WHAT MOSCOW MIGHT DO IN REPLYING TO 'STAR WARS'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504490013-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: March 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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2
NEWJ YORK TIMES
6 March, 1985
What Moscow Might Do
In Replying to `Star Wars '
By CHARLES MOHR
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 5 - The -
Soviet Union is approximately equal to In the next few years, however, some
experts say they believe the Soviet
the United States in basic research on Union will probably take few dramatic
directed energy, like lasers and suba-
tOmic-particle or visible military steps to counter the
q
ui efortr a beams, that would intention of the Reagan Ad-
based for a broad and ld d ministration to build a new and com-
based
missile defense fense lanndsystem, accord- ord- Plex strategic nuclear defense.
ing us re The Russians already have by far the
to . But t the the R Russ sians atr e e said to trail
a
badly in the technology that would be most extensive strategic, or long-
needed to make such energy beams range, defense system in the world.
into workable weapons, But it is known to be porous. It includes
High Reagan Administration offi.: an air defense of 10,000 surface-to-air
cials publicly express a belief that a! missiles and thousands of interceptor
United States drive to design a space- aircraft and a relatively primitive and
based missile system, as a defense : 'rudimentary antiballilstic missile de-
against nuclear attack, will eventually fence in the Moscow area.
force the Soviet Union to give up its Defense Department officials say
present reliance on offensive land. they do not believe these defenses could
based intercontinental ballistic mis- prevent penetration of the Soviet Union
sues and build a similar defense sys- by low-flying bombers and cruise mis-
tern of its own. siles or prevent a crushing blow by nu-
These officials say the result of the clear missiles. Nonetheless, they say
American effort, made through its they are worried that the use of mobile
Strategic Defense Initiative, more radars and "upgraded" surface-to-air
missiles could be used in an effort to
commonly called "Star Wars," would provide a nationwide antimissile net.
be a more stable nuclear stalemate. work now prohibited by treaty.
In the view of several oth
er experts
on Soviet policy and weapons technolo- Andrapov's Statement
gy, however, the Soviet Union may in- . Speaking four days after President
stead multiply Its present offensive Reagan outlined his own hopes in
missile force in the hope that it can
saturate and overwhelm the proposed
United States defensive shield. The
Russians will also probably explore
technologically simple and inexpensive
methods of overcoming a "Star Wars"
defense, the analysts say.
In private, some Government au-
thorities_agree_ that both the Soviet
development and the American Strate-
gic Defense Initiative are more likely
to reach a result opposite from that in-
tended: encourage an offensive arms
race, bring about the death of the 1972
treaty limiting antimissile defenses
and prompt a shift toward a more hos-
!tile, hairtrigger relationship between
the two powers.
Soviet Steps Expected
Interviews with experts on the Soviet
Union both in and outside the United
States Government and a review of !
their writings and public statements
shows a general belief that, eventually
at least, the Soviet Union may also seek
to build a defensive umbrella against
intercontinental missiles.
Weapons in Space
The Controversy
Over'Star War-'
Four h of six articles.
render nuclear weapons impotent and
obsolete," Yuri V. Andropov, then the
Soviet leader, said, "Should this con-
ception be translated into reality, It
would in fact open the floodgates to a
runaway race of all types, both offen-
sive and defensive."
Sayre Stevens, a former Central In- I
telligence Agency eouty rector and
a consultant on national security mat-
jers. of the Administration's koal
from a strategy of deterrence
based on retaliatory offensive er to
one defense on t to see how
you get from here to re.
o ct a oeri of strategic uncer-
tainty.
Stephen M. Meyer of the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology and a De-
fense Department consultant on Soviet
military policy, said, "It's not going to
be a race between our 'Star Wars' and
their 'Star Wars,' but a race against
our system and their efforts to over-
whelm or neutralize it."
Conn,:,-
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Soviet `Star Wars' Potential
An increasingly frequent Adminis. A United States Government
tration contention is that the Soviet I agreed, saying, "We know
Union is "doing more than we are" in about beam resolution and other tech.
the exotic technologies needed for a nical factors that would make a laser
nearly leak-proof and advanced de- an effective weapon."
fense. A half-dozen officials in the penta
Richard D. DeLauer, a former Under
Secretary of Defense for Research and
Engineering, told Congress that al-
though the Soviet Union "equals" the
United States in directed energy re-
search, it "lags in other technologies
that are crucial" for missile defense.
He added, "We are ahead in comput-
ers, optics, automated control, electro-
optical sensors, propulsion, radar, sof-
ware, telecommunications and guid-
ance systems."
The area in which the Soviet Union
leads the United States is in large rock.
ets with great throw-weight - the ca-
pacity to lift and propel great weight.
But for lifting such things as fuel and
One Pentagon fear's that compare.
ble improvements that permit tracking
and engagement radars to pick up tar-
gets with low radar cross-sections
which is to say, American warheads -
and to
k
d
ma
e ra
ars mobile or trans.
and the Central Intelligence Age--- l
said irtelli about cy portable will bring closer the ibil.
gence Soviet efforts Iity of a nationwid
b
e
allistic missle de.
was scanty and-ambiguous, tense. American monitn.;.,..
e a
d
ova
-
erit,-
cal I
language in saying that American
analysts tended to measure "input
rather than output," because they, are
forced to do so. "The real question,"
Mr. Meyer said, "is what the Soviets
are getting out of it.,,
'Damage Limitation'
The Soviet Union has been commit-
hted to a military doctrine called "dam.
age limitation," which has not until
now been embraced by United States
officials.
A belief in the usefulness of limiting
nuclear damage has me
t th
an
at the
garded as more useful than large rock- Soviet Union has historically been will-
ets. r ing to put into place - and to expend
Advantage In Computers large amounts of money and man-
High-speed computers will also be tary systems that cl~earrl could not mili.
pro.
needed to manage a "Star Wars de- ' tect the nation from nuclear devasa.
tense. , lion.
"The United States is working to The Soviet antiballistic missile de-
transcend
e while fourth
tense around Moscow is an example.
the Soviet Union is still
struggling to master the third genera. maAlthough Moscow was permitted by
lion," said John E. Pike, a space policy t' to build 100 ABM launchers, it
constructed
analyst of the Federation of American only 68. A wide range of
Scientists, a private group that studies United States Government and non-
policy problems arising out of science. Government analysts say they believe
But, despite an inferior technolo the actual protection provided against
base, the Soviet Union has always man- a huge United States strike is close to
aged to match any major United States zero, but the Soviet Union did not dis-
mantle its
weapon innovation from early fission did
in the 19 70'esm as the United States
bombe to multiple
a b-- _,~
ov
cUewl
generation SA-12 surface-to-air missile;
tests i
di
n
cat that they have some'
potential antimissile use, experts said,
and could possibly be incorporated into
a defense system.
Deploy Now, Perfect Later
Several other experts tend to agree
with Mr. Meyer that Soviet polices re.
garding weapons development and de-
ployment are different from those of
the United States, and that if a true
"race" develops the Russians are
likely to be first into the- field with rudi.
mentary weapons.
"They have always been willing to
field systems that did not work and
then tinker with them through model
changes and design innovation," Mr.
Meyer said.
He said he believed the present
"operational" ABM system was only
now tivenessbeginning oAmerican technology aban.n-
doned 10 years previously.
Mr. Meyer even predicts that if the
Strategic Defense Initative provokes
unlimited the competition, the Russians
"will
He added that "it won't be an effec-
tive weapon" because the Russians
would still face the daunting problems
of finding targets and pointing and
tracking, which are far from solution
by M-4_ ?-----
10 siles and high missile accuracy. The Soviet is now eacereports, the J drive be a laser,"he said "and it been
the
catch- period has ort u
Congress sh
u thar American poi~ymakers cow ABM network with SH ~ 04 an SH- crazy." and officials here
expected. 08 rocket interceptors that are much
faster than the original Galosh rockets,
Difficult to Double-Check I although still slower than American
Statements regarding Soviet re- ; Sprint rockets developed more than a
search and possible Soviet advantages
are often difficult to double-check.
Much of what is known about Soviet
programs involves extrapolation from
photo reconnaissance and electronic
surveillance by United States satel-
lites.
The Soviet Union has what is be-
lieved to be two large ground lasers at
.SaryShagan in Kazakhstan, as well as
a vigorous research program in parti-
cle-beam acceleration. Almost all ex-
decade ago.
'Atmospheric Sorting'
The increased speed of the intercep.
tors would apparently permit them to
engage United States warheads after
the warheads had re-entered the at.
mosphere, which would strip away the
cloud of American decoys.
The Soviet Union has also made ob-
servable advances in phased array
radars, which are steered electronical-
l
M
h
y.
ec
anically steered radars of the
perts,however, describe the lasers and
not I past are regarded as almost useless
programs as "basic" research and against a large swarm of warheads.
active weapons development pro- I
grams. Pentagon documents speak I But the Russians still trail in radar
only of "possible" military applica- technology.
tions.
"What we can measure, in fact, is
mostly such things as floor space, prob-
able electrical power consumption and
so forth," Mr. Pike said. "For exam.
pie, we know nothing about laser tube
life or reliability."
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The- Countermeasures
Reaction by Soviet -
Possible Soviet oourttermeasures
against the American Strategic De- "One of the first things the Soviets
tense miff questions orf the short and could dreg out all of the 1,000 or more
troubling _--
middle tJm than a race for the ulti-
mate defense system.
Indeed, it is the possibility of these
measures that lies behind much of the
uncertainty about the feasibility and ul.
timate reliability of the "Star Wars"
proposals.
Paul H. Nitze, the Administration's
senior arms-control adviser, said last
month that at least two "demanding"
conditions must be met before even a
technically workable nuclear defense
system would be deployed.
He said that the components of the
defense must be survivable against at.
tack and that Soviet countermeasures
must not be cheaper to put in place
than the defensive shield. If Soviet
countermeasures were cheaper, de-
vices to penetrate a defense could be
built faster and on a scale larger than
the planned defense.
Experts outside the Government,
however, have for two years expressed
belief that plausible countermeasures
by the Soviet Union not only are likely
to be cheaper but also will involve tech-
nologies that, on the whole, are consid.
erably more simple than the daunting
problems of building an integrated,
working defense.
'The Physics Is All Right'
Even scientists critical of the work-
ability and desirability of "Star Wars"
say most of the basic scientific princi-
ples are possible. After a visit to the
Lawrence Livermore National Labora-
tory in California, Hans Bettie, the
Nobel laureate in physics, said "the
physics is all right" for proposed X-ray
lasers that would be powered by nu-
clear explosions in space.
But Dr. Bettie and other scientists
contend that fashioning these physics
principles into a large-scale, reliable
defense may not be possible.
The main difficulties faced by the
United States provide numerous oppor-
tunities for Soviet strategic thinkers
and scientists to counter the Strategic
Defense Initiative. The "boost phase"
aspect of the United States system, for
example, might use chemical lasers
that would destroy Soviet ICBM's in
the first three to five minutes of their
flight while the boost, or lifting, rockets
were still burning. This would occur be-
fore the missiles had dispersed multi-
ple warheads and before a cloud of
decoys, chaff and aerosols could be
raised that might thrwart American
defenses.
There is also speculation that the
United States could employ ground-
based lasers that would bounce their
beams off a system of space-based mir-
rors.
"Fractionation,,' or tncressing t be
number of MIRV's carried by each
missile, is possible, and it is easier for
the Soviet Union because its large mis-
old
`'"" yBS that Soviet
They would not even need warheads or
decoys." SS-18 ICBM s could be fitted with 30
He said launching such boosters warheads each instead of the 10 now
along with armed missiles would auto. permitted by an unratified arms
matically increase the number of tar- treaty'
complicating the task of the The Russians are also expected by
gets
,
United States sensors and defensive most experts to step up the develop.
went -already under way - of cruise
w And he said intelligence information missiles and of airplanes and subma-
indicated that the Soviet Union was rin with es which to launch them,
continuing to produce about t5n mm- Cruise missiles are pilotless jet air-
em boosters a year. By the time an
American system could be deployed,
Mr. Meyer said, the Soviet "threat
cloud" would be much larger than it is
now.
Alternatively, according to Richard
craft that fly at low altitudes toward
their targets. As now organized, the
Defense Department's Strategic De-
fense Initiative Office directing "Star
Wars" research has no programs to
deal with cruise missiles. A defense
a
ainst the
i
h
t be
g
m m
g
t no
an insur-
L. Garwin and Kurt Gottfried, who area,
of the Union of mountable problem -and may be
physicists and leaders
,
Concerned Scientists, an independent
organization of scientists concerned
about nuclear war, the Soviet Union
could seek to develop "fast-bum boost-
ers" that would finish burning before
leaving the atmosphere, where they
are immune to present day laser tech-
nology.
Such fast-burning rockets might be
relatively simple, and, Administration
technicians agree, could be achieved
with a sacrifice of only 15 to 20 percent
in missile payloads.
In the somewhat longer run, the
Soviet Union could clearly increase its
arsenal of actual ICBM's, fitted with
both warheads and such "penetration
aids" as decoys and chaff.
Expanded Strategic Arsenal
The Defensive Technologies Studies
Team that examined the "Star Wars"
prospects for the Administration in
1983 anticipated a possible expansion of
the Soviet strategic arsenal, postulat-
ing that an actual United States de-
fense should be able to deal with about
30,000 hostile warheads, more than
three times the number now in the
Soviet strategic arsenal.
This should not have been surprising.
When the Soviet Union began building
the relatively impotent antiballistic
easier than defending against ballistic
missiles - but will be necessary if the
ballistic missile shield is to have real
meaning and would require substantial
additional United States spending.
Low-Angle Trajectories
Another Soviet countermeasure
ballistic missiles from offshore subma-
rines on "depressed" or lowangle tra-
jectories.
The use of such low-angle tra ecto.
ries would mean that boosters and war-
heads would spend much less time in
space outside the atmosphere and that
the elapsed time from launching to tar-
get would be significantly less. These
factors would considerably complicate
nuclear defense.
"Precursor attacks" are another
possible Soviet ploy, and in the view of
some weapons experts, one of the most
likely. Such attacks, timed to take
place shortly before salvos of missiles
were launched at key targets in the
United States, could conceivably take a
variety of forms. But in simple tems,
they would involve detonating nuclear
weapons in space to blind, cripple or
destroy the defensive armada or else
attacking the relatively delicate
missile defense permitted under the ~ groundstations ins the United States
heads from about 2,000 to about 7,000 in
nine years. Most of these were multiple
independently targetable re-entry vehi-
cles, or MIRV's, which were developed
in large part as a means of overcoming
the limited Soviet defense.
While the availability and production
of fissionable materials place some
limits on the growth of warheads, they
are much cheaper than space battle
stations and much faster to build, ac-
cording to weapon technologists.
vl wlu WVWY pivwau-r [7C UM UILML aa-
fective in neutralizing a defense.
Direct attack of the defense by an-
tisatellite weapons is another possibi.
ity. Mr. DeLauer told Congress in 1983
that it would be virtually impossible to
install a space defense if the Soviet
Union took military action to oppose
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that step. -
"Spaee minas" are another
discussed ply. These would be sates
lites parted in orbit now United States
warming sensors or spacwb~ dalae
sidev1cwa..'I>& ?
asaasr*such mines could be detonated by radio
before, or during, an attack.
Or, experts said, missile boosters
could be spun at several revolutions
per minute. This would require a large
increase in the power of defensive
lasers, since the beam could dwell on
an area of the rocket for only a short
time.
Easier still would be an increase in
Soviet measures for "passive de.
fense," such as further reinforcement
or hardening of missile silos, dispersal
of vital facilities - everything from in.
dustry to command-and-control bunk.
ers to transportation - and civil de-
fense. The Russians already far sur.
pass the United States in most such
measures, experts said.
No one professes to know which, if
any, of the more plausible counter.
measures the Soviet Union might seek
to employ. But, in part, this unc er-
tainty grows out of uncertainty about
the eventual United States designs and
Defense
Or Offense?
I%f* bratiooar
Roa)dZ-Syov.drdetarof the In-
stitutefarSpaoc Raaearch of the Soviet
Academy of Science, said recently'that
"ti it plainly irratiaoal to build up do.
side two limwElasus and wqxxt the it offeosi other
wespp
Other Soviet officials are saying pri.
vately that they are going to have to
speed up their research programs and
keep open the option of makingg more
offensive nuclear weapons to overcome
the prospective American defenses.
Ray M. Garthoff of the Brookings In.
stitution, a former American diplomat
and an expert on Soviet pollcy,'pro.
dicted that "Star Wars" would "ter.
tainly Inhibit" any hope of reducing nu-
clear arsenals.
Other analysts say they fear `the
worst effect of the American defense
initiative may be on Soviet nuclear
strategy and planning, rather than on
technological innovations.
A report on "Star Wars" written by a
commission of which Mr. Sagdeyev
was co-chairman, said that "although
it cannot be regarded as an effective
means of deftense against a massive
first strike, it may create illusions
about possible defense against the re-
taliatory strike."
This conclusion is in close agreement
with the opinion of several United
States scientists and Soviet affairs ana-
lysts, who say they believe that while a
defensive shield is under construciilon
or even when completed, it will be sees
by both sides as more. useful in han-
dlias what is called a "ragged -re?
spouse" by. a nation whose nuclear
tomes have been badly damaged in a
tttst strike. ..
Such thinkers therefore beHeve that
missile defense would be seen in both
Moscow and Washington as encourag-
ing lust strike strategic policies and
would hurt rather than help deter.
In the Resgatr offi-
cials have made alUbiguous and coo.
ooffa he ot~ stgawsb as to the aetatl goat
suata~c Defense Inft1*dv%
They lave alpamated butwsee dsacrt -
ing it as a ''tbur y zw%bW gys. I
tern to protect the United Staterid
population and, the easiesuts`adtfeve
protection at missile dins -and tom.
mand posts.
hance" present policies nueWer.
deterrence based an reRaliatiad ff
making a Soviet fiat strike attack tm.
certain of success, officlab argue.
In a recent detailed assessment of
the Reagan defense inittattve published
last July, Sidney D. Drell, a prominent
physicist and deputy, director of the
Stanford Linear Accelerator, and-am.
oral associates asked whether the-
gram was meant to "transcend.. :coo.
ventional deterrence as President Rea.
gan indicated in 1589 or was intented to
improve offensive deterrence.
any e can, some analysts say they
program will have the de.
sired strategic and political effect on
Soviet leaders, and cite Soviet state-
ments to underline this doubt.
People like Mr. Meyer, Mr. Pikeind
Mr. Sayre, who is the author of a chap-
ter an Soviet defensive theory in a4984
Brook ngs Institution book on ballistic
missile defense, tend to doubt that;tbe
Soviet Union will take dramatic, sds-
ible military steps in the near futUrre.
They say they believe there are too
many questions and uncertainties
about the United States plan now to jus-
tify crash Soviet programs. More and
more people agree on the desirability
of rendering nuclear weapons "impo-
tent and obsolete," as President Rea-
But one possibility that is also of den.
eral concern is that neither nation will
be able to overcome the problems 'In-
herent in building a nuclear shield.
Even a tiny leak might, in the end, ren-
der It useless. - !
NEXT: Offensive capabilities , ~,of
"Star Wars."
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