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

190. Memorandum From William Cockell of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Carlucci)¹

Washington, January 5, 1987

SUBJECT

• JCS Meeting with the President

The minutes of the recent JCS meeting with the President which you requested this morning have been forwarded to you.² I would like to add several comments, from my perspective.

— The basic question the Chiefs were asked to answer by NSDD–250 was whether it is possible to maintain deterrence with strategic forces which (1) have been significantly reduced, i.e., the 5 year, 50% reduction plan; or (2) have had ballistic missiles eliminated from them, i.e., the 10 year Zero Ballistic Missiles (ZBM) plan.

— The Chiefs are reasonably comfortable with the 5 year plan. With regard to the 10 year plan, their objective at the meeting obviously was to sensitize the President to the likelihood that there will be a big price tag attached to the ZBM plan in terms of the costs to expand and improve our air-breathing strategic forces, to deploy extensive air defenses, and to build up conventional forces. The latter requirement is essentially an assertion at this point, with little analysis to back it up; and it is potentially the weakest part of the Chiefs’ argument. If they conclude that it is possible to maintain an adequate deterrent with a strategic force that lacks ballistic missiles, then that undercuts the argument that a ZBM world must also entail massive increases in conventional force expenditures. For this reason we want to keep the Chiefs focussed, in the first instance, on the issues of whether a reliable and sufficient strategic deterrent can be maintained without ballistic missiles; and the type of force structure which would be needed to accomplish this. Only if the answer is that an adequate deterrent cannot be maintained under those circumstances does it become pertinent to look at other, non-strategic measures necessary to provide a substitute for the strategic deterrent.

— All this begs the question of whether ZBM is within the realm of negotiability; or whether, given the major cost of building up the non-ballistic missile portion of our strategic forces, it is a goal which nets out to our advantage. The Chiefs’ study will help shed light on these very complex issues and, in the process, provide an analytical framework within which we will be able to evaluate a number of other plausible arms control measures as well; hence its contribution will be a continuing one. At the same time, in our honest broker role, we want to influence the study in the direction of maximum balance, objectivity and realism; and that it what our comments on the Chiefs’ interim report try to do.

1. Source: National Security Council, National Security Council Institutional Files, Box SR 94, NSDD 250. Top Secret. Sent for information. A stamped notation indicates Carlucci saw the memorandum.
2. See Document 189.