RADAR DISCOVERIES IN USSR WALL STREET JOURNAL - 15 AUGUST 1986

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100160038-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: August 15, 1986
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160038-3
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160038-3
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160038-3
2 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL FRIDAY;, AUGUST 15, 1986
U. S. Analysts Find New Soviet Radars,
Possibly Complicating Arms-Pact Effort
By JOHN WALCOTT
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON-While Soviet arms ne-
gotiators are pressing to strengthen the
1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the
U.S., American intelligence has discovered
that Moscow is building two huge new mis-
sile-defense radars.
The discovery could complicate U.S.-So-
viet efforts to hammer out new arms-con-
trol agreements because, some experts be-
lieve, the radars suggest that Moscow may
be laying the foundation for a nationwide
missile-defense system, which is banned
by the ABM Treaty.
Whatever Moscow's intentions, the new
radars would strengthen the hand of ad-
ministration hard-liners who want to pre-
vent arms-control agreements from limit-
ing President Reagan's Strategic Defense
Initiative, the so-called Star Wars space
defense plan.
No Violation by Themselves
Senior American officials say the new
radar installations, the seventh and eighth
of their kind, are located near the Soviet
Union's western border and will be aimed
toward the Atlantic and the Mediterra-
nean. Because they are on the country's
periphery, the new radars by themselves
don't violate the 1972 treaty as the U.S.
charges a similar radar at Krasnoyarsk in
Siberia does.
But if they turn out to be part of a na-
tionwide ABM system, they would violate
the 1972 treaty, which limits the U.S. and
the U.S.S.R. to two local defense systems.
Some defense officials fear that the Soviets
may be slowly building the pieces of a na-
tionwide system.
"It certainly helps worst-case thinking
along," says arms-control expert Michael
Krepon of the Carnegie Endowment for In-
ternational Peace.
American intelligence analysts say the
new radars fill the final gap in the Soviets'
network of so-called Large, Phased-Array
Radars, which are capable of detecting
and tracking incoming ballistic missiles at
great distances. But some U.S. officials
say three existing radars, code-named Hen
House, already can detect any ballistic
missile attacks in the area. "These are
very, very difficult to explain as early
warning radars," an administration ana-
lyst says of the new radars.
Complicate U.S. Retaliation
Some officials fear that the Soviets, who
already are strengthening an existing (and
legal) missile-defense network around
Moscow, might be able to deploy at least a
crude nationwide missile-defense system
quickly when the eight big phased array
radars are operational, probably early in
the 1990s.
The Soviets have developed smaller,
mobile battle-management radars, code-
named Pawn Shop and Flat Twin, which
take only six to eight weeks to be de-
ployed. The U.S.S.R. also has begun pro-
duction of a new, high-speed anti-missile
missile for the Moscow missile-defense
system and some U.S. officials worry that
extra interceptors could be built covertly
and stockpiled.
Though it would be crude, U.S. officials
say, an ABM system constructed of these
elements would complicate plans for any
U.S. retaliatory strike on Soviet military
targets.
But U.S. intelligence officials are di-
vided on the important question of whether
the new Soviet radars are designed to
warn of incoming missiles, or also to help
direct defenses to shoot them down. In
Congressional testimony last year, Robert
M. Gates, deputy director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, said such large ra-
dars could help support a large anti-ballis-
tic-missile system. But he noted that the
installations, which are more than 150
yards long and more than nine stories tall,
are vulnerable to attack and to the elec-
tronic effects of a nuclear blast.
Other experts argue that the eight big
radars probably form an early warning
network, which is permitted by the ABM
Treaty, and note that the U.S. is upgrading
its own radar defenses by building similar,
though less powerful, phased array radars.
"They're early warning radars," says Mr.
Krepon.
Political Significance
But the evidence that the Soviets are
expanding their radar network may have
more political than military significance.
At a minimum, it suggests that neither
economic problems nor any desire for new
arms agreements has slowed Soviet de-
fense programs. James C. Linder of the
Defense Intelligence Agency has estimated
that the Soviets' large, phased array ra-
dars cost $300 million to $400 million each;
other experts believe the cost may be
twice that.
The discovery of the new radars also
may help U.S. hard-liners revive the de-
bate about whether the Soviets can be
trusted to keep the arms-control agree-
ments they sign. The Soviets, meanwhile,
are likely to argue that the administra-
tion's policies, especially Mr. Reagan's
Star Wars defense proposal and Washing-
ton's declaration that it no longer feels
bound by a strict interpretation of the
ABM Treaty, are forcing them to prepare
for a possible U.S. decision to abandon the
1972 treaty.
Such mistrust can only make it harder
for both sides to negotiate complex new
arms-reduction agreements. "The worst-
case analysis on both sides will be fed by
this," says Mr. Krepon.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160038-3
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