What Might Come Of This Research? Four Possibilities

What are the possible outcomes of the current program? We will here consider just four possibilities. In each we explore what would happen if the current R&D program clearly pointed to one of the following possible outcomes: (1) There is great promise ; it begins to look as though Reagan's vision of a truly effective space shield may eventually be fulfilled. (2) There is some promise ; it begins to seem possible that a somewhat effective, but not impenetrable, system can be designed that meets the "Nitze criteria" of survivability and cost-effectiveness at the margin. (3) There is little promise ; the situation continues to look the same as it does today, that is, very dubious at best. (4) There is no promise ; it soon becomes clear that the whole thing is a wild goose chase.

Case 1: Great Promise

Suppose that in the next few years the current R&D program shows that there is a substantial possibility of eventually building a strategic defense that would be reliable; survivable; cost-effective (even in the light of the currently foreseeable chain of responses and counterresponses); and on top of all that, leakproof, or very nearly so. If a majority of researchers and key political leaders become convinced of its ultimate feasibility, the resulting course of action is easy to imagine. The United States would, and probably should, go ahead with an accelerated effort, arguments about transition problems and costs notwithstanding. Even in this case (one seen as extremely unlikely by well-informed analysts), the political authorities would still be well advised to make no other changes in strategic policy until it becomes completely clear that this wondrous

outcome could be achieved soon. This admonition applies equally to U.S. arms-control efforts, alliance arrangements, and plans for modernizing the strategic forces—assuming, of course, that these policies are all currently correct as they stand. To the extent that the remainder of U.S. strategic policies make sense now, they will continue to do so for at least the foreseeable future and should not be substantially changed on the basis of a very improbable, even if highly desirable, outcome for SDI. Even if the researchers' most optimistic expectations are fulfilled, developing and deploying a multilayered defense will take decades. In the interim, it would be most imprudent to behave as though the outcome were a foregone conclusion.

Case 2: Some Promise

Suppose it soon becomes widely apparent both inside and outside the defense establishment that the current program may eventually lead to strategic defenses that are reliable, survivable, and cost-effective, even in the face of the first round of likely countermeasures—but, alas, clearly far from perfect. That is, suppose it remains as obvious as it is today that even if a BMD system fulfills the Nitze criteria, there would still be so many pathways through it and around it that the United States and its allies would continue to be threatened with great, probably total, destruction. Most analysts believe that even this more modest outcome is very unlikely; but, conceivably, it could come to pass. Let us suppose it does.

Then, as in Case 1, the United States would, and under certain conditions probably should, go ahead with the program on an accelerating basis. The usefulness of cost-effective but imperfect defenses has been much discussed. In general, even quite imperfect defenses can make preemptive attacks more uncertain and more difficult. If, for example, active defenses are deployed to protect the retaliatory forces, the attacker must increase the size of his strike in order to bring the potential result back to the level that had existed before the deployment of defenses, and he cannot be fully confident of doing so even then. (So-called preferential defenses, to be described in the next chapter, in which only certain specific, but unidentified, units of the retaliatory forces are in fact defended, greatly exacerbate this problem.) The same consideration applies to the defender's command-and-control system. If an attacker believes he knows where the defender's vital control units are located, then, in the absence of defenses, he can at least calculate that a certain

level of attack would destroy them all. In the presence of even partially effective defenses, he can no longer be sure of doing so. Given the size of today's forces, even a relatively small remnant is easily sufficient to threaten annihilation of the attacker's cities and population, and this remains so even if the attacker has the same imperfect defenses. Thus, improving the survival chances of even a modest remnant of the defender's forces reinforces deterrence.

In sum, the potential value of imperfect but robust and cost-effective defense lies in the fact that such defenses would in general reinforce deterrence. Thus, the probability of an attack would be reduced even if the defenses could not adequately blunt the attack on cities and population. There are, however, alternate means for reinforcing deterrence. Besides, simply meeting the Nitze criteria is not enough by itself to justify building active defenses. These alternative means in general are also based on increasing the survivability of the various elements of the deterrent forces, including especially the command-and-control system. For the immediate future, the most promising appear to involve better protection of national-command authorities and the further application of mobility, dispersal, and other forms of deception to render retaliatory forces untargetable. Active defenses, if they are to be deployed, would in general have to be cheaper than the alternatives to make them worthwhile.

But if strategic defenses were to hold promise of eventually surpassing the Nitze criteria by a substantial margin, and not merely meeting them on an equal cost basis, the United States would probably choose to go ahead with them even if there were other ways to make offensive forces more survivable. In such a case, the deployment of strategic defenses might well lead to a world in which there was progressively more emphasis on defense than on offense. Some sort of useful transition away from the current dreadful situation—in which peace is based mainly on the threat of mutual suicide—might occur. Such a transition is too far off and too speculative to foresee its details, but it might include such things as substantial arms reductions, a defense-protected build-down, and a general shift away from the current high-strung nuclear confrontation with all the extraordinary dangers inherent in it.

Such an outcome also seems to us and to most defense analysts to be very unlikely. But the possibility, however slight, that it might emerge is one of the important reasons that many of the defense experts who oppose the current SDI program, with all the rhetoric and politics that have surrounded it, endorse a substantial, continuing research program

in all areas of defense technology, including its newest and most exotic forms.

Case 3: Little Promise

Suppose things continue as they are. Avid proponents continue to project great results and SDI activists in the defense establishment try to lock the program into the political system by making major spending commitments and promising some sort of early deployment. The opponents of the program in the wider technical community, and the doubters inside the defense establishment, both of whom form substantial majorities in their respective milieus, continue to see little promise for fulfilling even the Nitze criteria—except, possibly, for the special sub-case of ground-based, hard-point terminal defenses. What then may we expect to happen?

This is, perhaps, the most likely case, at least for the near term. It is also the one most susceptible to the play of domestic and international political forces. We see two distinct possibilities if this case prevails. One will apply as long as the United States is governed by a president who has the same passions for this approach to strategic issues as Ronald Reagan. In this particular scenario, the project will continue at about the same expenditure level it reached in 1988—roughly $4 billion per year. Attempts to increase this expenditure or to commit the nation to early deployment of space-based systems will likely fail. The present organization, built largely so that the R&D program could be rapidly expanded and made to evolve quickly into an early deployment, will live on even so.

The other scenario will apply if the United States is governed by a president who hasn't Reagan's passion in the matter. In that case, the project and its supporting organization will evolve as in Case 4 below.

Case 4: No Promise

Suppose the view of the opposing majority takes hold in the post-Reagan years. The force of the president's idiosyncratic desires, in addition to the personal loyalty to Reagan of the majority of the Pentagon staff, were surely major factors supporting the SDI and the SDIO. It is therefore at least possible if not in fact probable that without Reagan in the White House the entire edifice will collapse. The package of programs called the SDI may be disaggregated and treated as they were before

the March 1983 speech. Even during Reagan's tenure, the funding for strategic-defense programs as a whole did not grow very much beyond what was called for in the plans and programs in place before the speech. Total expenditures for SDI for FY1984–89 will be just over $17 billion, compared with $14 billion projected by the DOD before SDI was declared. The really big differences before and after the speech were that the U.S. and international bodies politic were flooded with grand rhetorical promises about a radically new future, and that a special office, the SDIO, reporting directly to the secretary of defense and by-passing all normal staff offices, was set up. Neither of these two changes is essential or normal to the conduct of an R&D program of the type likely under either Case 3 or Case 4. With this peculiarly dedicated president out of office, they could therefore both easily disappear. Such a denouement is what many observers expect. It is also what most SDI contractors fear and (privately) prepare for.

The technological difficulties in the path of SDI are formidable, but they are by no means the only ones. The strategic issues that surround a commitment to develop and deploy a shield in space involve still more complex uncertainties. We examine these in the next chapter.