'STAR WARS' MAY DESTROY STRATEGIC DEFENSES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500050021-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 2, 2004
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: February 15, 1987
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For Release 20041$1/2% CLAI-RDP9ct1b901 R000500050021 -8
`Star Wars' May Destroy
Strategic Defenses
ured destruction n
ar
By William E. Colby
and Robert D. English
WASHINGTON
Su rely no national security
issue has had such a
brief yet bizarre history
as the Strategic De-
fense Initiative.
Announced on a
Presidential whim, the program has
in four years become the Administra-
tion's No. I military priority. Con-
ceived as a way to render nuclear
weapons "impotent and obsolete,"
S.D.I. could instead spur a major in-
crease in offensive weapons. But the
greatest irony is that its proponents
may be destroying whatever small
chance there is that strategic de-
fenses might one day make the world
safe from nuclear war.
For both the United States autd the
Soviet Union, security ultimately
rests on the principle of nuclear
deterrence. No attacker could ever
strike first and escape a crushing re-
taliatory blow. Whether we planned it
that way or not, the fact is that a state
of mutual assured destruction -
MAD, as it is called - has existed for
many years.
Critics of all persuasions have
found mutual assured destruction to
be unacceptable as a permanent
condition. Some yearn for the bygone
days of American nuclear superiori-
ty; others believe that negotiated re-
ductions are the only way to ease the
nuclear threat. But nobody is very
happy with the current state of af-
fairs, with each superpower poised to
launch more than 10,000 strategic
warheads at the other.
The danger is that, over time, the
odds of stumbling into nuclear war
are simply too great to ignore. Of
course, no rational leader would con-
template a first strike in peacetime.
But in a moment of tension or crisis,
when attack from the other seemed
imminent, a leader might overreact
to a false alarm or decide that
he had nothing to lose by "going
first."
As nuclear weapons become
swifter and more accurate, and as
warning and reaction times shrink,
these dangers grow. Mutual assured
destruction may still be strong, but
the price of its failure is obscenely
high.
So if MAD is unacceptable as a per-
manent condition, what is the alterna-
tive?
Che President s answer is
Wars." While there are serious
doubts about the feasibility of S.D.I.
lasers, particle beams and other ex-
otic technologies, it is still too soon to
know how effective or ineffective it
will be. At the same time, nearly
"erybody agrees that the research
-- unstoppable, in any case - should
continue. After all, even a small hope
is worth pursuing.
o',it the administration's approach
is aii wrong. The President's gung-ho
program, under whi,:h deployment
may begin as early as 1993, will
create conditions that kill whatever
small chance strategic defenses have
,cr success. This is so because such
haste ignores common sense criteria
for developing successful technolo-
gies.
For the Strategic Defense Initia-
tive, these criteria are the following:
Cureful research and development.
The Challenger shuttle disaster is
evidence of what can happen when
politics pushes science too fast. Many
,cure lives are potentially at stake
with S.D.I., yet the program is al-
ready under intense political pres-
sure, to the detri,,tenr of sound scien-
tific judgment.
A co"perative :American-Soviet ap-
proach.
The Russians fear that the +trate-
gi,. Defense initiative is a cover for
American 'fforts to gain strategic su-
periority. Hence, they will surely pur-
sue techniques to overcome or cir-
cumvent it. The S.D.I. director, Lieut.
Gen. Tames A. Abrahamson, recently
admitted that we could rind ;,u: salves
in another arms spltal of "counter-
measure and counter-countermeas-
ure." The only way to allay the Rus-
siaiis' fears is by reaffirming existing
arms agreements. We must assure
the Russians that we are probing new
concepts in science, not fielding a
weapon against them.
i)eep cuts in offensive weapons.
As "Star Wars" supporters have
acknowledged, no strategic defense
can work in the face of ever-increas-
ing numbers of missiles and war-
heads. Yet these are exactly what the
Soviet Union will build to counter our
unrestrained development of S.D.I.
Instead, we should be willing to slow
the program a bit while working for
major reductions in offensive weap-
ons.
If President Reagan is serious
about one day replacing mutual as-
with a system of
s
strategic defenses, this is the path he
must follow. Unfortunately, he ap-
pears convinced that any delay will
"kill" the Strategic Defense Initia-
tive. This is not so.
As shown in a recent study by the
Committee for National Security,
modest restraints on S.D.I. would en-
able this country to take advantage of
Soviet offers for deep cuts in offen-
sive weapons. Moreover, these re-
straints would hardly "kill" the pro-
gram, but would allow us to investi-
gate thoroughly the long-term feasi-
bility of the most critical new tech-
nologies. Such a compromise would
basically let America have it both
ways. -
It will take at least a decade before
we can assess the full potential of
strategic defenses. In the end, they
may not prove out. In either case,
deterrence will be with us for a long
time to come. But if strategic de-
fenses are ever going to contribute to
nuclear stability, it will only be in
cooperation with the Russians in a
world of drastically reduced offen-
sive arsenals. We cannot ram "Star
Wars" down their throats.
Those who push hardest for early
deployment are under the Illusion
that there is a unilateral, technologi-
cal fix that can protect us from Soviet
nuclear weapons. They are wrong.
And not only are they the enemies of
arms control, they are the Strategic
Defense Initiative's worst enemies as
well. Li
William E. Colby, Director of Centrul
Intelligence from 1973 to 1976, is a
member of the board of the Commit-
tee for National Security. a defense
policy research organization. Robert
D. English is a senior analyst at the
committee.