Missiles: Complications Set In

The Soviet Union confirms that it is deploying SS-24 missiles, weapons of intercontinental range that can be mounted on railroad cars and trundled about on the 62,000-mile Soviet railway system. The development should come as no surprise; the Pentagon reported months ago that SS-24 deployment would begin this year. But it still complicates the job of achieving genuine arms control without upsetting the nuclear balance.

The announcement has predictably set off charges in Washington that the Soviets are violating the SALT II treaty that allowed each nation to deploy one new missile. The U.S. view is that the SS-24 is Moscow’s second new missile--the first having been the smaller, road-mobile SS-25. But since the Reagan Administration renounced the treaty last year, it left nothing for the Soviets to violate.

The real question now is what the United States should do.

From an arms-control viewpoint, mobile missiles are good, not bad. If both sides have them, neither can know precisely where the other’s are. That reduces the attractiveness of a surprise attack to near zero.

It’s a different matter if only one side enjoys the relative invulnerability of mobile missiles. The United States has submarine-based strategic missiles, which are wonderfully mobile, but submarines are less subject to reliable command and control by the President in a time of crisis than are land-based missiles.

For years the Pentagon has promoted mobile land-based missiles, specifically in the case of the MX, but so far no prospective deployment plan has been politically acceptable. Thus, to maintain a nuclear balance, the United States must either develop its own mobile ICBM system or turn to President Reagan’s vision of missile defenses.

Because the “Star Wars” idea is hopelessly flawed by sheer technological and economic impracticality, only the timely deployment of a mobile ICBM system makes sense. The deployment of the MX on railroad cars is under consideration, but we don’t think that Americans are really prepared to have these nuclear monsters shuttling about the country. So Washington should press ahead with the single-warhead Midgetman missile, which can be trucked about on large military reservations. In arms-control terms, it is an ideal weapon. It could retaliate against an attack, but is not a tempting target for a preemptive first strike.