In Defense of Counterforce

Last rites have been given to multiple shelter basing for the MX missile. Its demise probably became inevitable with election of the current administration. The new adm, inistration has seen the SALT II Treaty as fatally flawed, and given SALT's uncertain future, could not project any limits on the size of the threat the Soviets might ultimately pose to MX. With no near-term prospects for limits on Soviet warheads, no guarantees could be given that the United States wouldn't end up building thousands of additional shelters in the Southwest-and the citizens of that area realized that. There are respectable arguments suggesting that a race to keep MX vulnerable would never have taken place, even if multiple shelter basing had been pursued. It would not have been an attractive race for the Soviets to run. Unless they had increased the threat to MX by investing in silo-based missiles, which are relatively inexpensive, the race would have cost them far more to run than it would the United States. Alternatively, threatening MX with additional silo-based forces would have meant heavy new investments in forces that are going to be vulnerable, a prospect the Soviets seem likely to find as worrisome as do Americans. Equally important, an unlimited race to maintain a threat against MX in multiple shelter basing would have required the Soviets to forgo SALT and any prospects for limiting the comprehensive modernization and expansion

Arms race · Demise · Development economics · Economics · Law and economics · Limiting · Modernization theory · Political economy · Political science · Race (biology · Sociology · Engineering · Law · Military and Defense Studies

• Deployment of Strategic Nuclear Weapons

  Open Access•David A Bella•IEEE Technology and Society…•1984

  Add to list

• Beyond Rational Deterrence

  Open Access•John Steinbruner•World Politics•1976

  Add to list