There Will Be War Volume VIII, page 28
This was called “Assured Destruction” and was based on the hostage theory. If both the U.S. and Soviet populations would inevitably be destroyed in any nuclear war, then that war would never happen. The United States need not try to retain strategic superiority, because superiority was impossible. “Sufficiency” would be enough. Moreover, the Soviets would soon come to agree. According to the new theory, the only reason the Soviet Union built strategic weapons was from fear of the U.S. weapons; if we stopped building nuclear-tipped ICBMs, so would the Soviets. Given sufficiency on both sides, we would have a highly stable world; a world of Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD.
This theory was made the basis of U.S. doctrine: after we deployed 1000 Minuteman missiles, we built no more. The Soviets would now be given a chance to catch up, after which we would negotiate an arms control agreement to stabilize the situation.
They caught up.
They passed us.
They continued to install new missiles. They ringed Europe with their mobile SS-20 missiles, and while developing the capability to reload their existing strategic silos to allow multiple salvoes. Note that this capability can only be used for first strikes, since the “reload” missiles are very vulnerable.
To this day they halt not, neither do they slow: their four production lines continue to turn out new nuclear-armed ICBMs 24 hours a day. They have achieved strategic superiority; we must now live with that.
After the election of 1980, President-elect Ronald Reagan asked a number of private citizen groups to provide briefing papers for the new administration. Some of those groups continued after the inauguration. One such group was the Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy. Originally sponsored by the Presidents of the American Astronautical Society and the L-5 Society, the Council is largely made up of experts in space science and engineering; but it also includes enthusiasts, home makers, writers, students, and other interested citizens.
The Council is interested in space policy. All members of the Council have agreed that without a rational U.S. defense policy, there can be no U.S. space program. Although all the Council members believe in the defense of the United States, there were considerable disagreements about the nature and feasibility of defensive weapons systems. Many scientists and technologists did not believe defense was possible at all.
The Council was therefore expanded to include several of the nation’s foremost experts in laser systems, as well as military planners, computer scientists, and nuclear physicists. The third meeting of the Council was devoted to investigating defense feasibilities and reconciling differences among experts. The goal was to produce a detailed report on defense of the U.S. After long discussion, a report that every member could adopt was drafted. The Council Report, available in its original form from the L-5 Society, was read by the President, and received a letter of commendation from him.
The Citizens Advisory Council is nearly unique in that it includes not only some of the top scientific and technical talent in the nation, but also a number of technically oriented science fiction writers. Their value is highlighted by the results of a recent national news service poll. Of more than a dozen categories of “noted Americans” ranging from chief executives of Fortune 500 companies to politicians, only science fiction writers perceived the political importance of space research. The writer members of the Council could hardly fail to see this importance, because most of them were initially trained as physicists and engineers.
Throughout that long July weekend, while discussions spilled out of the spacious Niven home into the warmth of the California evening, members traded good-natured political jokes along with information and expert insights. Several members remarked on their heightened awareness that the goal of the Council transcended ordinary political labels. A conservative could rebel against a policy that maximizes threats against innocent Russian children, yet remain conservative. A liberal could recognize the crucial importance of a defensive presence in space, and still be a liberal.
Many of the Council members had special views to impart—a favorite system of hardware, or a particular set of priorities toward the national good. Some of these views were bound to meet head-to-head in committee sessions, and those sessions were always lively (occasionally acrimonious). But narrow vested interests were always subordinated to the single, overriding vested interest of the Council: to outline a specific and complete alternative to this nation’s declared nuclear strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
The original arguments for MAD could have had some validity when then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara espoused them in the 1960s. They could have, that is, if the Soviet Union had accepted them. MAD always depended on the mutual belief that whichever of the superpowers initiated a nuclear war, both nations would be utterly annihilated: Mutual Assured Destruction. Mutual MADness, if you will.
Now, a generation later, we see overwhelming evidence that the Soviets do not now and never did believe in MAD. They have, however, profited enormously from our belief in it. We dismantled our fledgling antiballistic missile (ABM) system and we largely abandoned our Civil Defense plans which might (still!) save a hundred million American lives. We openly admitted that our cities were hostage to the Soviets. To this moment we are hostages still.
As for the Soviet strategy: they have an upgraded ABM system protecting Moscow, and they have a vigorous, continuing C D establishment which directly involves over twenty million Soviet citizens trained as a nuclear survival cadre. In addition, they have tested advanced antisatellite weapon systems that might make us incapable of responding to a nuclear first strike. In short, the Soviet Union clearly plans to survive nuclear war. This isn’t to suggest that Soviet planners envision a holocaust without damage to themselves, nor that they necessarily plan to start such a war. It does show that, unlike us, they do not despair of surviving that war; if it comes, they intend to win it. That, they proclaim and believe, is the very purpose of governments.
Since MAD always depended on both sides believing in it, our MAD strategy has not bought us a stable, peaceful future. It cannot even purchase parity in weaponry when our opponent is developing offensive orbital weapons. MAD is not merely threadbare; it is bankrupt.
This conclusion was the cement binding Council members toward a common goal. The U.S. doesn’t need more nuclear warheads with more terrifying offensive capability. Nor can we match the Soviets in their huge conventional armaments without severe economic problems. Instead, we need an alternative to MAD; a less provocatively offensive, more prudently defensive strategy. For maximum effectiveness, the new strategy must be based on our strengths and its validity must not fundamentally depend upon unverifiable and unenforceable agreements. Finally, an optimum U.S. strategy will provide hope for a future that escapes the gloomy prediction of groups like the Club of Rome and their well-known report, The Limits To Growth. It’s not enough that we abandon the bankruptcy of MAD; we must generate a vital new currency.
Even in the 1950s a few far-sighted strategic theorists understood that the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) was not necessarily an ultimate weapon, and that alternatives to MAD were possible. Some were military officers who understood that MAD was not truly mutual, because the Soviet Union would never accept the doctrine. They argued persuasively for their views; but true to their oaths, when decisions were made by civilian political authorities, they obeyed orders.
Others were civilians: strategists, scientists, engineers, systems analysts in the aerospace industry, who had been involved in long range planning studies. Their research showed new technologies not yet available, but which when they came on line would negate the power of the ICBM. These far-sighted planners urged development of these systems, including ways to intercept missiles in flight. All of the best strategists, military and civilian, understood that the ICBM was no “ultimate weapon,” that indeed there can be no ultimate weapons. It is the nature of the technological war that there are no final answers. Every new development has within it the seeds of a counter weapon. The technological war will never end. Fortunately, the battles in that war are generally bloodless.
By the 1960s both the U.S. and the Soviets had proof that an ICBM could be intercepted. The United States worked from theoretical analysis of weapons effects. The Soviets moved rapidly to actual tests. In one test they launched three ICBM re-entry vehicles (RV’s) and detonated a nuclear interception weapon near the first. This gave them considerable data on the effects of nuclear weapons in space and the upper atmosphere. Before the United States could repeat those tests, the Soviets agreed to an atmospheric Test Ban Treaty. This gave the Soviets a considerable lead in ICBM defense technology.
In 1964 the Soviets paraded their newest ICBM interceptor, which NATO gave the code name “GALOSH”. This interceptor missile used a nuclear warhead designed to detonate above the atmosphere. The presumed kill mechanism was a surge of hard X-rays which would disrupt an incoming RV and its nuclear warhead.
The U.S. system was designated “SAFEGUARD” and employed both the Spartan, which was designed for very high altitude intercept much like the Soviet Galosh, and the Sprint. Both employed nuclear warheads; the Sprint used a comparatively low yield weapon. The Sprint, a two-stage solid propelled rocket, boasted an acceleration so high that, two seconds after launch, it was a mile above the launcher. Of course the Sprint was intended to intercept its target much higher (its range was twenty-five miles). But by this time we had discovered some of the subtler effects of a nuclear detonation. We had seen how a nuclear airburst could generate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could devastate communication and computer equipment thousands of miles away. U.S. nuclear warheads detonated over our own soil, even many miles high above our soil, were, to put it mildly, not an attractive proposition. Many on this Council would argue that even the most devastating EMP pulse would be cheap compared to a groundburst, but that is an issue for another book.
Some designers pointed out that ballistic missile warheads travel at such enormous speeds (several miles per second) that they could be destroyed by “kinetic energy kill,” meaning impact with a hunk of material no larger than a bullet, or even a small stone. If we could hurl a device into the path of an incoming warhead and then distribute tiny pieces of material, shotgun style, so that the warhead could not avoid them all, we would destroy that warhead. This kinetic energy kill scheme was relatively simple, it was non-nuclear, and particles that missed their targets would burn up harmlessly, high above our soil.
Other kill mechanisms, including directed nuclear debris, were also possible. In a series of papers published in 1968, and later in their book The Strategy of Technology, Stefan T. Possony and Jerry E. Pournelle argued that the United States should abandon the doctrine of Assured Destruction, and instead adopt a strategy of Assured Survival. Specific proposals included conversion of a portion of the existing Minuteman missiles to defensive systems, together with deployment of sufficient offensive Minuteman systems to bring the force back to strength.
Defensive systems included both “pop-up” area protection missiles designed to foil a massive Soviet strike, and hardened command, communications, control, and intelligence (C3I) systems to allow damage assessment and precision employment of the surviving Minuteman force.
The debate over U.S. grand strategy—Assured Destruction vs. Assured Survival—was carried out at high levels in the government, but never became part of public or Congressional debate.
Most of the arguments were technical. Many engineers and scientists doubted our ability to detect and track intercontinental missiles. There were more misgivings about the ability to place an interceptor missile precisely in the path of an incoming warhead. Although many highly qualified members of the technical community were convinced that the United States would be able to develop reliable non-nuclear kill mechanisms sufficient to protect the Titan and Minuteman bases, the conventional wisdom of the time was that “we cannot hit a bullet with a bullet.”
Instead, the MAD strategy was adopted. The iron logic of MAD required that all defensive systems, including civil defense, be abandoned. The original plans for the Interstate Highway System included fallout and blast shelters to be constructed within many of the freeway on-ramps. This plan had already suffered under McNamara and Johnson; it was now abandoned. Meanwhile, negotiators were sent to procure by Arms Control agreements the security the United States refused to provide itself through technology.
Under the terms of the Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty (separate from, but signed on the same day as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty or SALT), the U.S. and the Soviet Union could each retain one Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) system. For a short period of time we experimented with such a system to protect the missile bases in Montana. The Soviets chose to protect missile sites in the suburbs of Moscow.
The Soviet Union has recently begun to expand their Moscow ABM system, and are now upgrading it with hypervelocity Sprint-type rockets. They have also deployed long range radar arrays suitable for nuclear battle-management far from their borders, in clear violation of the ABM Treaty. Our only ABM system was dismantled nearly a decade ago.
Two arguments were given for discarding ABM. First, the most influential technical analysts discarded the concept of non-nuclear interception as infeasible, not recognizing that research and development would soon produce new means (such as on-board micro computers) for greatly increasing intercept accuracy. Secondly, it was argued, defensive systems are illogical, since the doctrine of MAD demands that both sides remain perfectly vulnerable. If both U.S. and Soviet populations are hostage, then peace is assured; and anything which mitigates the horrors of war paradoxically increases the chances that war will begin. The Soviets have never accepted this argument.
Moreover, when lasers were first developed, a number of laser scientists argued that lasers would never be powerful enough to destroy or damage aircraft and missiles. Certainly early laser systems were insufficient; the early lasers were both low power and inefficient. However, a decade later, the United States openly demonstrated an airborne antimissile laser that can and does destroy not only aircraft, but also small air-to-air missiles in flight. Beam technologies are still in their infancy, and even more dramatic advances can be expected.
During the 1970s, advances in semiconductors, infrared sensors, and radar provided very much better target acquisition. It began to look as if impact weapons might indeed be able to stop a bullet with a bullet. But it looked that way only to a few who bothered to plug in the new advances, and to consider some fresh conclusions. By the mid-1970s, those few were already working to convince others that MAD was fatally flawed; not only was it now feasible to defend against ICBMs, but the Soviets appeared to be working feverishly toward that very goal. Indeed, in some of the most promising areas of research the Soviets were ahead of us even then. During the late 1970s, some Council members were arguing that MAD was obsolete, and that with its new technologies the U.S. could devise strategic defense worthy of the name. Such a system would at worst save many millions of lives by protecting our population and, by its very presence, lessen the attractiveness of a first strike.
The deterrence of a defense system that is only somewhat effective is absurdly underrated by critics. Professor William Baugh (both a physicist and political scientist) has explained it succinctly in his evenhanded new textbook, The Politics of Nuclear Balance. As Baugh puts it, “The intent in building such a defense is not to achieve perfection in the form of zero enemy penetration, but to reduce enemy penetration to the point that any attack is deterred by uncertainty about its effects.” In other words, if your enemy’s missile farms might survive it, the attractiveness of a first strike is much reduced.
By mid-1983, Council members had already shown that such strategies could be developed. But could the heartfelt views of thirty experts be abraded down to something approaching a unanimous opinion without erasing all detail in the process? A man who has spent thirty years cursing experimental devices that determinedly resist translation into foolproof, mass-producible hardware has a natural inbred reluctance to bet on an unproved technology—just as a scientist who has seen his experimental hardware perform several orders of magnitude better than older gadgetry, is unlikely to opt for yesterday’s systems.
It was Jerry Pournelle who kept the various committees, deliberating in separated portions of chez Niven, aware of developments elsewhere in the house. Sometimes a committee member would be invited by the Chairman to take a half-hour sabbatical with another group. Almost as often the roving Chairman, upon finding that a committee had reached consensus on some detail, passed the datum on to the other committees. There are times when the timbre and decibel level of Chairman Pournelle’s voice are sorely needed; the July Council meeting was one of those times. In this way, the various groups managed to avoid the false starts and reiterations that plague so many large councils.
The findings of the Systems Assessment Group were particularly crucial for several reasons. Its members included top-ranked experts in several areas of defense technology (although the discussions remained on an unclassified level); and it was their task to decide which systems proposed by the other groups would be most effective in defending against nuclear attack.
For an example, some defensive weaponry would not require a continuing human presence in space. Those that did might require manned space stations, a longer development time, or a lunar settlement. Clearly, the report of the Systems Assessment Group would figure in the deliberations of the committees on strategy and economics. But information flowed in all directions; there was no advantage in recommending a system which had inferior strategic value, or which was inordinately expensive even if it did fry the proposer’s fish particularly well.
