Offense, Defense Go Hand in Hand : If Reagan Would Learn This, Some Version on SDI Might Fly

The Reykjavik summit revealed serious confusion in the United States government about the fundamentals of strategic security. This fact poses a very uncomfortable political problem for the country as a whole.

There is an unusual instinct to support the President in any negotiations with the Soviet Union and an appropriate aversion to making central security issues a subject of partisan dispute. President Reagan has displayed such a profound misjudgment of American interest, however, that we simply will not be able to rally around his vision of our future, regardless of how strong and widespread loyalist emotions may be.

We maintain a democracy in the United States so that we are able to correct even the most popular and powerful leaders when they wander too far from a reasonable track. We face a significant test of that democracy on this matter. If we cannot achieve a graceful and timely correction of the President’s judgment, then some very bitter, very harsh and potentially very dangerous experiences lie ahead.

The core of Reagan’s misconception is the thought that the United States can proceed by unilateral means to develop and ultimately to deploy the technology for strategic defense. That possibility appears to be what the President thought he was defending at Reykjavik--at the cost of forgoing the opportunity for dramatic force reductions.

In fact defensive technology could only be developed or deployed, if at all, by mutual agreement with the Soviet Union and only if restrictions are in fact imposed on the size and technical evolution of offensive forces. The arrangements discussed at Reykjavik--far from killing “Star Wars”--offer the only reasonable hope that the Strategic Defense Initiative might ultimately flourish.

The reasons lie in the basics of technology and of strategic interaction. The technology used to pursue defensive weapons can and will be applied to offensive weapons as well, and rather more readily. There is no meaningful prospect that a defensive weapons design could meet any of the announced criteria for deployment--survivability, cost/effectiveness at the margin, or even the more permissive notion of affordability--unless strict and effective restraints are imposed on offensive forces.

And even with such restraints, the phasing and balance of defensive and offensive forces would have to be simultaneously managed to prevent incentives for preemptive attack from arising. Any defensive design will be far more effective against an opponent’s force, damaged and disorganized by a first strike, than against that same force optimized for penetration and allowed to initiate the engagement. For this simple reason, offense and defense must be regulated together.

The Soviet Union is aware of these incentives and is aware as well that the United States is in a much better technical position to develop both the rapid and precise weapons required for preemptive offensive strikes and the highly facile weapons required for reactive defense. Both types of weapons depend primarily on sensing and information processing technology--currently areas of very considerable American advantage.

The Soviet Union seeks a regime of technical regulation to preclude the development of a U.S. preemptive attack capability. If diplomacy and the concession of force reductions do not accomplish that, it is prudent to presume not that they will abandon their aspirations, but that they will ultimately resort to more coercive means--including, if necessary, disrupting the use of space for weapons development activities.

At Reykjavik, President Reagan was asked to assent to the central principle of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty--no defense except by central agreement--and he terminated the discussion, thinking that he could refuse that demand.

In fact that principle is not really a policy choice that can be reversed at his discretion. Rather, it is a codification of the inevitable. He was asked not to offer a compromise but to acknowledge the nature of strategic circumstances. Better that he do so quickly.