NEW WEAPONS TECHNOLOGIES AND EAST-WEST SECURITY IN THE 1980S

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83T00966R000100100036-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 5, 2007
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: December 1, 1982
• Content Type: MISC

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CONTENTS
WEAPONS TECHNOLOGIES AND EAST-WEST
SECURITY IN THE 1980s
HENRY ROWEN
Professor of Public Management, Stanford
University Graduate School of Business
THE POLITICAL CHOICES
UWE NERLICH
Foundation for Science and Politics, Ebenhausen
IMPLICATIONS FOR ARMS CONTROL 16
RICHARD BURT
National Security Correspondent,
The New York Times, Washington
NEW WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY AND THE
OFFENCE/DEFENCE BALANCE .. .. .. 26
ERIK KLIPPENBERG
Head of Systems Analysis Group, Norwegian
Defence Research Establishment, Kjeller
AIR AND ANTI-AIR CAPABILITIES .. .. , . 33
DONALD A. HICKS
Senior Vice President (Technical),
Northrop Corporation, Los Angeles
COMMAND, CONTROL AND COMMUNICATIONS
C. M. HERZFELD
Technical Director, International Telephone
and Telegraph, Aerospace Electronics, Components and
Energy Group, Nutley, New Jersey
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New Weapons Technologies and East-West
Security in the 1980s
Many technologies of military relevance are
changing; and they interact in complex ways.
Undoubtedly some will play a decisive role in
future wars, but which? We can make a few
predictions with confidence, more which are only
inferences, and still more which are mere con-
jecture.
There are four non-nuclear technologies whose
of lyances are o cardinal importance: (a) those
sensing and '^anmiittinr signals over a wide
ranje"ftTie eTec.?o-_ia etic s ectrum; () data
e"'ff~ness of the other technologies. The first
extends our capacity to detect things
and non-targets-
on- argets - in an increasingly wide range
environm and to send enormous amounts
of data rapidly over long distances. The first and
second together make it possible to search for
and extract signals from noise, natura a1' d man
place, an.tto guide vehicles ith heat precision
To targets. The third-
r , together with the others,
enables us to build aerodynamic vtnicles which
can be small and have tae a y to By + He
nap
o the earth' for long distances. a fourth ma kes
it possible to tailor more closely the effects of
weapons to the characteristics of gets and to
the error of delivery; is is especia y important
or non-nucit r weapons but it is to some extent
possible with those which are nuclear.
These changes affect our central concerns :
NATO's ability to defend
eve and its reliance on nuclear threats; the
estructw?ness of war and the issue of w e her
we should be t ry i g make war more horrible
ropurion; (d) ordnance. Tie cone
ogiw change lie'in s i to technologies of infor-
mation, interacting with and amp ying the
or more humane; our ability to e 2 en sea
lines o co~m cation; the capacity of East and
West to project power into third areas; a~~v
whet er ante
of technology.
Ten Propositions
Advances in these technolog' suppor the
following propositions:
1. The most elementary proposition is
familiarfone can see a target - in the absence
of enemy interference - one. K be able t7 h
t 1T
And many more rge Will a visa e
longer distances than in the past: ships, aircraft,
air bases, factories, bridges and tanks. This is in
marked contrast to the wars of the past, in which
hundreds of aircraft might spray thousands of
bombs over the landscape in order to get a few
on target. Improvements in accuracy now make
it possible to reduce the amount of ordnance
delivered by a factor of etween 100 and'10,000/
or a wide range of target types, including-soft
missile sites, electric power plants, petroleum
refineries, steel plants, etc., causing damage that
could put such facilities out of action long
enough to be significant in imports: tt contin-
gencies.
However, if the attacking vehic1Ps can be seen,
perhaps they too can be t precisMY "I M7
complication suggests a duel which cannot ~'
decided in the abstract. But another propositit
applies: defe' c!--s are almost inevitably im erfe
- sometFing can usua yenetrae, ow t
the chances are goo that w at ets throw h xr
hit, the attacker will find th netratioti'pt t,
worth paying if the target is su cien a ua le.
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?
2. Forces that operate against a homogeneous a sily concealed in `noise' created by exercises,
background, esReciallx the s Joy or a sur a for examp e, and would be less likely to give
ui caVrrW- u_oe e ran lore aria tnereto+ NATO a netptui warning time.
.
u
F s i es. e s ulg attac a v 24ykgc which
the sea is no longer black ink. has been evident in the two most recent Arab-
3. Less damage to civi ians - especially from Israeli wars, also applies to navies - era tt~ ng~n
the - Ito as an enc ose areas for example, et~i "i l_: %,'?-rranean.
acct enta consenuence o war, because more It -does not imply an inexorable cc~
aircraft or cruise missiles against ships.) And information on the location and movement of an
those that operate against a more heterogeneous opponent's forces, together with more effective
for example, on land or under the means of attack, increases the advantage . o
sea, can no longer count on relatively easy moving first. This creates a danger o pry' e-emptive
concealment
t it iii T1,_
As Andrew Marshall has
eaves unsettled the outcome of duels involving universality of proposition 4 above is that better
bombs wi hit their targets rather than the
first-strike instability but, rather, indicates that
adaptations are needed to increase warn;:-.g of
and to reduce vulnerability to suc pree ve
neighbourhood, and fewer bombs need to get
through to the vicinity of the target. This does
not mean, of course, that war will necessarily
be more humane, only that a deliberate choice
will have to be maw . ?s;ivr cans are to e u .
agi in, especially with non-nuclear weapons,
such a choice will often be at the expense of
directing attack at military targets.
4. The invaders rather than the invaded will
pro rsa van age.
making a ami iar but usually muddled dis-
tinction between offensive and defensive
weapons. For example, are mobile air defences
which are movir?g forward as part of a combined-
arms team offensive or defensive weapons?
Clearly both; however, invaders usually have to
concentrate their forces and often make them-
selves visible as they do so; this now makes them
more vulnerable. Eric Klippenberg rightly
points out that our problem is not offence versus
defence - or invading and blocking - in general,
but the Warsaw Pact's ability to invade and ours
to block.- er o invade they must move
an wit improoveTsensors their movements will
e more easily detected. c eear cave in
-'Point is
amp ious- aT'nain' s" on unfrie ndlyshores: if
e iffi"- nvaded side is equipped with modem
surveillance technologies and precision weapons,
the invader's prospects are not promising. A less
clear but probably valid argument of a similar
kind can be applied to blocking ground invasions,
especially where the inva s routes 7,
channelled y~ie terrain. The act - if also
equipped with weapons o preci7on - may be
able to launch an attack that is both owerfu
and smaller. Such an 'ttac would , generate
Tewer -signals- an tnese siana s s could be more
6. dvances in technology make some measur,
.'o reduce vulnerability easier. Improved sensors
now make it possible to detect small but pos-
sibly lethal forces earlier. But heavy dependence
on warning anti high alertness is risky and
costly; it is better to seek a posture that would
force a potential first-striker to mount a lar er
any noi?ier - e on. This can done by using
distributed or dispersed systems made up of
small, which are also less likely to be
seen, linked by advanced communication tech-
nologies. Because increased precision reduces
payload needs, and therefore vehicle size in
many cases, small vehicles might be substituted
for lamee. is principle applies to aircraft,
cruise missiles and remotely piloted vehicles
(RPv), and ships.
7. Dis . rice matters less. The performance of
some high precision navigation and guidance
systems does not vary with distance (the manu-
facturer of the global positioning system
advertises a XPloot median inaccurac
anywhere). Satellites have eased the problem of _
gathering i onfrmanoa at a distance; the cost of
movement by sea has been low for some time,
and increased distance adds little to expense;
long-haul air transport costs have continued to
decline with the advent of jumbo jets. But
distance is not irrelevant: the interval between a
decision to move forces and their first arrival
at the distant terminus and the time it takes to
fill a `pipeline' can be important parameters. The
local conditions of the terminus are also very
important (for example, whether there are local
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 ncreasmr, great
y. Tha necessity or dispersal,
concealment and mobility increases the demand
for control, while these technologies of informa-
tion enormously increase the supply possibilities.
As Uwe Nerlich and others have pointed out, the
main obstacle to realizing these possibilities may
be vested organizational interests within services
and within separate national governmo l T~'e e
Will be a great advantage accruing to -rose who
develop operational procedures for handling
large amounts of data and who design procedures
for information handling and decision-making
which match well to technological and human
air defences or a local logistic distribution Some Inferences
network), but these factors are more or less If these changes, vigorously pursued, promise a
independent of distance. relative improvement in NATO's ability to block
8. Both the demands on command and control an invasion and to do so while reducing collateral
and the potential for exten utg its s PF-i damage, it would seem that they would be
l
i
onset by each other, and this gives an advantage
to the side with the most weapons. Although
the Soviet Union lags in some of these develop-
of the technological developments are partially
Mis lesson
10. A technological lead is extremely useful,
but size o orces still matters a great deal. Some
adva o ogy. We should expec o see
9. Advanced technology is necessary
hands of those who develop and adopt an
effective doctrine for its use. The tank had been
around for twenty-five years before it was first
used with decisive effect. It required years of
doctrinal development by Fuller, Liddell-Hart,
" r aga otners betore to u po en ca was
realized by Gud eerian_The German success with
tanks was no^t based on superior technology but
on a superior concept of how to use a not-very-
mobile SAM and deployed cruise missiles). The
winner of the future Z as in the past - will often
be the side that runs out of weapons and troops
second. espi a superior NATO in o ion
ec no ogles, the Soviet Union might manage
simply to blast through with enough tanks,
artillery an peop e.
1 Does the Vietnam War demonstrate that it is not even
ne~~ces~ssa__rr?er aps, but the fairlymod_em Set SAM
ee envere undoubtedly useful in vie t an
Sov"et---~ade artillery, and, in the end, tan`s made'a'great
Chile ence in the S h.
unambiguously a good thing. Consider, however
,
the furore in the United States and Germany
over the neutron bomb. The neutron bomb h
as
been attacked on t e ounds that it is a too
destructive and (b) not destructive Pnough. Those
of the (first view claim that such weapons are too
destructive because the effect of neutrons is nog
well enough known, or declare that radioactive
fallout may be increased. Those of the second
view declare that the gap between nuclear and
non-nuclear arms has been narrowed and that
the reduction in civilian damage makes the use of
these weapons tempting, more likely and there-
fore dangerous because, once nuclear weapons
are used, escalation follows.
This dispute bears on the potential role of
improved non-nuclear technologies. Advanced
non-nuclear technologies wit[ cause ~---indi
.~.. le~Gtntlis:
criminate destruction_ Should we reject them on
the grounds that to use them will be too tempt-
ing? Not if we believe that we face a formidable
adversary against whom we need a capacity to
act which is militarily effective without being
suicidal. The second part of this requirement, a
capacity to take non-suicidal action, is
more irr ortant in an alliance than a sing:,
sate. Political decisions are more likely to be
a en i the criterion of achieving a desired
military effect within the constraint of limited
civilian damage can be met.
Modem non-nuclear technologies can do
more: for some missions they can substitute for
nuclear wP p21S,4VI/here t is is t e case, ere is
noTurring of the distinction between nuclear
and nun-nuclear - the firebreak between non-
nuclear and nuclear choices is widened. This can
hardly be in dispute. But it does not follow that
a large-scale substitution of non-nuclear for
nuclear weapons must come next. Firstly,
although the Soviet Union lags in the develop-
ment of technologies of information, she does
not seem to lag in fielding useful equipment and
in making needed adaptations, and NATO's
Secondly, whatever the potential for improving
the non-nuclear blocking capacity, the need to
discourage a nuclear attack on Europe remains
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urgent. Thirdly, more vehicles will be genuinely including those with area coverage, and they will
dual-capable - .. ~Mav and no. - present a much greater threat of disruption and
because the effectiveness of small non-nuc ear damage to NATO forces than in the past. Mobile
packages is higher. Cruise missiles and RPV air defences and improved low-altitude r"
provide perhaps the best examples. covT eraQe have ome urgen for NATO 1 orce
improvement.
Defending Europe Defence of the flanks may be especially
Unless NATO continues to make changes to affecte by the increased vu nerability of sea and
reduce its vulnerability, the Pact's surprise-attack ail forces noted in Proposition 2 above. In a
capacity will growl it may a re e o Soviet attacking force these components could
mount a powerful attack without extensive be subject to high attrition. So also might some
reinforcement, and such an attack could give of the Western forces moving in reinforcement
NATO little usable warning. In constrast, if of The lesson yet again, is o ?void
NATO's posture is resilient to sudden attack thee'gian is A multiplicity of . sma., -. anitsC''7
in
---?_ .- ... ..
pre:a aunt earlier arrival o 5'7tne .. -:. free- (gt:.
it could be vulnerable durin t is te ?
g process if mnis on the flank - an important mo lea!~-s
~TO has invested in improved battlefield esi d eratum - as well as providin more difficult
' .surveillance= mobile artillery air a tverd -area- r e Soviet attac
munitio
m
ns, i
prove an i- an weapons etc It is natural to speculate not only about the
Despite the growing difficulty . of penetrating implications of these developments for the
modem air defences, much more effective attack Alliance vis-a-vis the Wars
P
b
aw
act
ut also
against fixed targets for example, bridges ands about the implications for intra-Alliance relations
'
comman centres) rnra t be manage in
-order of changes in information technology. One
e orwacd
p
movement and supply of should not, however, conclude that increased
Pact forces. On the battlefield, improved US technical dominance in the Alli
ill b
ance w
e a
target-acquisition technology and the use of consequence. These technologies are dynamic;
RPV, drones and recisiO weapons ea onS
p p (inclu g the United States has a lead in some, but others
advanced area munitions cou serve to aTunt in the West are not far behind. They are ubi-
a ov , at least tb re quitous - they will pervade both civil and
extent of disrupting it, perhaps with substantial military sectors. It is important for the West
direct destruction. (There is a good deal of to stay ahead, and fortunately it seems to have
disagreement about the best way to achieve these an advantage in economic organization, and
ei ds.)2 even in culture, in these technologies.
The Soviet Union, of course, is adopting these It is difficult to see major implications for
technologies, and (given her higher material large states relative to small states in these
production rates) her inventories of advanced developments, but other distinctions may emerge
weapons may grow rapidly. She is investing clearly. For instance, people who live on islands
heavily not only in the ground-force equipment will find it easier to pr(;ct .t themselves r" ainst
about which we hear so much - tanks, self- invasion, whereas those who depe' nci on un-
propelled artillery, anti-tank weapons and impede" movement- o s pping may nd t. em.
armoured personnel carriers - but also in se yes at a disadvantaL ere are essc-I tgc
surveillance, electronic countermeasures and JaBati-and for the '. n t'rnr ..ere'
command-and-control capacities. She is also Because the prospects for action at a distance
investing much more than before i
t
i
l
n
act
ca
are impoved- the possibility o an've
aircraft with offensive capacities. These are non-nuclear attack across political boundaries is
equipped with modem
i
i
I
prec
s
on munitions,
more likely. at least asair st VI-zr '~