Rather than addressing the monitoring study itself, the letter focuses on
the differences between the study and the assumptions used in the JCS briefing as a means of highlighting
the PFIAB’s control concerns with the
potential strategic impact of the treaty. The PFIAB comments are highly critical and go as far as to
question whether the proposed treaty supports the U.S. objectives for
START.
This is a substantive and political arms control issue. At this point,
there is little, if any benefit for the current Administration to try
and address the PFIAB issues. The
rationale for our current START
position is very well documented. We suggest that you should share this
with General Scowcroft in anticipation of the new Administration’s
initial review of arms control.
Attachment
Memorandum for the Chair of the President’s
Foreign Intelligence Board (Armstrong) to the President’s Assistant for
National Security Affairs (Powell)5
Washington, January 11, 1989
SUBJECT
- START Monitoring and Arms
Control Choices
PFIAB recently received a full
copy of the study you requested from DCI Webster on monitoring a START agreement, which was undertaken by the NIO for
Strategic Programs and the Arms Control Intelligence Staff. In
conjunction with the briefing by General Herres which you generously
helped to arrange, the Board has sharpened its understanding of the
START Treaty and the
strategic issues surrounding it. This memo responds to your request
for our comments on the study.
During its September meeting the Board was surprised by the large
discrepancies which appeared between the briefings we received from
General Herres and the one received from the NIO for Strategic
Programs, Larry Gershwin. Larry’s briefing essentially previewed for
us his later report. At that time, of course, General Herres could
not take full advantage of the NIO’s comprehensive study. We
understand that the JCS has now
received a briefing based upon it.
In simple terms, the Board became concerned when the JCS assumed under START that the aggregate number of
Soviet warheads in the late-1990s would be some 7000, [less than 2 lines not declassified] A good
portion of the discrepancy lies in the fact that the JCS projected the “legal” Soviet
forces under the Treaty’s terms, while the NIO described his
assessment of actual Soviet wartime potential.
Specifically:
• The JCS assumed, in its
US/Soviet comparison, that the Soviets would not, during crisis
or wartime, upload at least some of their SS–18 heavy missiles
to their full capacity of 14 warheads, nor upload the SS–N–23
and SS–N–20 follow-on. The NIO did.
• [1 paragraph (5 lines) not
declassified]
• We were told that the JCS
discount the likelihood of Moscow deploying its nondeployed
mobile-missiles in times of crisis; the NIO takes special note
of the Soviet capacity to do so, especially the rail-mobile
SS–24. These differences in how nondeployed mobile-missiles
[Page 1544]
are assessed mark
one of the greatest discrepancies between the two
briefings.6
• The JCS comparison of
US/Soviet bomber warheads presumes that under a final treaty the
B1 will not be counted as an ALCM carrier, a “leap” others find
unrealistic.
The Board expressed its concerns about Soviet breakout potential
under the treaty in its February 5, 1988 letter to the
President.7 But the Board’s concern was
heightened significantly [less than 1 line not
declassified] that with no peacetime
cheating the Soviets could, “within weeks or months,” break
out of the treaty and more than double the
6000 weapons the treaty nominally permits. The Board does not
discount the operational difficulties for the Soviets to surge
during crisis by uploading ballistic missiles to their full capacity
and matching nondeployed mobile missiles with launchers. It is
wartime potential, however, not the peacetime, nominal forces by
which the treaty should be judged, and will certainly be judged
during a ratification debate.
[1 paragraph (10 lines) not declassified]
The principal purpose of the treaty, as we understand it, is
strategic stability, especially crisis stability. Concern that
growth in Soviet ballistic warheads relative to U.S. targets is
pushing the strategic balance into a less stable condition has
motivated the President’s arms control efforts from the beginning.
As General Herres emphasized, the heart of the treaty is the
ballistic missile warhead limit.
[1 paragraph (less than 12 lines) not
declassified]
One might argue that the pronounced target base asymmetries between
the United States and the Soviet Union eliminate Soviet incentives
to prepare for crisis breakout because, even under treaty limits,
they have U.S. targets sufficiently covered. But to make such a
claim is to undercut the principal rationale for the treaty:
limiting ballistic missile warheads. The argument says, on the one
hand, that the Soviet’s legal modernization
leads to such destabilizing warhead-to-target ratios that Soviet
ballistic missile warheads must be constrained by a START treaty; but on the other hand,
equally advantageous warhead-to-target ratios which the Soviets can
gain by cheating may be dismissed. It cannot
be both ways.
Another commonly stated purpose of the treaty is to enhance
predictability in U.S. and Soviet force structures. The START treaty’s central limits on
warheads, launchers, ICBMs, and
heavy ICBMs, it is argued, will
channel U.S. and Soviet force improvements into more
[Page 1545]
predictable patterns. It will also
ease U.S. decisions about how to [6 lines not
declassified]
[4 paragraphs (less than 35 lines) not
declassified]
PFIAB raised a number of other
monitoring issues in its April letter to you,8 some of which we have not addressed in
depth here because of the criticality of the Soviet breakout issue.
Many of these issues were examined in [less than 1
line not declassified] gives more detail to them. We think
the study provides a more realistic assessment of the utility and
limits of different cooperative measures. The study provides yet
another reminder of the daunting problems of monitoring mobile
missiles.
PFIAB recognizes that the United
States faces uncertainties with or without a treaty. But as we wrote
to you in April, “Before entering the treaty . . . PFIAB believes we need a confident
understanding of the type and level of cheating that would give the
Soviets decisive strategic advantages. The treaty’s verification
regime must provide us high confidence that we can detect such
cheating by US monitoring means. The evidence derived from such
monitoring must be capable of eliciting from us an appropriate and
timely response to ensure Soviet compliance with the treaty or to
safeguard our interests threatened by Soviet cheating. Finally, we
believe we need a net assessment of the strategic impact of the
treaty in peacetime, crisis, and war that takes into account
military systems limited by the treaty and military systems not
limited by it.”
We continue to believe this standard is appropriate. [less than 1 line not declassified] is a very
good beginning of the START Study
Program we suggested in April. In our judgment it raises concerns
that give compelling reasons for completing the review.
