The window of vulnerability that wasn't: Soviet military buildup in the 1970s - A research note

International Security

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 118-138

  Podvig, Pavel ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 47949092167     PISSN: 01622889     EISSN: 15314804     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.118     Document Type: Article

References (82)

1. For a detailed history of this period, see Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1994).
2. For the data on U.S. forces, see Natural Resources Defense Council, Archive of Nuclear Data: NRDCs Nuclear Program, http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/ nudb/datainx.asp.
3. This was the high projection made in the 1974 National Intelligence Estimate. The low projection was in the range of 7,000 ICBM warheads. Projections made in 1975-79 predicted 6,500-9,000 ICBM warheads. Directorate of Intelligence, "Intelligence Forecasts of Soviet Intercontinental Attack Forces: An Evaluation of the Record" (Washington, D.C.: CIA, April 1989), p. 8.
4. For example, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his posture statement for 1978 stated, "The Soviets give evidence of moving toward a fundamental shift in the 'correlation of forces' that would give them peacetime and crisis leverage over the United States." Quoted, in John Prados, The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence Analysis and Soviet Strategic Forces (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 254.
5. Paul H. Nitze, "Assuring Strategic Stability in an Era of Détente," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 54, No. 2 (January 1976), pp. 207-232;
6. and Paul H. Nitze, "Deterring Our Deterrent," Foreign Policy, No. 25 (Winter 1976-77), pp. 195-210.
7. For a discussion of the concept of residual potential, see Jan M. Lodal, "Assuring Strategic Stability: An Alternative View," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 54, No. 3 (April 1976), pp. 462-481.
8. For a critical analysis of the residual potential methodology, see Garry D. Brewer and Bruce G. Blair, "War Games and National Security with a Grain of SALT," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1979, pp. 18-26.
9. For example, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) issued in 1978 stated that "the trends in total remaining forces and destructive potential are highly relevant to the deterrence, strategic capabilities, and perceptions." Central Intelligence Agency, "Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Nuclear Conflict through the Late 1980s, Vol. 1: Summary Estimate," NIE 11-3/8-77 (Washington, DC.: CIA, February 1978), p. 36.
10. Warner R. Schilling, "U.S. Strategic Nuclear Concepts in the 1970s: The Search for Sufficiently Equivalent Countervailing Parity," International Security, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 1981), p. 69.
11. Central Intelligence Agency, "Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Nuclear Conflict through 1990, Vol. 1: Summary Estimate," NIE 11-3/8-80 (Washington, D.C.: CIA, December 16, 1980), p. B-15.
12. For an overview of the issues involved, see Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 3d ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 369-377.
13. The "window of vulnerability" issue was put to rest only in 1983 by the Scowcroft commission, which reported that a disarming Soviet attack was virtually impossible and recommended deployment of MX missiles in existing Minuteman silos. Scowcroft Commission, "Report of the President's Commission on Strategic Forces" (Washington, DC.: Government Printing Office, September 1984), pp. 17-18.
14. Richard Pipes, "Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win a Nuclear War," Commentary, July 1977, pp. 21-34;
15. and Fritz W. Ermarth, "Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought," International Security, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall 1978), pp. 138-155.
16. For a critical analysis of the approach that led to these assessments, see Raymond L. Garthoff, "On Estimating and Imputing Intentions," International Security, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Winter 1978), pp. 22-32.
17. Intelligence Community Experiment in Competitive Analysis, "Soviet Strategic Objectives: An Alternative View: Report of Team B" (Washington, D.C.: CIA, December 1976), pp. 2-3.
18. For the effect of the Team B report on intelligence estimates, see Prados, The Soviet Estimate, pp. 248-257.
19. For a detailed history of Team B, see Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Détente: The Right Attacks the CIA (University Park: Penn. State University Press, 1998).
20. CIA, NIE 11-3/8-77, p. 4.
21. See, for example, Raymond L. Garthoff, A Journey through the Cold War: A Memoir of Containment and Coexistence (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001), pp. 325-334.
22. The interviews were conducted, in the early 1990s under a contract from the Office of Net Assessment of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. John G. Hines, Ellis M. Mishulovich, and John F. Shull, Soviet Intentions, 1965-1985, Vol. 1: An Analytical Comparison of U.S.-Soviet Assessments during the Cold War, and Intentions, 1965-1985, Vol. 2: Soviet Post-Cold War Testimonial Evidence (Germantown, Md.: BDM Federal, September 22, 1995).
23. For an overview of the results of the project, see John A. Battilega, "Soviet Views of Nuclear Warfare: The Post-Cold War Interviews," in Henry D. Sokolski, ed., Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 2004), pp. 157-159, 164.
24. Pavel Podvig, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001);
25. and E.B. Volkov and A.Yu. Norenko, Raketnoye protivostoyaniye [Missile standoff] (Moscow: SIP RIA, 2002).
26. The main source of these data is the archival collection of Vitalii Kataev at the Hoover Institution Archive at Stanford. University: Vitalii Leonidovich Kataev, papers, 10 boxes. The collection contains copies of official documents and notes taken at the time that describe various aspects of a number of Soviet strategic programs. Kataev was a senior adviser to the secretary for the Defense Industry of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1974 to 1990.
27. A detailed analysis of the deliberations of the late 1960s is beyond the scope of this article. This description is based on VF. Utkin and Yu.A. Moszhorin, "Raketnoye i kosmicheskoye vooruzheniye" [Missile and space armament], in A.V. Minayev, ed., Sovetskaya voyennaya moshch ot Stalina do Gorbacheva [Soviet military power from Stalin to Gorbachev] (Moscow: Voyennyy Parad, 1999), pp. 232-237;
28. Podvig, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, pp. 130-131;
29. G.K. Khromov, official with the Military Industrial Commission (1966-90), interview by author, Moscow, May 15, 2002;
30. and E.B. Volkov, acting director (1968-70) and director (1970-82) of the Central Research Institute of the Strategic Rocket Forces, interview by author, Moscow, November 27, 2002.
31. Some R-36M missiles were deployed with 10 warheads, and about 30 missiles of this type carried a single 20-megaton warhead. See table 1.
32. The UR-100 missile is also known as the SS-Il Mod 1. Some UR-100K missiles that carried single warheads would be classified as SS-Il Mod 2. UR-100U and UR-100K missiles that carried three reentry vehicles that were not independently targeted would be classified as SS-11 Mod 3. The UR-100U was essentially the same missile as the UR-100K, but was deployed in a hardened silo.
33. They were replaced by the RT-2P from 1976 to 1980.
34. Robert L. Hewitt, John Ashton, and John H. Milligan, "The Track Record in Strategic Estimating: An Evaluation of the Strategic National Intelligence Estimates, 1966-1975" (Washington, D.C.: CIA, February 6, 1976), pp. 8-9.
35. Prados, The Soviet Estimate, p. 252.
36. "UTTH" stands for "uluchshennyie taktiko-technicheskiye kharakteristiki" (improved tactical-technical characteristics). In the U.S. Department of Defense designation scheme, these missiles are known as the SS-18 Mod 4, the SS-19 Mod 3, and the SS-17 Mod 2, respectively. Podvig, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, p. 582.
37. For an overview of the data on accuracy, see Robert R. Soule, Counterforce Issues for the U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Budget Office, January 1978), pp. 16-17.
38. See also Prados, The Soviet Estimate, p. 305, which notes that in 1985 the accuracy of the SS-19 was revised downward from 0.12 to 0.21 nautical miles.
39. For some missiles, the upgrade was performed in the silos and consisted of the replacement of the warhead section of the missile without affecting the rest of the missile system. S.N. Konyukhov, ed., Prizvany vremenem: Rakety i kosmicheskiye apparaty konstruktorskogo buro "Yuznoye" [Called up for service by the time: Missiles and spacecraft of the "Yuzhnoye" Design Bureau] (Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine: ART-PRESS, 2004), pp. 244-253.
40. The flight tests were conducted from the Baykonur test site to the Kura test site on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The distance between these test sites is about 6,300 kilometers, which is less than the 8,000-9,000-kilometer distance between the U.S. and Soviet ICBM bases. The CEP obtained in the flight tests would have to be recalibrated to reflect full-range accuracy. Details of the flight tests that would allow that, however, are unavailable.
41. In the Soviet tradition, maximum error is used as a measure of missile accuracy. Maximum error is 2.7 times the standard deviation of the distribution of miss distances and is about 2.3 times larger than CEP. The CEP values listed in table 2 are the maximum error values found in documents divided by 2.3 with subsequent rounding.
42. Central Intelligence Agency, "Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Nuclear Conflict through the Late 1980s, Vol. 1: The Estimate," NIE 11-3/8-78 (Washington, D.C.: CIA, January 16,1979), p. 10;
43. and Central Intelligence Agency, "Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Nuclear Conflict through the Late 1980s, Vol. 1: Summary," NIE 11-3/8-79 (Washington, D.C.: CIA, March 17, 1980), p. 13.
44. Central Intelligence Agency, "Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Nuclear Conflict, 1981-1991, Vol. 1: Key Judgments," NIE 11-3/8-81 (Washington, D.C.: CIA, March 23, 1982), p. 13.
45. Charts that would show the evolution of projections were redacted from NIEs issued after 1979 during declassification.
46. This estimate was obtained using a simple model that assumes that a Minuteman silo would be destroyed by a nuclear explosion if it fell within the range corresponding to overpressure of 1,500 psi. Overpressure values were calculated using the model described in Matthew G. McKinzie, Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris, and William M. Arkin, The U.S. Nuclear War Plan: A Time for Change (New York: Natural Resources Defense Council, June 2001), pp. 161-189.
47. The simple model used here also assumes that the Soviet missiles have 85 percent reliability and that no fratricide takes place. Although the calculations for the NIE projections employed a different procedure, this model accords with the NIE results when it is used with the same assumptions about accuracy and warhead yields in relevant NIEs. If anything, simple models tend to underestimate the counterforce potential of the attacking force. See, for example, John D. Steinbruner and Thomas M. Garwin, "Strategic Vulnerability: The Balance between Prudence and Paranoia," International Security, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Summer 1976), p. 142 n. 3.
48. See, for example, CIA, NIE 11-3/8-77, p. 36. Discussion of residual potentials was dropped from NIEs only in 1981.
49. CIA, NIE 11-3/8-78, p. 10.
50. McKinzie et al., The U.S. Nuclear War Plan, p. 43. The authors estimated, silo hardness based on the vulnerability numbers that they obtained from an official NATO target inventory publication.
51. See Kataev, box 8, doc. 13.8, p. 48.
52. Central Intelligence Agency, "Soviet Strategic Objectives," NIE 11-4-77 (Washington, D.C.: CIA, January 12, 1977), p. iii.
53. Ibid., p. 2.
54. The MR UR-100 and the R-36M used modified UR-100 (SS-11) and R-36 (SS-9) silos, respectively; the UR-100N required construction of a new silo.
55. The overall numbers remained the same even as the Soviet Union was changing specifics of the plan. For example, the 1977 plan called for the deployment of about 300 Temp-2S (SS-X-16) mobile missiles. The 1980 plan called for the development of a follow-on to the UR-100NUTTH (SS-19). These systems were abandoned in favor of the Topol (SS-25) and the RT-23UTTH (SS-24), respectively. See Kataev, box. 8, doc. 13.8, p. 37;
56. and Khromov, interview by author.
57. Directorate of Intelligence, "Intelligence Forecasts of Soviet Intercontinental Attack Forces," p. 8.
58. One successful instance of arms control was the ban on an increase in the number of warheads on existing missiles, negotiated as part of the SALT II treaty. Prior to that agreement, the Soviet Union considered the possibility of developing versions of the R-36MUTTH and. UR-100NUTTH missiles with as many as 38 and 18 warheads, respectively. Kataev, box 8, doc. 13.8, p. 34. But even in this case, it is possible that the cancellation of these projects was simply a realization that these highly fractionalized missiles are impractical, rather than a response to arms control limitations.
59. Kataev, box. 8, doc. 13.7, p. 53.
60. The first nuclear test to assess the ability of an R-36M missile warhead to withstand a nuclear blast was conducted in 1973. Kataev, box 8, doc. 13.8, p. 47. (Most likely, it was the test of October 26,1973.
61. See Podvig, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, p. 523.)
62. R-36M, UR-100N, and MR UR-100 missiles could be launched 2.5 to 3 minutes after an attack on a silo. Kataev, box 8, doc. 13.8, p. 53.
63. The program was outlined in a decree by the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers entitled "On the Main Directions of the Development of Nuclear Weapons in 1976-1985," February 9, 1976. Ibid., p. 47.
64. The nuclear tests conducted as part of this program began in 1977. The purpose of the only test in 1977 (most likely on October 9) was to study the radiation hardness of the electronics of some missiles. Three tests in 1978 studied the effects of hard X-ray radiation on the electronics of missiles and their warheads, the capability of an R-36MUTTH warhead, to withstand neutron flow, and the effects of hard X-rays on missile bodies (most likely, these were the tests of September 20, October 15, and October 31). The purpose of the two tests in 1979 (one most likely on September 27) was to study the effects of the electromagnetic impulse and the radiation hardness of more than 1,000 various electronic components used in missile guidance systems. Ibid., p. 47.
65. Kataev, box 9, doc. 14.3; Utkin and Moszhorin, "Raketnoye i kosmicheskoye vooruzheniye," p. 198; and Khromov, interview by author.
66. Utkin and Moszhorin, "Raketnoye i kosmicheskoye vooruzheniye," pp. 199-200.
67. The Soviet Union's geographic position prevented it from implementing a true launch-on-warning option, in which missiles would be launched before attacking warheads arrived at their targets. A launch from under attack, in which launches would, be conducted following nuclear explosions at adjacent silos, was a more realistic option. See Pavel Podvig, "Reducing the Risk of an Accidental Launch," Science and Global Security, Vol. 14, Nos. 2-3 (June 2006), pp. 75-115.
68. Konyukhov, Prizvany vremenem, pp. 300-316. Hardening against the effects of a nuclear explosion was also part of the RT-2PM/Topol-M program, which began in 1989.
69. Kataev, box 8, doc. 13.8, p. 37.
70. The RT-23 was initially developed as a single-warhead, silo-based missile (known as the 15Zh44). In 1979 the program was reoriented toward producing two multiple-warhead versions of the missile-the silo-based 15Zh44 and the rail-mobile 15Zh52. Development of the 15Zh44 was canceled in 1983 before producing an operational missile. The 15Zh52 program was suspended as well. One train with three missiles was put into "experimental service." Kataev, box 8, doc. 13.8, p. 48; and Konyukhov, Prizvany vremenem, pp. 256-273.
71. The RT-23UTTH program also called for development of a road-mobile version of the missile, known as "Tselina." This project was canceled in 1984.
72. Valery E. Yarynich, C3: Nuclear Command, Control, and Cooperation (Washington, D.C.: Center for Defense Information, 2003), pp. 138-141;
73. and I. Dmitriev, head of the Defense Industry Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, "On Assessment of the Capability to Control Nuclear Forces of the Country during Military Actions," memo, February 1982, in Kataev, box 2.
74. The 15A11 Perimeter missile, which was part of the Perimeter command and control system and was designed to provide the necessary redundancy, was accepted into service in 1985. During flight tests, the missile and its payload were extensively tested for vulnerability to nuclear explosions. Konyukhov, Prizvany vremenem, pp. 253-256.
75. See also Bruce G. Blair, Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1995), p. 51;
76. and Yarynich, C3, pp. 156-159.
77. These were Dnestr- and Dnepr-type radars, also known as "Hen House." Pavel Podvig, "History and the Current Status of the Russian Early-Warning System," Science & Global Security, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2002), p. 29.
78. These radars became operational in 1984 and 1985, respectively. Ibid., p. 30.
79. Ibid., p. 35.
80. The warhead, known as the 8F678, used a radar for terminal guidance. Flight tests of the warhead were conducted in 1978-80. Konyukhov, Prizvany vremenem, pp. 324-328.
81. Among the options considered in 1977-78 was deployment of nineteen 500-kiIoton guided warheads on R-36M-class (SS-18) missiles or nine 500-kiIoton warheads on UR-100N-class (SS-19) missiles. Kataev, box 8, doc. 13.8, p. 34.
82. The guided warhead project, shelved in 1980, was resumed in 1984, with the development of a next-generation 15F178 warhead for the R-36M2 missile. Flight tests of this warhead began in 1990, but it was never deployed. Konyukhov, Prizvany vremenem, pp. 300-305, 324-328.