Midgetman Faces Long Road to Deployment : Pentagon Wants to Push Ahead on Complement to MX Even if It Might Violate SALT II Accords

One day in October, 1983, scientists set off 600 tons of explosives 166 feet above the desert at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to test the resistance of a variety of mobile missile launchers to a simulated nuclear attack.

The test, code-named “Direct Course,” showed it is possible to build a launcher that could withstand the violent winds and pressures of a nuclear attack. It was a key step in a decade-long process mandated by Congress to deploy the first of a new generation of lightweight intercontinental ballistic missiles, nicknamed Midgetman, by December, 1992.

Fate Far From Certain

But it is far from certain that the Midgetman missile, now in the research and development stage, will ever join the arsenal of nuclear missiles intended to stand ready for a 30-minute, 6,000-mile flight over the Arctic to the Soviet Union. Its road to deployment, strewn with political, scientific and financial obstacles, is as rocky as the Western terrain where the missile would be deployed.

Among the largest obstacles is the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), the 1978 accord with the Soviets to which the United States is adhering although the Senate has not ratified it. SALT II allows test flights of only one “new” missile--the MX for the United States. Constructing new Midgetman silo launchers or concealing missiles to impede verification of compliance with arms control agreements also raise questions about treaty compliance.

“SALT II will not permit a Midgetman,” said William J. Taylor Jr., executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. If the Administration insists on going ahead with Midgetman as well as the MX, he said, it could precipitate “a bloody fight in this country” over whether to break the SALT II accords.

The fight over funding could be equally bruising. “If you think the MX has been controversial, wait till the debate comes on Midgetman,” Taylor said. “If the pressure on the defense budget continues, for the Administration to try to introduce a new system is going to be very difficult. And there will be plenty of pressure coming from Europe not to deploy an additional (weapons) system.”

To the Administration, however, the single-warhead Midgetman would complement the giant MX missile, which carries 10 warheads. Congress last week approved the production of a second batch of 21 MX missiles, and the Reagan Administration hopes ultimately to deploy 100.

The MX might provide a tempting target for a Soviet first strike, the Administration concedes, because an enemy warhead could knock out 10 MX warheads in a single blow. The less centralized Midgetman, however, would decrease the likelihood that the Soviets would resort to a first strike, most experts believe, because it would reduce the chances that they could quickly cripple the U.S. nuclear force.

But to critics, Midgetman would merely ratchet up the arms race by one more notch--and at enormous cost. By one estimate the price tag could be as much as four times the estimated $26-billion cost of the MX.

Beyond that, some critics contend, the Midgetman, by putting Soviet missiles at risk, would increase Moscow’s incentives to try to destroy U.S. missiles first.

“A program that promises to remedy U.S. survivability problems by putting Soviet strategic forces at risk is not likely to increase stability or the prospects for arms control,” said Jonathan Rich, a staff member of the Federation of American Scientists.

Feasibility Studies Begun

The Air Force began studying the feasibility of a small intercontinental missile in the early 1960s, even before it had deployed the 550 triple-warhead Minuteman III missiles and 450 single-warhead Minuteman II missiles that now constitute most of the ground-based U.S. nuclear force.

But only in 1983 did the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces, headed by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, propel Midgetman into the research stage when it proposed cutting back the planned production of the MX from 200 to 100 and moving ahead with a smaller, single-warhead weapon powerful enough to threaten Soviet missile sites.

Now, said Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, “the small mobile missile is high on our priority list.” The Pentagon staff working on the program has grown in two years from 17 to about 200, and contractors “are building things you can kick the tires on,” said one Air Force officer.

From Weinberger on down, no one at the Pentagon refers to the missile by its popular nickname. An official name has not been chosen, but an Air Force officer working on the project said dryly: “The Air Force, for obvious reasons, doesn’t care for ‘Midgetman.’ ”

Regardless of the name, the Administration is thinking in terms of 1,000 of the new missiles--the size of the Minuteman force. That would leave the nation with as many Midgetman warheads as MX warheads on 100 MX missiles.

Under current plans, Midgetman would weigh less than one-sixth that of the 195,000-pound MX. It would be capable of carrying a 1,000-pound payload including a super-sophisticated guidance system and a warhead that could reportedly produce a blast of 300 to 475 kilotons--at least 15 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Specifications Undetermined

Some of Midgetman’s most critical specifications, however, remain undetermined. Foremost among them is whether the missile should present the Soviets with a moving target--a vital question in assessing Midgetman’s role in the nuclear balance between the superpowers.

The Scowcroft commission recommended a mobile Midgetman, towed around expansive military reservations in the West by truck-like vehicles that could withstand everything but a direct hit by a Soviet nuclear warhead.

Such a missile, the commission said, would be largely invulnerable to Soviet attack. Unless the Soviets could find out exactly where the missiles were located at all times, it said, they could knock out the missiles only with “barrage” attacks blanketing entire military reservations.

But House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) worries that, if necessary, the Soviets might resort to such a saturation attack. “The Soviets have enough warheads in their inventory to knock out the Midgetman force by the simple tactic of a barrage attack on all the military reservations to which Midgetman would be assigned,” he said.

‘Would Wreak Havoc’

Jonathan Medalia, a national defense specialist for the Congressional Research Service, has written that “a substantial fraction” of widely dispersed Midgetman missiles could survive. But “the blast and other nuclear effects of a barrage would wreak havoc in the area attacked,” he conceded.

To reduce the missile’s vulnerability, it could travel in “hardened” vehicles over approximately 12,000 square miles of military reservations in the West--nearly the combined area of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Rich said that if the mobile missile launchers could be protected against pressure of 30 pounds per square inch--three times the pressure that an M-1 tank can withstand--30% of the missiles deployed over 12,000 square miles could be expected to survive a full-scale Soviet attack.

The Air Force has even considered dispersing the missiles beyond the confines of military property, an option that Rich said could increase the survival figure to 50%. But the Air Force, conceding that the public might not look kindly on the prospect of nuclear missiles concealed inside tractor-trailers on interstate highways, has apparently rejected this approach.

Weinberger will not decide whether to make Midgetman a mobile missile until October, 1986, at the earliest.

If he decides against mobility, the easily targeted stationary launchers would have to be constructed as nuclear-resistant redoubts. Col. Jim Horton of the Air Force’s ICBM modernizationoffice says the “super-hard” Midgetman silos would have to be able to survive blasts 10 to 20 times greater than today’s Minuteman silos, which, according to Rich, are built to withstand pressure of 2,000 pounds per square inch from a direct strike. The Air Force argues that this can be accomplished.

On the decision about how to base Midgetman hangs the ultimate cost of the project, for which President Reagan is asking a research budget of $624.5 million in fiscal 1986, up from the $461.5 million being spent this year.

Mobility would be costly. A missile traveling within a military reservation would require only a driver and someone to provide maintenance and security, according to the Air Force, but a massive security force would have to accompany missiles on public highways.

‘Great Deal More Expensive’

Weinberger concedes that the new missiles would be “a great deal more expensive than the MX,” which has already consumed $12.5 billion before a single missile has been deployed. The General Accounting Office pegs the total cost of Reagan’s MX program at about $26 billion.

The Center for Defense Information, a private military research organization headed by retired officers, has estimated that the Midgetman project could cost as much as $100 billion.

Such costs have raised a yellow flag for such congressional conservatives as Rep. Ken Kramer (R-Colo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, who has suggested that the expense of President Reagan’s proposed space-based nuclear defense means Congress will have to look elsewhere in the defense budget for savings. “With the high cost and questionable utility of the new Midgetman system,” he said, “it might be a good place to start.”

Nor is Kramer the only congressional conservative to raise doubts about Midgetman. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has been a staunch supporter of the Pentagon’s budget requests, says development of Midgetman could derail efforts by U.S. and Soviet negotiators to reach an arms agreement in Geneva.

‘Soviets Could Do Nothing’

“There is a distinct danger that the small missile which Congress seems to have chosen to rely on as our major land-based deterrent into the 21st Century neither responds to known threats nor anticipated threats,” he wrote in a letter to Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on strategic and theater nuclear forces. Thus, “the Soviet reaction could be simply to do nothing and enjoy present asymmetrical ICBM advantages by stalling negotiations.”

SALT II not withstanding, arms control considerations could also work in Midgetman’s favor. U.S. and Soviet negotiators now meeting in Geneva might agree on a formula that would allow the two sides to build single-warhead missiles such as Midgetman--regarded as relatively unlikely to provoke enemy first strikes--if they would dismantle multiple-warhead missiles such as the MX.

“Midgetman is completely dependent upon what gets done at Geneva,” said Rep. Thomas J. Downey (R-N.Y.). “If nothing gets done at Geneva, it won’t be survivable.”

Little Controversy Generated

So far, however, Midgetman has generated relatively little controversy. Congress has been willing to support a relatively inexpensive research program for the weapon without confronting the more expensive proposition of deployment.

“Doves see Midgetman as an alternative to the MX, and the hawks like anything,” said Richard K. Betts, a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. He predicted that the missile will ultimately be deployed but added, “I wouldn’t want to bet a lot of money.”

Rep. Jim Courter (R-N.J.), former chairman of the House Military Reform Caucus, puts the missile’s chances at “less than 50-50.”

Midgetman “doesn’t command any attention,” he said. “That could all change when you’re set to deploy it. Congress doesn’t make tough decisions that can be put off until tomorrow.”

MIDGETMAN’S NICHE IN THE NUCLEAR ARSENAL Midgetman: a small, single-warhead missile capable of a mobile launch which could make it a difficult target for enemy missiles

Minuteman III MX Deployment June, 1970 Dec. 1986 (target) Number 550 100 (100 removed when MX deployed) Length 60 feet 71 feet Weight 78,000 pounds 195,000 pounds Warheads 3 10 Basing fixed silos fixed silos Targets semi-hardened hardened military military installations installations Strategic basic land-based response to multi- purpose nuclear threat warhead Soviet missiles Accuracy 1/2 would land within about 300 feet 600 feet of target

Midgetman Deployment 1992 (target) Number up to 1,000 Length 45 feet Weight 30,000 pounds Warheads 1 Basing mobile, fixed silos or both Targets hardened military installations Strategic less vulnerable than purpose MX to Soviet attack Accuracy about 300 feet

SOURCE: Air Force; accuracy estimates, which are classified, from Congressional Budget Office report and relayed by the Federation of American Scientists.