232. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Carlucci) to President
Reagan1
SUBJECT
- DOD Report on the SDI Program
At Tab B is the executive summary of the Defense Department’s report on how
they would restructure the SDI program, if
you were to
[Page 856]
decide to take
advantage of the broad interpretation of the ABM Treaty. The most important of DOD’s conclusions are that:
- ○
- Under the recommended restructuring of the program, four major
system experiments would be conducted over the next three years. The
first experiments would occur as early as Fiscal Year 1988. Planning
would begin immediately.
- ○
- Restructuring the program could reduce total costs of research by
approximately $3 billion, while increasing confidence in the results
of research.
- ○
- Restructuring would permit a full scale development decision in
1992, and preserve the option to deploy an initial defense in about
1996. It would also delay the need for a decision on withdrawing
from the ABM Treaty until about
1996.
The legal analyses of the ABM Treaty that
you requested of the State Department will not be complete for another
month. Thus, no decisions are necessary at this time. In the meantime, I
will have my staff prepare a complete analysis of the DOD report to support your ultimate decision
on restructuring the SDI program.
You may wish to skim Cap
Weinberger’s cover memo (at Tab A) and the executive summary of
DOD’s report (at Tab B).
Tab A
Memorandum From Secretary of Defense Weinberger to President Reagan2
Washington, April 30, 1987
SUBJECT
- Recommendations for the SDI
Program—NSDD 261 (U)
(S) On 17 December,3
I presented to you an approach to the SDI program that would provide the United States with the
option to defend itself at the earliest practical opportunity. To
preserve this option, we discussed that adequate funding, the broad
interpretation of the ABM Treaty, and
economical space transportation would be essential. Subsequently, you
directed the Department of Defense to provide recommendations for an
SDI program under the broad
interpretation
[Page 857]
of the ABM Treaty and increasingly heavy lift
space launch capability. These reports are attached to this
memorandum.4
(S) The report on developing a heavy lift
space launch capability makes it clear that the Nation cannot afford the
cost of deploying a strategic defense system with existing U.S. space launch assets. The report, which
NASA assisted the Department of
Defense in drafting, concludes that a new, low cost, space launch
capability is needed to satisfy growing NASA and DoD space launch requirements, as well as those of
SDI.
(S) The report on the SDI program concludes that restructuring
the program under the broad interpretation of the ABM Treaty will dramatically increase
program efficiency and reduce costs by approximately $3 billion. Most
significantly, if adequate funding is provided, this restructuring will
preserve the option to deploy an initial defense system in 1994 and,
thereby, will enhance the prospects for serious negotiation on arms
reductions with the Soviet Union. The realization of these benefits,
however, is contingent upon the immediate
authorization to restructure the SDI
program to take advantage of our legal right to conduct research and
development under the broad interpretation of the ABM Treaty.
(S) While the report on restructuring the
SDI program makes a compelling technical argument for adopting the broad
interpretation of the ABM Treaty, I
believe that political considerations will prove
to be critical, especially the issue of when we will have to withdraw
from the ABM Treaty. If the SDI program continues to be restricted by
an incorrect reading of the ABM Treaty,
it will be necessary to withdraw from the Treaty at the latest by 1992,
or possibly as early as 1989, in order to continue useful research and
testing that could lead to deployment. These activities are necessary to
demonstrate persuasively the feasibility of strategic defenses before
the nation commits itself to the full-scale engineering development of
such a system and certainly before its actual deployment.
(S) If we had to make a decision to
withdraw from the ABM Treaty in order
to continue the research phase of the SDI program, it would be tantamount to
asking those with an attachment to the existing strategic and arms
control arrangement to abandon the Treaty before the program had
demonstrated persuasively its ability to provide an effective defense.
Since this probably would be more than the political traffic could bear,
it would spell the end of the SDI
program. The program would forever be caught up in the catch–22 of a
national reluctance to jettison the ABM
Treaty without clear assurance that SDI
could take its
[Page 858]
place, and
SDI’s inability to provide that
assurance without first jettisoning the ABM Treaty.
(S) However, a program restructured under
the broad interpretation of the Treaty would avoid this political
catch–22. Such a program would allow us to complete the entire research
phase of the SDI program, as well as
the full scale engineering development phase of the program, before we make the decision to withdraw from the
ABM Treaty and deploy a strategic
defense. This approach has the advantage of allowing a future President
and Congress to make these important and politically difficult decisions
with proof in hand that effective defenses
are technically feasible.
(S) Finally, while the broad
interpretation of the ABM Treaty and
the development of a national heavy lift launch capability are essential
to a successful SDI program, full
funding for the program is of equal importance. The gains which are
possible by restructuring the SDI
program to be consistent with the broad interpretation of the ABM Treaty are predicated on the program
receiving adequate funding. The SDI
program has shouldered the burden of Congressional funding cuts since
1984, when you sent the first SDI
budget request to the Congress. These cuts were particularly severe last
year and what we have seen so far indicates that the program will have
to weather similarly heavy budget storms this year. This is why it is so
important that this Administration make a concerted effort over the next
several months to secure sufficient funding to guarantee an effective
SDI program. As always, I will
assist you in this every way I can.
Tab B
Paper Prepared in the Department of Defense5
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (U)
INTRODUCTION (U)
(S) On 18 February 1987, the President
directed the Secretary of Defense to provide a plan for restructuring
the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)
program in the event the President authorizes the use
[Page 859]
of the broad interpretation of the ABM Treaty. The Secretary of Defense was
directed to include a description of the first planning activities and
tests which would require the broad interpretation and an assessment of
the impact of not being permitted to restructure the program. In order
to develop a recommended program, the Department of Defense assumed that
this program would remain within currently projected budgets, would
maintain a balance among technologies, and would support a Presidential
decision on the deployment of defenses as soon as possible. For the
purpose of evaluating experiments in the restructured program, it also
was assumed that advanced kinetic energy technologies in the SDI program are based on principles other
than those that governed defensive systems in 1972 and that, therefore,
they could be fully tested and developed under the broad interpretation
of the ABM Treaty. In view of the
limited time available to conduct this analysis, the programmatic and
budgetary details of the restructured program presented in this report
are approximate and will have to be refined in more formal reviews.
RECOMMENDED RESTRUCTURED PROGRAM
(U)
(S) The current research program has
focused on individual technologies and components, in part because the
restrictive interpretation of the ABM
Treaty prevents the development and testing of devices that have full
defense capability and integrated tests using these devices. Due to the
significant progress that has been made to date, the SDI program is ideally positioned to
integrate the basic elements of a strategic defense system, such as
sensors and weapons, in realistic tests which will more fully validate
defensive concepts. Under the recommended restructured program, four
major system exploration experiments will be conducted over the next
three years. These experiments are designed to identify early in the
program any unexpected technical issues and to increase confidence in
the feasibility of strategic defenses. The first experiments in this
restructured program will occur as early as Fiscal Year 1988. Planning
activities to support this challenging schedule must begin immediately.
In the current program, the SDI effort
will remain limited to individual experiments which do not validate
technologies fully and which do not establish as high a level of
confidence in the feasibility of defenses based on these
technologies.
(S) In addition to the major experiments
which explore the issues of system integration, the development of
individual technologies will also benefit from the broad interpretation.
Restructuring to take advantage of the broad interpretation more than
pays for itself by eliminating repeated flight tests of individual
technologies. Although some reprogramming of funds will be necessary
within the SDI budget over the next
five years, this amount is a fraction of the reallocation caused
annually within the program by Congressional cuts.
[Page 860]
IMPLICATIONS OF RESTRUCTURING
(U)
(S) The implications of restructuring the
SDI program are clear and dramatic.
The recommended program will allow for more efficient use of projected
budgets and could reduce the total costs of research by approximately $3
billion dollars. Under this program, confidence in defense feasibility
will increase much faster, and the program management uncertainty caused
by the inherently ambiguous restrictive interpretation will be reduced
substantially. Additionally, restructuring under the broad
interpretation of the ABM Treaty allows
the President to defer withdrawal from the ABM Treaty until after full-scale engineering development
is completed and just prior to actual deployment. A restructured SDI program will permit a full-scale
engineering development decision as early as 1992 and preserve the
option to deploy an initial defense in about 1996 that will provide an
effective defense when fully deployed. Conversely, if the program were
not authorized to use the broad interpretation of the ABM Treaty, the United States would have
to withdraw from the Treaty about 1992 in order to permit the pre-FSED
phase of the program to be completed (FSED could begin at the time of Treaty withdrawal, but at a
lower level of confidence in defense feasibility). In fact, because of
possible political inhibitions against allocating long-lead funding to
prepare for non-Treaty compliant experiments, this issue may have to be
faced as early as FY1989 if the program continues to adhere to the
restrictive interpretation. A 1992 withdrawal from the ABM Treaty would delay a decision to enter
full-scale engineering development until at least 1994 (assuming a
requirement for a high level of confidence when entering FSED) and the Nation’s initial deployment
option would slip two years to approximately 1998, allowing even further
evolution in Soviet offensive and defensive threats.
AUTHORITY TO RESTRUCTURE
(U)
(S) The restrictive interpretation of the
ABM Treaty has already caused the
SDI program to sacrifice program
effectiveness and highly significant experimental options. Any delay
beyond May 1987 in adopting the broad interpretation of the ABM Treaty will have increasingly
detrimental consequences for the SDI
program including higher costs, further delays, and the loss of
deployment options. A delay of one year in receiving authorization to
restructure the program according to the broad interpretation would, for
example, delay the option to deploy an initial defense system at least a
year and a half until FY 1997 and
sacrifice substantial cost savings.
