Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XLIV, Part 1, National Security Policy, 1985–1988

10. Information Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs (Chain) to Secretary of State Shultz¹

Washington, December 27, 1984

SUBJECT

• Peacekeeper/MX Rationale

Following your December 22 JCS meeting,² you asked for themes and arguments to support Congressional approval of the MX. This memorandum summarizes our initial thinking; we are working with Oglesby’s legislative strategy group to compile a comprehensive source of material for Administration spokesmen.

Status of Program

Current plans call for 100 MX/Peacekeeper missiles, each with ten warheads, to be deployed at F.E. Warren AFB near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Initial operational capability of 10 missiles is scheduled for December 1986. Plans now call for 100 missiles to be operational by 1990, but full deployment may be delayed. To date there have been six flight tests. All were successful and system performance, cost, and schedule goals are being met; its accuracy has exceeded expectations. Construction of necessary support facilities is well underway at the deployment site.

The first Congressional action on MX this year will be two votes in March on Resolutions of Approval to “unfence” funding for procurement of the 21 missiles ($1.5 b) that were tentatively approved for FY–85. The FY–86 budget request for MX procurement will be for 48 missiles ($3.2 b).

Military Requirement or Arms Control Bargaining Chip?

In Congressional debates on MX over the past two years, we have stressed that MX is needed for leverage at the negotiating table. After the Soviets walked out of INF and recessed START, some opponents argued that MX was an ineffective tool for keeping the Soviets at the table. Others argued that we should seek to exploit the MX/arms control linkage by delaying production/deployment if the Soviets did return to negotiations, and an amendment to the DoD Authorization Bill to that effect was almost adopted by the Congress.

While the relationship between MX and arms control remains a strong argument in support of MX, especially in view of a renewed arms control dialogue, we need to recognize the pitfalls of such a Congressional strategy and give more emphasis to the deterrence contribution made by MX.

Basic Themes

The Scowcroft Report³

— The Scowcroft Commission’s findings were valid in 1983 when they were issued and they remain valid today.

— The Commission found that there was no one solution to all ICBM problems. They recommended that ICBM modernization consist of three interrelated elements: deployment of 100 MX ICBMs in existing silos, development of a small single-RV ICBM, and the pursuit of arms control agreements to move toward more stabilizing systems.

— No one part of the program can accomplish our objectives alone. They all point to the same objective—permitting the U.S. and encouraging the Soviets to move toward more stable ICBM deployments over time in a way that is consistent with arms control agreements having the objective of reducing the risk of war.

Specific Military Requirement

— No other system currently deployed or under development can provide in the near term the deterrent and military capabilities against Soviet military targets offered by the MX.

— The serious imbalance in hard target capabilities must be rectified. The U.S. must possess a credible capability for controlled, prompt, limited attack on Soviet hard targets in order to minimize any Soviet temptation to pre-empt or escalate, whatever the level of confrontation.

— It is in the interest of the NATO alliance as a whole that the U.S. not permit a situation to continue wherein the Soviets have the capability to promptly destroy a range of hardened military targets and the U.S. does not.

Foreign Policy/Arms Control

— Effective deterrence is in no small measure a question of the Soviets’ perception of our national will and cohesion. Abandoning the MX now would send precisely the wrong signal to the Soviets.

— Abandoning the MX program now would weaken U.S. negotiating credibility and will add a large measure of success to Soviet efforts to limit U.S. forces without negotiating and without concessions of their own.

— Congressional approval of MX conditioned on Soviet behavior at the negotiating table allows the Soviets to dictate our procurement and deployment decisions.

— We have worked long and hard, together with our Allies, to agree upon and implement a plan to modernize INF systems to counter Soviet deployments. Abandoning our own strategic modernization programs would harm our credibility with the Allies and could be perceived as decoupling.

Arguments Against MX and Counters

There are a variety of arguments that opponents use against MX; most fall within a few general categories:

• A small mobile ICBM and the D–5 hard target SLBM are survivable and can substitute for the hard-target capability offered by MX.

— The D–5 SLBM will not be flight-tested until 1987 and will not reach IOC (one Trident SSBN with 24 launchers) before 1989; it will be deployed at the rate of about one new SSBN per year and backfitted on eight C–4 Trident SSBNs at about one per year. The small mobile ICBM will begin to be deployed by 1992; it will not be fully to be deployed by 1992; it will not be fully deployed before about 1996 or later, depending on the size of the deployed force.

— No other component of the Triad has the combination of promptness, accuracy, destructive capability, and flexibility of the MX, including the small ICBM. Each component of the Triad has unique properties not present in the others. The D–5 SLBM does not offer the necessary promptness that is provided by the ICBM leg of the Triad.

• The MX in Minuteman III silos is vulnerable to a Soviet first strike and is a more lucrative target than the Minuteman III, creating greater incentives for a first strike.

— By increasing our capability to threaten targets of high-value to the Soviets, including hardened military targets, the MX raises the disincentives to the Soviets of launching a “first strike” and thus makes nuclear war less likely.

— The Triad ensures that deterrence is maintained under any conceivable circumstances. The existence of several components of strategic forces requires the Soviets to solve a number of different problems in their efforts to plan how they might try to overcome them. Our objective is to make their planning as difficult as we can in order to increase the amount of risk they would take in conducting such aggression.

• The U.S. is developing a destabilizing first-strike force rather than a stabilizing retaliatory force, and hence spurring the arms race.

— 100 MX would not constitute a first-strike force given the extensive Soviet hard-target base. It does, however, continue and amplify the purpose of our Minuteman III ICBM force: to deter Soviet attack by assuring an unacceptable level of retaliatory damage should the Soviets dare to engage in such aggression.

• The cost of the system is prohibitive and will increase the defense budget.

— Pending release of all FY–85 funding, the MX program will be over half-way completely funded.

— At its funding peak, MX will require less than 1.5% of the U.S. defense budget. (Strategic forces as a whole consume less than 15% of the defense budget.)

1. Source: Reagan Library, George Shultz Papers, 1985, Arms Control, Geneva. Confidential. McKinley initialed the memorandum and wrote: “27 Dec.”
2. No minutes were found.
3. Reference is to the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces, chaired by Scowcroft, which Reagan established on January 3, 1983, to “review the strategic modernization program with particular focus on our land-based intercontinental ballistic missile system and basing alternatives for that system.” For the text of the statement, see Public Papers: Reagan, 1983, Book I, pp. 4–5). Documentation pertaining to the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. XLIII, National Security Policy, 1981–1984.