‘Insurance’ Despite Arms Pact : Even With Targets Gone, U.S. Missile Has a Future

What happens when--with the stroke of a superpower pen--a costly Pentagon weapons program loses a big chunk of its reason for being? Does the program wither? Does the federal deficit shrink?

Maybe. Maybe not.

If the Pentagon’s anti-tactical ballistic missile (ATBM) program is any guide, the program will not only survive intact, it may even flourish--winning unsought funding and greater visibility from Congress.

Anti-tactical ballistic missiles--still in the experimental phase--originally were intended to destroy short-range and medium-range Soviet missiles, both nuclear-tipped and conventionally armed, as they hurtle toward targets in Western Europe. Last year, the Pentagon spent more than $70 million to investigate ATBMs, according to Lt. Gen. John Wall, commander of the Army office that directs research and development in this area.

But Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces, as the class of medium-range nuclear missiles is called, will be eliminated by the arms control treaty President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev are expected to sign when they meet here early next month. So the Pentagon’s most sophisticated--and most expensive--versions of the ATBM, the Extended Range Interceptor or ERINT, and a proposed new version of the existing Patriot air defense missile are a pair of would-be weapons programs in search of a threat to counter.

As a result, ATBM program officials, backed by a wide range of powerful constituents, have scrambled to find new reasons to justify the weapons. And already they see a brighter future than ever: Congress has just added $75 million to accelerate the program, the Israelis are pushing for continued development of the ATBM as a shield against possible Soviet-built missiles deployed in Syria, and some Reagan Administration officials want it deployed quickly as the first step in the President’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the so-called “Star Wars” anti-missile program.

Moreover, conservatives insist that ATBMs capable of countering medium-range missiles must be developed as insurance against Soviet cheating on the INF treaty.

The ERINT and the proposed new version of the Patriot were to have been capable of picking off Moscow’s SS-23 and SS-12/22 Scaleboard missiles before they could hit air bases, supply depots and command bunkers of North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

The prospect that these two classes of missiles will soon cease to exist does not bother Larry Capps, an Army colonel who directs the Pentagon’s Task Force on Tactical Missile Defense. The technological crown jewels of his program are the ERINT and the next-generation Patriot missile, weapons which by some estimates could cost $11 billion to build.

Says Work Should Continue

Capps argues that work on the two weapons systems should continue.

“You have to look beyond that (the medium-range missile accord) and keep your options open to counter a response threat,” said Capps in an interview last week. “We should not be limiting ourselves to what we presently know the Soviets can do.”

In plain English, that means the Pentagon expects Moscow to develop new arms to threaten NATO’s key facilities in the wake of the forthcoming accord. And when that happens, Capps reasons, the United States will be glad it developed an advanced ATBM system.

Capps is not alone. In fact, the most ardent supporters of the ATBM program are on Capitol Hill, where enthusiasm for the ATBM seems to have swelled on the eve of the superpower summit. Led by Sens. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) and Dan Quayle (R-Ind.), both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, lawmakers have added $75 million to the Pentagon budget for accelerated research on ATBMs. Most of that would be funded under the Strategic Defense Initiative budget.

‘Ace in the Hole’

“Oddly enough, the future of ATBM is brighter than it was,” declared Mark Albrecht, a defense aide to Wilson. “ATBM is an ideal policeman for an INF agreement. If the Soviets cheat massively, we’ll be able to detect it, and if they cheat modestly, then ATBM will be our ace in the hole.”

Although the ATBM program was conceived long before the President’s 1983 speech launching the “Star Wars” missile defense program, it also has gained luster in the eyes of those Administration officials and lawmakers who are eager to deploy the weapon as an early installment on SDI. Wilson and Quayle are fervent proponents of such early deployments.

The ATBM’s potential as a step toward a more comprehensive system of missile defenses was underlined in the 1983 Hoffman Report, prepared for the fledgling Strategic Defense Initiative Office by Pentagon consultant Fred Hoffman.

“We can pursue such a program option within ABM treaty constraints,” Hoffman wrote in reference to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which limits development and deployment of defensive systems. But the ATBM technologies “might later play a role in continental United States defense,” the study added.

Allies Concerned

In Europe, too, SDI has added political impetus to the ATBM program. European politicians fear that SDI might yield an umbrella defense for North America but leave the allies vulnerable to the Soviets’ short-range missiles. Such a development could weaken the American commitment to defend Europe with its long-range nuclear weapons, some allied politicians fret.

A commitment to develop an ATBM system thus is seen as an assurance that the United States will not abandon the Western allies in its own quest for strategic defenses.

At the same time, the anti-missile program’s link to early SDI deployments is a “fatal political weakness” in most Europeans’ eyes, says Dan Charles, author of the recently published book “Nuclear Planning in NATO.” Europeans are wary of being left outside the U.S. nuclear umbrella, Charles notes in the book, but they are equally unwilling to encourage Washington to abandon the ABM Treaty that has constrained missile defenses since 1972. In negotiating cooperative ATBM research with Washington, the West German government has pressed the Pentagon to stick to less ambitious improvements in existing air defense weapons. Those are less likely to raise questions of U.S. compliance with the ABM Treaty.

‘Generalized Defense’

“We do not generally want to have the SDI tag” put on cooperative ATBM research, said one Washington-based West German official. “We would rather have a more generalized air defense.”

A relatively unsophisticated system would avoid the SDI problem and still be adequate to counter such short-range Soviet missiles as the Frog-7, the Scud and the SS-21, the Germans believe, because almost all the Soviets’ short-range weapons are quite old and easy to neutralize.

In addition, the NATO allies could blunt the potential effects of such short-range missiles by making inexpensive improvements to their military installations, say experts in European conventional defense.

If the allies were to strengthen their aircraft shelters, add extra runways and scatter their forces under a shower of Soviet short-range missiles, said arms control expert Donald L. Hafner, the Soviets could not hope to destroy enough airfields, supply depots and command bunkers to have much impact on a conventional war in Europe. Hafner focuses his work at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on missile defenses.

Israel May Be Decisive

In the end, experts say that Israel’s desire for missile defenses may be decisive in any decision on whether to go beyond research and actually build an ATBM system. Israel faces a force of 1,000 Soviet-supplied short-range missiles in the arsenals of its Arab foes, according to a military analysis produced by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. In 1983, Moscow began supplying Syria with SS-21 missiles, whose 80-mile range could threaten almost half the length of Israel, including Jerusalem.

Israeli military planners believe that its hostile Arab neighbors will get other missiles from newcomers on the Third World arms markets, such as Brazil.

In the face of that threat, Israel has begun developing its own ATBM, called the Arrow. But while Israel probably will proceed to build such weapons on its own, it is pressing Washington to help develop a more effective anti-missile weapon because the Tel Aviv government hopes to win some of the Strategic Defense Initiative’s coveted high-technology contracts; by developing its own technology, it would have a head start.