Don’t Scrap the Midgetman in Haste : Best Choice Strategically Could Disappear in Budget Panic

Before its recess for the holidays, Congress will reach an important decision regarding whether or not to cancel the Midgetman missile.

The outcome could have a major influence on whether we will continue to live in a relatively stable climate of nuclear deterrence or enter a more uncertain future. It will also have a significant influence on the course of the strategic-arms-reduction negotiations in Geneva. The conferees on both sides of the issue are well-informed and well-meaning people. Unfortunately, they are operating under such intense and conflicting pressures as to make it virtually impossible to reach a sensible decision. Here are the relevant factors:

--Ten years ago we concluded that our land-based missiles would soon become vulnerable to attack by highly accurate Soviet land-based missiles. Theoretically, at that point we would become vulnerable to a disarming first strike. The so-called “window of vulnerability” described the period during which this condition would exist until we adopted a means to restore the survivability of our land-based systems. We debated several possibilities for doing this--either by deceptive basing or by some form of mobility for the missiles. In 1983 we adopted the policy of relying on a single-warhead missile deployed in a mobile basing arrangement. We believed then and now that within the next 10 years there would be no realistic alternative.

--The Soviet Union has already gone in this direction, having built a 10-warhead system (the SS-24, to be deployed ultimately on rail cars) and a single-warhead system (the SS-25, to be deployed ultimately in a road-mobile configuration).

--President Reagan has proposed that we also proceed to build two systems--a 10-warhead system (the MX, to be deployed ultimately on rail cars stationed in garrison) and a single-warhead system (the Midgetman, to be deployed ultimately in a road-mobile configuration).

--Our modernization program must take into account the prospect that within 10 years the Soviet Union will also be able to attack our land-based systems from submarines armed with highly accurate ballistic missiles. In short, the system of mobility that we adopt has to be able to survive an attack with no more than perhaps 10 minutes’ warning. This calls into question the survivability of the MX in a rail-garrison mode.

--At the conclusion of the recent U.S.-Soviet summit meeting, the two leaders committed themselves to the negotiation of a 50% reduction in strategic forces within which each side would limit itself to 4,900 ballistic-missile warheads. With a cut of this magnitude, it becomes even more important to move away from vulnerable multiple-warhead land-based systems.

--But a single-warhead missile program costs more than multi-warhead weapons. It is estimated that the programmed MX force would cost about $15 billion while the Midgetman program could run as high as $45 billion.

As a consequence of unrelieved fiscal pressures, Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, in cooperation with Congress, is laboring to reduce the Pentagon budget for the next fiscal year by about $33 billion. All acknowledge that he is trying to do this at a time when there is a need to be spending more on our conventional forces.

Setting aside the conventional-force issue for another day, is it possible to design a strategic-force structure that is compatible with stable nuclear deterrence through the turn of the century and the negotiation of a 50% reduction in strategic forces?

The short answer is “Yes, there are at least two or three defensible ways to square the circle.” For example, the United States could add 500 to 600 Midgetman missiles along with its planned deployment of 50 MX missiles in Minuteman silos and up to 20 Trident 2 missile-carrying submarines and still stay within a 4,900-warhead ceiling. As strategic policy it would make good sense. It seems to me that it would be harder to reach a good strategic array by excluding Midgetman altogether.

But it is unlikely that consensus could be developed around this approach or any other without a period of rational discussion and thought by the key leaders in the Defense Department and Congress. And that takes time.

At this point it is essential that responsible leaders in Congress acknowledge the impossibility of reaching a sensible solution to these problems in the next two days: They should now patch together a damage limiting measure to deal with the missile issue in fiscal 1988 and then agree to a well-prepared “domestic summit” of executive branch and legislative national-security officials early next year devoted to forging consensus on these difficult problems before sending up the updated fiscal ’89 submission.

One possibility for preserving our program options while adhering to agreed fiscal limits--all without pulling the rug from under our negotiators in Geneva--would be to fund both the MX and the Midgetman in the current continuing resolution at, say, $200 million and $1 billion respectively. There are undoubtedly other sensible splits of the dollar pie that avoid damage. But surely the worst outcome would be to go in a direction that we know to be less stable by completely canceling the small missile.