Bush’s New Security-Strategy Plan Sidesteps Issue of Soviet Targets

Despite sweeping changes in the East Bloc, President Bush’s first National Security Strategy differs little from previous plans and makes no mention at all of Soviet targets that would be attacked in a nuclear war.

The Administration was expected to begin revising the existing nuclear war plans because of the radically changed political atmosphere and the anticipated U.S.-Soviet strategic arms treaty to cut nuclear arsenals up to 50%.

For example, at least hundreds of targets in Eastern Europe--such as Bulgarian steel mills and Polish seaports--are expected to be eliminated, now that political changes have loosened those countries’ ties to the Soviet Bloc.

Since previous strategy reports have outlined Soviet target policy, the omission in the Bush report sent to Congress on Tuesday initially raised speculation that the Administration had begun a targeting review. However, a senior Administration official said the omission had “no particular significance.” And other officials confirmed that the Pentagon under Bush is following the same guidance on targeting inherited from the Reagan Administration.

That guidance calls for attacking leadership bunkers occupied by party leaders, including Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whose reforms are supported by the Administration.

Various experts said the White House omitted any reference to targeting because a review of basic targeting concepts could undercut the Pentagon’s request for new weapon systems, such as the B-2 Stealth bomber, which are designed to carry out the attacks as now planned.

The President wrote that his strategy report comes at a time of “truly breathtaking” change and “historic opportunity” in international affairs.

A report “fact sheet” highlighted 14 policies. When presidential aides were asked to identify one policy that was new since the Berlin Wall fell in November, they could not do so.

“The report doesn’t break a lot of new ground,” one official admitted.

The Reagan Administration’s language on targeting is apparently still reflected in the Pentagon’s super-secret nuclear war plans. Reagan’s 1988 strategy report said that targeting policy is to “hold at risk Soviet war-making capabilities, including both the full range of Soviet military forces and the war-supporting industry. . . .”

It adds that the policy also is to “place at risk . . . the mechanisms for ensuring survival of the Communist Party and its leadership cadres. . . .”

In its section on deterring nuclear war, the Bush report did not address targets. Instead, it reiterated the call for funding multibillion-dollar weapons programs: the B-2 Stealth bomber, the D-5 Trident submarine-launched missile and the MX and Midgetman mobile intercontinental missiles.

“The Administration just doesn’t want to raise the subject of targeting,” said one expert.

A European expert who recently talked with Administration officials said: “They don’t want to rock the boat just now. It might cost them support for their program.”

A targeting review would certainly find that a significant portion of the current targets could be eliminated.

“The only way to bring the East Europeans into a war on the Soviet side today would be to attack them,” one analyst said, expressing dismay that U.S. nuclear weapons apparently are still aimed at the newly reformed governments in Czechoslovakia and Poland.

More important, a targeting review could raise doubts about aiming so many U.S. weapons at Soviet weapons because if the Soviets launched a surprise attack, the Soviet missiles would probably be en route rather than in their silos when U.S. warheads struck.

“If they decided that such targeting doesn’t make sense, it would undermine funding for the D-5 missile and maybe even the MX,” another expert said.