Polaris A-3's) in all, while the French have 64 submarine-borne missiles, 18 land-based missiles, and 36 Mirage-IV light bombers.
10 In addition, U.S. aircraft carriers are now being given multipurpose air wings which include anti-submarine aircraft (S-3's) and helicopters.
11 The Soviet T-62 tank may on balance be slightly inferior to the American M-60 but the new T-72 is not; the BMP-76 combat carrier is much superior to the M-113. Soviet artillery was always superior but it was not self-propelled. Now the Soviet Union is mass-producing self-propelled howitzers. Only in helicopters is the U.S. army still better provided than the Russians.
12 The newer Soviet fighters of the MIG-23 family are much inferior to the F-15's; no Soviet interceptor is as good as the F-14, and the new low-level SU-19 strike-fighter is inferior to the ten-year-old F-1I1A/E.