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

143. Memorandum From the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (Ikle) to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Crowe)¹

Washington, October 25, 1986

SUBJECT

• NSPG on Follow-up to Reykjavik.

(U) The Secretary met yesterday with Richard Perle and me,² regarding the NSPG now scheduled for Monday³ at 11:00 a.m. Since the time Monday morning will be short for your preparatory discussion with the Secretary, I thought you might find it helpful to have this memo on some of the policy aspects, for your perusal on the flight back to Washington.

(S) The INF position that emerged from Reykjavik, if seen as an agreement that stands by itself (i.e. without the elimination of strategic missiles), apparently will pass muster in terms of the JCS military assessments. We should keep in mind, however, that negotiating the detailed INF verification provisions will lead to a highly refractory impasse, which in turn will cause some political indigestion in the Alliance and in Washington, and the belching up of proposals to “overcome” the impasse by accepting an unverifiable INF agreement. But that’s for later.

(TS) The partial agreement on START issues reached in Reykjavik results in a more favorable basis for follow-on negotiations than we had agreed to before Reykjavik. However, it would represent a challenge to the leisurely pace of nuclear planning we all have become accustomed to, should we actually have to compress between now and the end of 1991 the completion of such a START agreement, the mandated destruction of systems, and the required adjustments in our remaining forces, SIOP, and SACEUR plans. Yet, in the implausible event that this compressed schedule became reality, I feel the Defense Department could rise to this challenge. Our predecessors had less time to plan for World War II, build all our forces, fight the war, and win it. We don’t want our detractors to allege that today’s Pentagon would need more than half a decade for a reduction in strategic arms down to warhead levels that would still be well above those of 1972.

(S) You also need to consider the manner in which the President’s Reykjavik proposal for the elimination of all ballistic offensive missiles by the end of 1996 ought to be translated into instructions for our Geneva negotiators and what, if any, further military and policy analyses should now be started. Without the 1996 cut-off date, this proposal was, of course, presented in the President’s letter to Gorbachev last summer.⁴ Regardless of whether this transformation of the US-Soviet strategic relationship is envisaged to take place within ten years, or a longer period, the military and political assessment of it confronts daunting uncertainties.

(S) The question to focus on is how such a strategic relationship would compare with alternative arms control arrangements, or no arms control. Clearly, for the foreseeable future, we prefer the missile-free relationship to the abolition of all “strategic” arms that Gorbachev proposes. (As Thursday’s⁵ White House Release reminds us, the President favors “The Goal of Complete Elimination” of all nuclear weapons, but holds this could only come about when international conditions “have changed significantly.”) Hence, the military assessment ought to compare:

(A) The elimination of all offensive ballistic missiles by 1996 plus the START limits on other nuclear forces that would be reached by 1991 (i.e., the President’s Reykjavik proposal); with

(B) The proposed 1991 START limits only, extended to 1996, with no further missile elimination; or with

(C) Presently projected forces, without arms control.

(TS) For a first cut at this comparison, we need not distinguish between situation (B) and (C). The following broad criteria ought to affect the evaluation of situation (A):

(1) Vulnerability of our forces to surprise attack.

While a Soviet SLCM attack still would present a “decapitation” risk (as it does in situation B and C); the major part of our strategic forces could be more survivable by using interior basing and airborne alerts upon warning of Soviet bomber take-off.

(2) Attacking Soviet relocatable targets and damage limiting.

We anticipate now that by 1996 we would find only a fraction of Soviet mobile ICBMs, and would rely on B–1 or ATB to attack them. By contrast, in the missile free situation (A), the relocated Soviet bombers would be easier to find. This would help our prospects for damage limiting. And while we could not use fast flying ICBMs to interrupt an ongoing Soviet attack, the Soviet attack itself would be slower and subject to interference with our limited air defenses, SLCM and ALCM attacks on Soviet bomber bases, etc.

(3) Reserve forces.

About a third of our TLAM-C are now allocated to reserve, though not on station. This role of TLAM-C for long-term (not immediately useable) reserve could be expanded. The Soviets, by contrast, would probably have greater difficulty in keeping Naval vessels survivable in a protracted war.

(4) Attrition during a conventional war.

In a conventional war, US and Soviet strategic forces are subject to attrition (loss of SLBMs, loss of tankers, etc.). Without missiles, a greater fraction of Soviet forces would be subject to attrition; in particular, we would have an advantage in sea-based SLCMs and aircraft. (And our carrier-based aircraft would surely be considered as a “strategic” threat by the Soviets, regardless of whether we call them “tactical.”)

(5) NATO first-use.

The key test for our nuclear forces is whether they represent a credible back-up deterrent for our conventional NATO forces. To this end, limited tactical nuclear options have long been considered as critical. If both sides had no missiles, NATO’s threat of nuclear escalation might be more credible.

(6) Violations.

The most serious drawback of the agreed elimination of missiles (situation A) is that it might be highly unstable prior to the deployment of some strategic defenses. The Soviets could conceal hundreds of missiles in the final years of the ten year elimination period. Of course, this problem would also exist with only the START reductions (situation B). The analysis of “military sufficiency” must address the violation problem.

(S) Summary.

Except for the important violation problem, several of the important policy criteria suggest that we would be better off with the elimination of missiles (situation A) than with situation B or C. Surely, Gorbachev now thinks so and was emphatic in his speech last Wednesday, arguing that the Reykjavik talks dealt with the elimination of all “strategic” arms, not the elimination of ballistic missiles only.

(S) We, of course, see ballistic missiles with their hair-triggered alert postures and unrecallability as particularly destabilizing, hence a world without large missile forces as safer. This is why we are for SDI and this is why the President proposed last summer to Gorbachev an agreed elimination of offensive ballistic missiles. It would be unfortunate if our military assessment lost sight of this larger picture, and if the vagaries of a host of necessarily arbitrary assumptions fed into a computer analysis led to the conclusion that the President should be advised to back away from his proposal. To be sure, careful quantitative analyses are needed to flesh out the proposal and to delineate its pitfalls (especially the violation problem!). But these analyses should be fit into a larger context that allows the President and his most senior advisors to weigh the plausibility of the wartime contingencies and to track the political objectives that were assumed for the calculations.

(U) I hope these points will be helpful for your preparation for the NSPG meeting.

1. Source: Reagan Library, Fred Ikle Files, Arms Control (President Gorbachev)—1986–1988. Top Secret. Sent to Weinberger for information.
2. No minutes were found.
3. The minutes of the October 27 NSPG meeting are printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 3.
4. Reagan’s July 25, 1986, letter to Gorbachev is printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. V, Soviet Union, March 1985–October 1986, Document 254.
5. October 23.