KREMLIN HAS SPENT $150 BILLION ON ITS 'STAR WARS', CIA ESTIMATES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706530005-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 26, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0706530005-9
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on its `star wars; CIA estimates
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'Kremlin has spent $150 bib.
/ official said U.S. intelligence has dis-
i By Warren Strobel covered a ninth huge radar being
r0M WASHINGTON TIMES constructed as part of a network on
The Soviet Union has spent $150
billion on its own version of the U.S.
Strategic Defense Initiative over the
last decade, the No. 2 man at the
Central Intelligence Agency said
yesterday.
That is 15 times what the United
States has spent in the same period,
said CIA Deputy Director Robert M.
Gates.
estimates of Soviet spending "are
based on an arcane and, in absolute
terms, not particularly reliable sci-
ence;' Mr. Gates said "it is our judg-
ment that over the past 10 years, the
Soviet Union has spent nearly $150
billion on strategic defense."
The Pentagon previously has said
that the Soviets have a $1 billion-a-
year laser weapons program. The
$150 billion figure is believed to be
the first public estimate of total So-
viet spending on missile defense
during the last 10 years.
The United States will spend $3.5
billion on SDI in fiscal year 1987.
President Reagan had requested
about $5.4 billion.
Mr. Gates, in a speech yesterday
to the World Affairs Council of
Northern California, said the funds
have been used for research on ex-
otic technologies like those that
characterize President Reagan's
SDI, rockets for intercepting enemy
missiles, ballistic missile detection
radars, a vast air defense capability
and hardening for Soviet missile
silos, command bunkers and other
military sites.
A copy of the speech was released
in Washington.
"'T`aken together, all of the Soviet
Union's ABM lanti-ballistic missilel
and ABM-related activities are
more significant and more ominous
than any one considered individ-
ually," Mr. Gates said. "Cumulatively,
they suggest that the U.S.S.R. may
he preparing an ABM defense of its
national territory."
In another development, the CIA
Soviet borders - the third new in-
stallation discovered this year.
U.S. officials have said the radars
could be used to defend against nu-
clear missiles, while the Soviets
have said they are for early warning
of a missile attack. Previously, U.S.
officials had acknowledged eight
such radars.
Mr. Gate's remarks followed Mon-
day's report in the authoritative Brit-
It has bought the Soviets so much ish journal Jane's Weapons Systems
know-how and military hardware that Soviet strategic defense re-
that they may be preparing to search is much more advanced than
abandon a treaty banning most is commonly believed. Jane's also
defenses against nuclear missiles, said that the Kremlin is benefiting
he said. from "a very dark cloud" over U.S.
While conceding that intelligence space programs.
SDI, commonly known as "star
wars," is the research program Mr.
Reagan launched in 1983 to study
methods of protecting the nation
against attack by nuclear ballistic
missiles.
The Soviet Union has denied the
existence of its own missile defense
programs and consistently has op-
posed the U.S. SDI program - a
stance that led to a deadlock in arms
control talks at last month's super-
power summit in Iceland.
Mr. Gates said the Soviet Union
may be preparing to "break out" of
the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty, which bans all but a small
missile defense force in the belief
that neither side will launch a nu-
clear strike if both are vulnerable.
The CIA official said the Soviets
are replacing the missile defense
system around Moscow with new ra-
dars and a two-layer system of long-
and short-range missile interceptors
based in silos that may be
reloadable. The system will have the
full 100 launchers allowed by the
ABM Treaty and could be oper-
ational by 1988, he said.
"The Soviets also are developing
components of a new ABM system
which are apparently designed to al-
low them to construct individual
ABM sites in a matter of months
rather than the years that are re-
quired for the silo-based ABM sys-
tems going into Moscow," Mr. Gates
said. The new devices could violate
the treaty's ban on development of
mobile, land-based missile defense
systems, he said.
"We estimate that by using these
components, the Soviets could un-
dertake rapidly paced ABM deploy.
ments to strengthen the defenses of
Moscow and defend key targets in
the western U.S.S.R. and east of the
Urals by the early 1990s," Mr. Gates
said.
Critics of the administration's
characterization of the Soviet mis-
sile defense program say the Mos-
cow defenses could easily be over-
whelmed by a concerted U.S. missile
attack.
They also have charged that a
Pentagon estimate that 10,000 scien-
tists and engineers are working on
the Soviet laser weapons program
alone is based solely on intelligence
estimates of the floor space in Soviet
research and development facilities.
And, the critics say, the Soviet
Union lags in two areas crucial to the
success of a sophisticated strategic
defense: powerful computers and
sensors to detect and track an enemy
attack.
But Mr. Gates said that "the Sovi-
ets are devoting considerable re-
sources to improving their abilities
and expertise in these areas;" adding
that theft of technology from the
West has helped solve the problem.
In other comments on the Soviet
missile defense program, Mr. Gates:
? Estimated that the Soviets could
test the feasibility of a ground-based
laser for missile defense by the late
1980s and of a neutral particle beam
to disrupt satellites by the 1990s.
? Said the Soviets are investigat-
ing excimer. free-electron and
chemical lasers for missile defense,
as well as X-ray lasers, which draw
their energy from the explosion of a
nuclear bomb.
The Soviets clearly believe that
strategic defense is possible, Mr.
Gates said, as he called for support
of the U.S. program.
"In the Soviet view, a U.S. decision
at this point to give upon defense and
to rely solely on offensive weapons
for deterrence not only would pre-
serve their monopoly in strategic de-
fense, but would be a key indicator
of a loss of U.S. will to compete mil-
itarily'," Mr. Gates said.
"Failure to proceed with an Amer-
ican strategic defense would hand
the Soviets a unilateral military ad-
vantage of historic consequence;' he
said, "with awesomely negative im-
plications for strategic stability and
Peace."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0706530005-9