THE SOVIETS AND SDI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89G00720R000500060018-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 31
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 4, 2013
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: November 25, 1986
• Content Type: REPORT

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The Soviets and SDI
An Address to the World Affairs Council of Northern California
(Bay Area International Forum)
by Robert M. Gates, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
November 25, 1986
One of the most significant developments in the nuclear age
was the President's call to the nation in March 1983 to
research a strategic defense system to protect the United
States and its allies. This visionary concept and the
President's determination to bring it to reality initially was
greeted with widespread skepticism and a good deal of head
shaking over his presumed naivete. And yet, as the nation's
scientists and engineers have been mobilized, the technologies
examined, and successful tests carried out a growing number of
scientific and political leaders have come not only to accept
the validity of the concept but the wisdom of implementing it.
While skeptics and critics continue to voice their doubts,
there is one person in the world who believes nearly as
strongly as Ronald Reagan that SDI will work and that America
can build it if it decides to do so -- and that person is
Mikhail Gorbachev.
It seemed appropriate to me to speak today in this center
of high technology development not of our own SDI with which
some of you are more familiar than I am but rather the Soviet
approach to strategic defense and their own pursuit of SDI type
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technologies. I think you will be surprised by the breadth and
depth of the Soviet program and the long term commitment they
have made to strategic defense, including advanced
technologies. It is ironic that the US effort to achieve
strategic defense is the focus of world attention, as if the
Soviet program had never existed, Indeed, I hope that when I
conclude the principal question remaining in your mind will be
why we have waited so long to create a defense for our country
-- to prevent nuclear weapons from reaching their targets,
Until March 1933, the United States developed its strategic
military programs within the strategic reality that the
existence of huge nuclear arsenals and the vulnerability of
both sides to those weapons would lead each side to calculate
that a nuclear attack would be suicidal -- that even if one
side preempted, the other side would have enough weapons
remaining to destroy the still-vulnerable initiator of the
conflict. This is the concept we have known as mutual assured
destruction, Even though this has not been our official
policy, it has been the reality.
There are two problems with this concept, First, the
Soviets never accepted it. The Soviets believe that nuclear
war could occur and, in light of that fact, they have designed
their military programs to try to enable the Soviet Union to
survive and to prevail. This includes the development over
many years, and continuing until today, of a massive national
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strategic air defense against bombers and cruise missiles, a
ballistic missile defense of Moscow and a vigorous R&D program,
as well as large scale measures for leadership protection,
civil defense, and protection of vital elements of the national
economy. It speaks volumes that in a relationship in which for
twenty or more years strategic stability presumably has been
based on mutual vulnerability, the Soviet Union has been
working to eliminate its own vulnerability and consolidate a
unilateral strategic advantage.
Second, the offensive balance has not been maintained. To
take just one example, the Soviets have continued to improve
their heavy ICBM force in order to be able to take out all of
the US ICBM force, other nuclear force installations, and the
few hardened leadership facilities we have. Their heavy ICBM
force is designed in order for the Soviets to strike first, and
effectively, despite their propaganda claim that they would not
use nuclear weapons first. The Soviet concept, an initial
strike by their heavy ICBMs, is the essential lead element of
their strategic defenses, for it reduces the nuclear threat
with which the rest of their defenses have to contend.
It is the Soviet program for strategic defense that I want
to address today. Only by understanding the scope of this
Soviet effort, our own vulnerability, and the destabilizing
effect of this imbalance -- recognized for years by our own
military as a serious flaw -- can one fully understand the
significance of the President's initiative.
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The Soviets have devoted considerable resources to
strategic defense. Over the last two decades, the Soviet Union
has spent roughly as much on strategic defense as it has on its
massive strategic offensive forces. While estimates of Soviet
spending on their military programs are based on an arcane and
in absolute terms not particularly reliable science, there is
some value in it for comparative purposes. For example, it is
our judgment that over the past ten years the Soviet Union has
spent nearly a $150 billion on strategic defense, or almost 15
times what the United States has spent.
And what have they bought for their money? They have the
world's only operational ballistic missile defense system,
installed around Moscow. Six years ago they began to upgrade
and expand that system -- actually, to replace it with a
completely new system -- to the limits allowed by the 1972 ABM
Treaty. When completed the modernized Moscow ABM system will
be a two-layer defense composed of silo-based long-range
modified Galosh interceptors; silo-based, high-acceleration
Gazelle interceptors designed to engage targets within the
atmosphere; associated engagement and guidance radars; and a
new large radar at Pushkino designed to control ABM
engagements. The silo-based launchers may be reloadable. The
new system will have the 100 ABM launchers permitted by the
Treaty and could be fully operational in 1988. The Soviet
system for detection and tracking of ballistic missile attacks
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consists of three layers -- a launch detection satellite
network, two over-the-horizon radars directed at US ICBM
fields, and two networks of large ballistic missile detection
and tracking radars.
The current layer of ballistic missile detection radars
consists of eleven large ballistic missile early warning radars
at locations on the periphery of the USSR. These radars can
distinguish the size of an attack, confirm the warning from the
satellite network and the over-the-horizon radar systems, and
provide target tracking data. The Soviets are now constructing
a network of nine new large phased array radars -- three new
ones have been detected this year -- that can track more
ballistic missiles with greater accuracy than the existing
network. Most of these duplicate or supplement the coverage of
the earlier network but with greatly enhanced capability. The
radar under construction near Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, however,
closes the final gap in the Soviet early warning radar coverage
against ballistic missile attacks. Together the nine new
larged phased array radars cover almost all approaches to the
Soviet Union; the Soviets will undoubtedly build one or two
more such radars to complete this coverage. (It is the
Krasnoyarsk radar, by the way, that violates the 1972 ABM
Treaty. It is not located within 150 kilometer radius of the
national capital as required of ABM radars, nor is it located
on the periphery of the Soviet Union or pointed outward, as
required by the Treaty for early warning radars. That is why
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the Soviets made the preposterous claim that it was a space
tracking radar.)
The growing network of new large phased array ballistic
missile detection and tracking radars of which Krasnoyarsk is a
part, is of particular concern when linked with other Soviet
ABM efforts, Such radars take years to construct and the
existence of a network of highly capable radars might allow the
Soviet Union to move rather quickly to construct a nationwide
ABM defense based om these radars, if it chooses to do so, The
Soviets also are developing components of a new ABM system
which are apparently designed to allow them to construct
individual ABM sites in a matter of months rather than the
years that are required for the silo-based ABM systems going
into Moscow, Soviet activities in this regard potentially
violate the ABM Treaty's prohibition on the development of a
mobile land-based ABM system or components. We estimate that
by using these components the Soviets could undertake rapidly
paced ABM deployments to strengthen the defenses of Moscow and
defend key targets in the Western USSR and east of the Urals by
the early 1990s. In addition to these developments, the
SA-X-12 surface to air missile system, to be deployed with the
Soviet ground forces at any time, can engage conventional
aircraft, cruise missiles and tactical ballistic missiles. It
could also have capabilities to intercept some types of US
strategic ballistic missile re-entry vehicles. Its technical
capabilities bring to the forefront the problem that improving
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technology is blurring the distinction between air defense and
ABM systems. This problem will be further complicated as
newer, more complex air defense missile systems are developed.
We are very concerned that the Soviets continuing
development efforts give them the potential for widespread ABM
deployments. The Soviets have the major components for an ABM
system that could be used for widespread ABM deployments well
in excess of ABM Treaty limits. The components include radars,
an above ground launcher, and the high acceleration missile
that will be deployed around Moscow. The potential exists for
the production lines associated with the upgrade of the Moscow
ABM system to be used to support widespread deployment. Taken
together, all of the Soviet Union's ABM and ABM related
activities are more significant and more ominous than any one
considered individually. Cumulatively, they suggest that the
USSR may be preparing an ABM defense of its national
territory. Such a defense, while not as comprehensive an
approach as our own SDI efforts, could provide an important
degree of protection and would fit well into the Soviet scheme
for strategic defense -- this is the only missing element in
their defenses.
Although the United States dismantled most of its defenses
against Soviet bombers in the 1960s, the Soviet Union has
continued to invest enormous resources in a wide array of
strategic air defense weapon systems. Currently the Soviets
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have nearly 12,000 surface to air missile launchers at over
1200 sites; 10,000 air defense radars and more than 1200
interceptor aircraft dedicated to strategic defense, An
additional 2800 interceptors assigned to Soviet air forces
could also be employed in strategic defense missions. The
newest Soviet air defense interceptor aircraft, the
MIG-31/FOXHOUND, has a lookdown, shootdown and multiple target
engagement capability, More than 85 FOXHOUNDS are now
operationally deployed. In contrast, the US has approximately
300 interceptor aircraft based in the US, dedicated to
strategic defense, 118 strategic air defense warning radars and
no operational strategic surface to air missile launchers, And
this in the face of the modernization of the Soviet heavy
bomber force and development of a new Soviet strategic bomber,
the Blackjack, Similar in design to the B-1 but larger and
faster,
Finally, the Soviets also have a wide range of passive
defenses to ensure wartime survivability and continuity of
Soviet nuclear forces, leadership, military command and control
units, war-related industrial production and services, the
essential work force, and as much of the population as possible,
The USSR has hardened its ICBM silos, launch facilities and
key command and control centers to an unprecedented degree,
Much of today's US retaliatory force would be ineffective
against those hardened targets, Soviet leaders and managers at
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all levels of the government and Party are provided hardened
alternate command posts located well away from the urban
centers, in addition to many deep bunkers and blast shelters in
Soviet cities, This comprehensive and redundant system
provides hardened alternate facilities for more than 175,000
key Party and government personnel, Elaborate plans also have
been made for the full mobilization of the national economy in
support of a war effort, Reserves of vital materials are
maintained, many in hardened underground structures, Redundant
industrial facilities are in active production, Industrial and
other economic facilities have been equipped with blast
shelters for the work force and detailed procedures have been
developed for the relocation of selected plants and equipment,
As if all these developments were not worrisome enough,
since the late 1960s the Soviet Union also has been pursuing
advanced technologies for strategic defense -- technologies
which the US is intending to explore in its strategic defense
initiative program, The Soviets expect that military
applications of directed energy technologies hold promise of
overcoming weaknesses in their conventional air and missile
defenses, The Soviets have been working as long as the United
States in laser, particle beam, kinetic energy and microwave
technologies applicable to strategic weapons, Let me briefly
discuss their activities in each of these,
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The Soviet laser weapons program began in the 1960s. Many
Soviet organizations both civilian and military are involved.
The Soviet laser weapon effort is guided and supported by some
of the best scientists and engineers in the Soviet Union.
Yevgeniy Velikhov, the rising vice president of the Soviet
Academy of Sciences, made his early mark in directed energy
related weapons research. (He is, by the way, the same
Velikhov who was one of 200 Soviet signatories of a full page
ad in the New York Times which stated that SDI would not work.
He, and some of the others, made their mark by demonstrating
the value of these technologies.)
The level of effort that the Soviets have applied to their
laser weapons program is great. While it is difficult for us
to measure the size of this program precisely, we estimate
roughly $1 billion per year for the laser effort. It is clear,
based on the observed scale and scope of the Soviet effort,
that their program is considerably larger than that of the
United States. For example, the Soviets have built over a half
a dozen major R&D facilities and test ranges and have an
estimated 10,000 scientists and engineers associated with the
development of lasers for weapons.
The Soviets have conducted research in the three types of
gas lasers that the US considers promising for weapons
applications: a gas dynamic laser, the electric discharge
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laser, and the chemical laser. Soviet achievements are
impressive, The Soviets have not only followed suit with the
US in their work on these three kinds of lasers, they have
continued to work on certain types of lasers which the US
abandoned. The Soviets have been working on other types of
lasers that the US has not seriously considered for weapons
application until very recently. They also are investigating
excimer, free electron and x-ray lasers and have been
developing argon ion lasers for over a decade. The Soviets
appear generally capable of supplying the prime power, energy
storage and auxiliary components needed for most laser and
other directed energy weapons. They have developed a
rocket-driven generator which produces over 15 megawatts of
electrical power -- a device that has no counterpart in the
West. The Soviets may also have the capability to develop the
optical systems necessary for laser weapons to track and attack
their target.
The USSR has now progressed, in some cases, beyond
technology research. It already has ground-based lasers that
could be used to interfere with US satellites and could have
prototype space-based anti-satellite laser weapons by the early
1990s, We expect the Soviets to test the feasibility of
ground-based lasers for defense against ballistic missiles by
the late 1980s and could begin testing components for a large
scale deployment system in the 1990s.
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The remaining difficulties in fielding an operational
system will require still more development time. An
operational ground-based laser for defense against ballistic
missiles probably could not be deployed until after the year
2000. If technology developments prove successful, the Soviets
may deploy operational space-based anti-satellite lasers in the
1990s and might be able to deploy space-based laser systems for
defense against ballistic missiles after the year 2000.
Soviet research and development of those technologies that
could support a particle beam weapon also have been
impressive. We estimate that they may be able to test a
prototype particle beam weapon intended to disrupt the
electronics of satellites in the 1990s. A weapon designed to
destroy satellites could follow later. A weapon capable of
physically destroying missile boosters or warheads probably
would require additional years of research and development.
The USSR also has conducted research in the use of strong
radiofrequency signals that have the potential to interfere
with or destroy critical electronic components of ballistic
missile warheads. The Soviets could test a ground-based
radiofrequency weapon capable of damaging satellites in the
1990s, Soviet capabilities to develop micro-wave weapons or
radiofrequency weapons are on a par if not superior to those of
the US.
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The Soviets also have a variety of research programs
underway in the area of kinetic energy weapons using the high
speed collision of a small mass with the target as the kill
mechanism. Long range, space-based kinetic energy systems for
defense against ballistic missiles probably could not be
developed until the mid-1990s or even later, The USSR could,
however, could deploy in the near term a short-range
space-based system useful for satellite or space station
defense or for close-in attack by a maneuvering satellite.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to Soviet success in these
advanced defenses against ballistic missiles are remote sensor
and computer technologies -- currently more highly developed in
the West than in the USSR, The Soviets are devoting
considerable resources to improving their abilities and
expertise in these technologies. An important part of that
effort involves increasing exploitation of open and clandestine
access to Western technology, For example, the Soviets have
long been engaged in well funded effort to purchase US high
technology computers, test and calibration equipment, and
sensors illegally through third parties,
The Soviets have had a near monopoly on strategic defenses
for many years, Their primary motivation for engaging
initially in the strategic arms limitation talks with the
United States in 1969 was to kill the US anti-ballistic missile
program, Indeed, for many months in the early stages of SALT,
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the Soviets refused even to discuss limits on offensive
strategic systems.
The Soviet effort we see today to kill SDI is of a piece
with the effort nearly twenty years ago to kill ABM. The
Soviets simply do not want the United States to be able to
defend itself against strategic nuclear weapons. Limited
though the current Soviet anti-ballistic missile system is, the
Soviets are laying the foundation that will give them the
option of a relatively rapidly deployable nationwide ABM system
-- a system that despite deficiencies would give the Soviets a
significant unilateral advantage both politically and in time
of war. Through an intensive worldwide propaganda campaign,
the USSR hopes that it can dissuade the United States from
pursuing the SDI research program and thereby the preserve the
Soviet monopoly in defense against ballistic missiles. Indeed,
the same Soviet covert action structure that was used against
the enhanced radiation weapon in the late 1970s and the
deployment of intermediate nuclear forces to Europe in the
early 80s is now being used against SDI.
The Soviets wish that the President's March 23rd
announcement had never been made and that they could pursue
their own solitary development of an anti-ballistic missile
defense and research on advanced strategic defense without
competition from the United States. The advent of SDI,
however, faces the Soviets with the mobilization of an American
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effort to build a strategic missile defense in the United
States and they are moving heaven and earth to convince or
pressure the United States to drop it. They believe we can
develop a highly effective strategic defense, in part because
they are doing large elements of such a program themselves,
In the Soviet view, a US decision at this point to give up
on defense and to rely solely on offensive weapons for
deterrence not only would preserve their monopoly in strategic
defense, but would be a key indicator of a loss of US will to
compete militarily. Moreover, failure to proceed with an
American strategic defense would hand the Soviets a unilateral
military advantage of historic consequence -- with awesomely
negative implications for strategic stability and peace,
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The Soviets and SDI
An Address to the World Affairs Council of Northern California
(Bay Area International Forum)
by Robert M. Gates, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
November 25, 1986
One of the most significant developments in the nuclear age
was the President's call to the nation in March 1983 to
research a strategic defense system to protect the United
States and its allies. This visionary concept and the
President's determination to bring it to reality initially was
greeted with widespread skepticism and a good deal of head
shaking over his presumed naivete. And yet, as the nation's
scientists and engineers have been mobilized, the technologies
examined, and successful tests carried out a growing number of
scientific and political leaders have come not only to accept
the validity of the concept but the wisdom of implementing it.
While skeptics and critics, continue to voice their doubts,
there is one person in the world who believes nearly as
strongly as Ronald Reagan that SDI will work and that America
can build it if it decides to do so -- and that person is
Mikhail Gorbachev.
It seemed appropriate to me to speak today in this center
of high technology development not of our own SDI with which
some of you are more familiar than I am but rather the Soviet
approach to strategic defense and their own pursuit of SDI type
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technologies. I think you will be surprised by the breadth and
depth of the Soviet program and the long term commitment they
have made to strategic defense, including advanced
technologies. It is ironic that the US effort to achieve
strategic defense is the focus of world attention, as if the
Soviet program had never existed. Indeed, I hope that when I
conclude the principal question remaining in your mind will be
why we have waited so long to create a defense for our country
-- to prevent nuclear weapons from reaching their targets.
Until March 1933, the United States developed its strategic
military programs within the strategic reality that the
existence of huge nuclear arsenals and the vulnerability of
both sides to those weapons would lead each side to calculate
that a nuclear attack would be suicidal -- that even if one
side preempted, the other side would have enough weapons
remaining to destroy the still-vulnerable initiator of the
conflict. This is the concept we have known as mutual assured
destruction. Even though this has not been our official
policy, it has been the reality.
There are two problems with this concept. First, the
Soviets never accepted it. The Soviets believe that nuclear
war could occur and, in light of that fact, they have designed
their military programs to try to enable the Soviet Union to
survive and to prevail. This includes the development over
many years, and continuing until today, of a massive national
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strategic air defense against bombers and cruise missiles, a
ballistic missile defense of Moscow and a vigorous R&D program,
as well as large scale measures for leadership protection,
civil defense, and protection of vital elements of the national
economy. It speaks volumes that in a relationship in which for
twenty or more years strategic stability presumably has been
based on mutual vulnerability, the Soviet Union has been
working to eliminate its own vulnerability and consolidate a
unilateral strategic advantage.
Second, the offensive balance has not been maintained. To
take just one example, the Soviets,have continued to improve
their heavy ICBM force in order to be able to take out all of
the US ICBM force, other nuclear force installations, and the
few hardened leadership facilities we have. Their heavy ICBM
force is designed in order for theSoviets to strike first, and
effectively, despite their propaganda claim ?that they would not
use nuclear weapons first. The Soviet concept, an initial
strike by their heavy ICBMs, is the essential lead element of
their strategic defenses, for it reduces the nuclear threat
with which the rest of their defenses have to contend.
It is the Soviet program for strategic defense that I want
to address today. Only by understanding the scope of this
Soviet effort, our own vulnerability, and the destabilizing
effect of this imbalance -- recognized for years by our own
military as a serious flaw -- can one fully understand the
significance of the President's initiative.
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The Soviets have devoted considerable resources to
strategic defense. Over the last two decades, the Soviet Union
has spent roughly as much on strategic defense as it has on its
massive strategic offensive forces. While estimates of Soviet
spending on their military programs are based on an arcane and
in absolute terms not particularly reliable science, there is
some value in it for comparative purposes. For example, it is
our judgment that over the past ten years the Soviet Union has
spent nearly a $150 billion on strategic defense, or almost 15
times what the United States has spent.
And what have they bought for their money? They have the
world's only operational ballistic missile defense system,
installed around Moscow. Six years ago they began to upgrade
and expand that system -- actually, to replace it with a
completely new system -- to the limits allowed by the 1972 ABM
Treaty. When completed the modernized Moscow ABM system will
be a two-layer defense composed of silo-based long-range
modified Galosh interceptors; silo-based, high-acceleration
Gazelle interceptors designed to engage targets within the
atmosphere; associated engagement and guidance radars; and a
new large radar at Pushkino designed to control ABM
engagements. The silo-based launchers may be reloadable. The
new system will have the 100 ABM launchers permitted by the
Treaty and could be fully operational in 1988. The Soviet
system for detection and tracking of ballistic missile attacks
It
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consists of three layers -- a launch detection satellite
network, two over-the-horizon radars directed at US ICBM
fields, and two networks of large ballistic missile detection
and tracking radars.
The current layer of ballistic missile detection radars
consists of eleven large ballistic missile early warning radars
at locations on the periphery of the USSR. These radars can
distinguish the size of an attack, confirm the warning from the
satellite network and the over-the-horizon radar systems, and
provide target tracking data. The Soviets are now constructing
a network of nine new large phased array radars -- three new
ones have been detected this year -- that can track more
ballistic missiles with greater accuracy than the existing
network. Most of these duplicate or supplement the coverage of
the earlier network but with greatly enhanced capability. The
radar under construction near Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, however,
closes the final gap in the Soviet early warning radar coverage
against ballistic missile attacks. Together the nine new
larged phased array radars cover almost all approaches to the
Soviet Union; the Soviets will undoubtedly build one or two
more such radars to complete this coverage. (It is the
Krasnoyarsk radar, by the way, that violates the 1972 ABM
Treaty. It is not located within 150 kilometer radius of the
national capital as required of ABM radars, nor is it located
on the periphery of the Soviet Union or pointed outward, as
required by the Treaty for early warning radars. That is why
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the Soviets made the preposterous claim that it was a space
tracking radar.)
The growing network of new large phased array ballistic
missile detection and tracking radars of which Krasnoyarsk is a
part, is of particular concern when linked with other Soviet
ABM efforts. Such radars take years to construct and the
existence of a network of highly capable radars might allow the
Soviet Union to move rather quickly to construct a nationwide
ABM defense based om these radars, if it chooses to do so. The
Soviets also are developing components of a new ABM system
which are apparently designed to allow them to construct
individual ABM sites in a matter of months rather than the
years that are required for the silo-based ABM systems going
into Moscow. Soviet activities in this regard potentially
violate the ABM Treaty's prohibition on the development of a
mobile land-based ABM system or components. We estimate that
by using these components the Soviets could undertake rapidly
paced ABM deployments to strengthen the defenses of Moscow and
defend key targets in the Western USSR and east of the Urals by
the early 1990s. In addition to these developments, the
SA-X-12 surface to air missile system, to be deployed with the
Soviet ground forces at any time, can engage conventional
aircraft, cruise missiles and tactical ballistic missiles. It
could also have capabilities to intercept some types of US
strategic ballistic missile re-entry vehicles. Its technical
capabilities bring to the forefront the problem that improving
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technology is blurring the distinction between air defense and
ABM systems, This problem will be further complicated as
newer, more complex air defense missile systems are developed.
We are very concerned that the Soviets continuing
development efforts give them the potential for widespread ABM
deployments, The Soviets have the major components for an ABM
system that could be used for widespread ABM deployments well
in excess of ABM Treaty limits, The components include radars,
an above ground launcher, and the high acceleration missile
that will be deployed around Moscow, The potential exists for
the production lines associated with the upgrade of the Moscow
ABM system to be used to support widespread deployment, Taken
together, all of the Soviet Union's ABM and ABM related
activities are more significant and more ominous than any one
considered individually, Cumulatively, they suggest that the
USSR may be preparing an ABM defense of its national
territory, Such a defense, while not as comprehensive an
approach as our own SDI efforts, could provide an important
degree of protection and would fit well into the Soviet scheme
for strategic defense -- this is the only missing element in
their defenses.
Although the United States dismantled most of its defenses
against Soviet bombers in the 1960s, the Soviet Union has
continued to invest enormous resources in a wide array of
strategic air defense weapon systems, Currently the Soviets
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have nearly 12,000 surface to air missile launchers at over
1200 sites; 10,000 air defense radars and more than 1200
interceptor aircraft dedicated to strategic defense. An
additional 2800 interceptors assigned to Soviet air forces
could also be employed in strategic defense missions. The
newest Soviet air defense interceptor aircraft, the
MIG-31/FOXHOUND, has a lookdown, shootdown and multiple target
engagement capability. More than 85 FOXHOUNDS are now
operationally deployed. In contrast, the US has approximately
300 interceptor aircraft based in the US, dedicated to
strategic defense, 118 strategic air defense warning radars and
no operational strategic surface to air missile launchers. And
this in the face of the modernization of the Soviet heavy
bomber force and development of a new Soviet strategic bomber,
the Blackjack. Similar in design to the B-1 but larger and
faster.
Finally, the Soviets also have a wide range of passive
defenses to ensure wartime survivability and continuity of
Soviet nuclear forces, leadership, military command and control
units, war-related industrial production and services, the
essential work force, and as much of the population as possible.
The USSR has hardened its ICBM silos, launch facilities and
key command and control centers to an unprecedented degree.
Much of today's US retaliatory force would be ineffective
against those hardened targets. Soviet leaders and managers at
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all levels of the government and Party are provided hardened
alternate command posts located well away from the urban
centers, in addition to many deep bunkers and blast shelters in
Soviet cities. This comprehensive and redundant system
provides hardened alternate facilities for more than 175,000
key Party and government personnel. Elaborate plans also have
been made for the full mobilization of the national economy in
support of a war effort. Reserves of vital materials are
maintained, many in hardened underground structures. Redundant
industrial facilities are in active production. Industrial and
other economic facilities have been equipped with blast
shelters for the work force and detailed procedures have been
developed for the relocation of selected plants and equipment.
As if all these developments were not worrisome enough,
since the late 1960s the Soviet Union also has been pursuing
advanced technologies for strategic defense -- technologies
which the US is intending to explore in its strategic defense
initiative program. The Soviets expect that military
applications of directed energy technologies hold promise of
overcoming weaknesses in their conventional air and missile
defenses. The Soviets have been working as long as the United
States in laser, particle beam, kinetic energy and microwave
technologies applicable to strategic weapons. Let me briefly
discuss their activities in each of these.
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The Soviet laser weapons program began in the 1960s. Many
Soviet organizations both civilian and military are involved.
The Soviet laser weapon effort is guided and supported by some
of the best scientists and engineers in the Soviet Union.
Yevgeniy Velikhov, the rising vice president of the Soviet
Academy of Sciences, made his early mark in directed energy
related weapons research. (He is, by the way, the same
Velikhov who was one of 200 Soviet signatories of a full page
ad in the New York Times which stated that SDI would not work.
He, and some of the others, made their mark by demonstrating
the value of these technologies.)
The level of effort that the Soviets have applied to their
laser weapons program is great. While it is difficult for us
to measure the size of this program precisely, we estimate
roughly $1 billion per year for the laser effort. It is clear,
based on the observed scale and scope of the Soviet effort,
that their program is considerably larger than that of the
United States. For example, the Soviets have built over a half
a dozen major R&D facilities and test ranges and have an
estimated 10,000 scientists and engineers associated with the
development of lasers for weapons.
The Soviets have conducted research in the three types of
gas lasers that the US considers promising for weapons
applications: a gas dynamic laser, the electric discharge
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laser, and the chemical laser. Soviet achievements are
impressive. The Soviets have not only followed suit with the
US in their work on these three kinds of lasers, they have
continued to work on certain types of lasers which the US
abandoned. The Soviets have been working on other types of
lasers that the US has not seriously considered for weapons
application until very recently. They also are investigating
excimer, free electron and x-ray lasers and have been
developing argon ion lasers for over a decade. The Soviets
appear generally capable of supplying the prime power, energy
storage and auxiliary components needed for most laser and
other directed energy weapons. They have developed a
rocket-driven generator which produces over 15 megawatts of
electrical power -- a device that has no counterpart in the
West. The Soviets may also have the capability to develop the
optical systems necessary for laser weapons to track and attack
their target.
The USSR has now progressed, in some cases, beyond
technology research. It already has ground-based lasers that
could be used to interfere with US satellites and could have
prototype space-based anti-satellite laser weapons by the early
1990s, We expect the Soviets to test the feasibility of
ground-based lasers for defense against ballistic missiles by
the late 1980s and could begin testing components for a large
scale deployment system in the 1990s,
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The remaining difficulties in fielding an operational
system will require still more development time, An
operational ground-based laser for defense against ballistic
missiles probably could not be deployed until after the year
2000, If technology developments prove successful, the Soviets
may deploy operational space-based anti-satellite lasers in the
1990s and might be able to deploy space-based laser systems for
defense against ballistic missiles after the year 2000,
Soviet research and development of those technologies that
could support a particle beam weapon also have been
impressive, We estimate that they may be able to test a
prototype particle beam weapon intended to disrupt the
electronics of satellites in the 1990s. A weapon designed to
destroy satellites could follow later. A weapon capable of
physically destroying missile boosters or warheads probably
would require additional years of research and development,
The USSR also has conducted research in the use of strong
radiofrequency signals that have the potential to interfere
with or destroy critical electronic components of ballistic
missile warheads, The Soviets could test a ground-based
radiofrequency weapon capable of damaging satellites in the
1990s, Soviet capabilities to develop micro-wave weapons or
radiofrequency weapons are on a par if not superior to those of
the US,
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The Soviets also have a variety of research programs
underway in the area of kinetic energy weapons using the high
speed collision of a small mass with the target as the kill
mechanism. Long range, space-based kinetic energy systems for
defense against ballistic missiles probably could not be
developed until the mid-1990s or even later. The USSR could,
however, could deploy in the near term a short-range
space-based system useful for satellite or space station
defense or for close-in attack by a maneuvering satellite.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to Soviet success in these
advanced defenses against ballistic missiles are remote sensor
and computer technologies -- currently more highly developed in
the West than in the USSR. The Soviets are devoting
considerable resources to improving their abilities and
expertise in these technologies. An important part of that
effort involves increasing exploitation of open and clandestine
access to Western technology. For example, the Soviets have
long been engaged in well funded effort to purchase US high
technology computers, test and calibration equipment, and
sensors illegally through third parties.
The Soviets have had a near monopoly on strategic defenses
for many years. Their primary motivation for engaging
initially in the strategic arms limitation talks with the
United States in 1969 was to kill the US anti-ballistic missile
program. Indeed, for many months in the early stages of SALT,
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the Soviets refused even to discuss limits on offensive
strategic systems,
The Soviet effort we see today to kill SDI is of a piece
with the effort nearly twenty years ago to kill ABM, The
Soviets simply do not want the United States to be able to
defend itself against strategic nuclear weapons, Limited
though the current Soviet anti-ballistic missile system is, the
Soviets are laying the foundation that will give them the
option of a relatively rapidly deployable nationwide ABM system
-- a system that despite deficiencies would give the Soviets a
significant unilateral advantage both politically and in time
of war. Through an intensive worldwide propaganda campaign,
the USSR hopes that it can dissuade the United States from
pursuing the SDI research program and thereby the preserve the
Soviet monopoly in defense against ballistic missiles. Indeed,
the same Soviet covert action structure that was used against
the enhanced radiation weapon in the late 1970s and the
deployment of intermediate nuclear forces to Europe in the
early 80s is now being used against SDI,
The Soviets wish that the President's March 23rd
announcement had never been made and that they could pursue
their own solitary development of an anti-ballistic missile
defense and research on advanced strategic defense without
competition from the United States, The advent of SDI,
however, faces the Soviets with the mobilization of an American
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effort to build a strategic missile defense in the United
States and they are moving heaven and earth to convince or
pressure the United States to drop it. They believe we can
develop a highly effective strategic defense, in part because
they are doing large elements of such a program themselves.
In the Soviet view, a US decision at this point to give up
on defense and to rely solely on offensive weapons for
deterrence not only would preserve their monopoly in strategic
defense, but would be a key indicator of a loss of US will to
compete militarily. Moreover, failure to proceed with an
American strategic defense would hand the Soviets a unilateral
military advantage of historic consequence -- with awesomely
negative implications for strategic stability and peace.
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