Reagan’s brolly; Gorbachev’s Galoshes

Press, 10 January 1986, Page 12

Reagan’s brolly; Gorbachev’s Galoshes

Kremlin recriminations mask the Soviet Union’s own strategic defence initiative, according to DAVID FAIRHALL, of the “Guardian,” London, in this review of nuclear umbrellas.

The most 'recent outburst of Soviet recrimination about alleged arms control violations has served notice, among other things, that the Americans will not be allowed to modernise the Fylingdales early-warning radar station on the Yorkshire moors without protests from Moscow.

The Russian negotiators had earlier offered to halt completion of their own disputed earlywarning radar at Krasnoyarsk if the United States would refrain from modernising Fylingdales and the similar station at Thule, Greenland.

Now, Soviet spokesmen have specifically claimed that a new 360-degree phased array radar in Yorkshire would be a violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. And they added that if the American underground nuclear explosion on December 28 was to test an X-ray laser for possible installation in President Reagan’s strategic “Star Wars” defences, then that too was a breach of the 1972 accord.

Legally, the American answer to the first of these accusations is that “modernisation by replacement” of the Yorkshire radar is entirely permissible because it was in existence for early-warning purposes long before the ABM Treaty was negotiated. Technically, the new phased array could become a component of some new form of strategic defence, whether

based in space or on the ground, simply by changing the computer software that analyses the raw radar signals — which is why the British Government has sought assurances that the Americans have no such intention. The same software switch could be made at Krasnoyarsk, which the Pentagon says is an ABM Treaty violation because it should have been built in north-east Siberia, and which the Russians insist will only be used for “space tracking.” Behind all this mutual recrimination, there will be a strong tendency for the Soviet and American strategic defence programmes to converge, with Star Wars subsiiding into a new ground-based ABM system as Congress gets at the budget and President Reagan retires, while the Soviet Union updates a limited ABM defence it has never entirely abandoned.

The proper name for Star Wars, after all, is the Strategic Defence Initiative, or S.D.I. — which does not by definition have to be constructed in space, even if the United States military scientists’ favourite fantasies suggest that it should be.

The distinction is important, because although Mr Gorbachev insists that the Russians have no direct equivalent of the Star Wars programme — and do not want one unless United States intransigence forces them to join this new

space race — they certainly have strategic defences.

Indeed their current effort in this direction is in several ways more substantial than the wellpublicised American one, including killer satellites and a ballistic missile defence for Moscow. As soon as the threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles became apparent in the 19505, both the Russians and the Americans began searching for a direct defence against them. Khrushchev boasted later about being able to “intercept a fly in space.” But in reality, the first and second generation of anti-ballistic missile defences on both sides proved to be disappointingly ineffective. The difference was that the Americans, although they had the better technology, were quicker to rationalise this mutual inadequacy and opt instead for an East-West strategy of mutual assured destruction (M.A.D.). That strategy was enshrined in the 1972 ABM Treaty, when the two super-powers agreed to abandon their defensive competition — because it also carried with it the danger of escalation, as each side tried to overwhelm the other’s defences — and pin their hopes on stabilising and reducing the balance of offence nuclear forces. Arms control became fashionable. But the Russians, neurotic as ever about protecting the motherland, did not totally dismantle the ABM system they had built round Moscow, which was allowed under the ABM Treaty. About half the Galosh interceptor missiles were left in place, with their associated -control radars.

The Moscow ABM system is now being modernised with a powerful new phased-array radar at Pushkino, north of the capital, and a second layer of high-acceleration missiles to intercept incoming targets within the atmosphere. United States intelligence suggests it will be ready by 1987. This is the modernisation that prompted Britain’s Aldennaston Atomic Weapons Research Establishment to recommend upgrading the Royal Navy’s Polaris missiles with the multiple Chevaline warhead which eventually cost JNZ3OOO million and has just come into service.

The latest Pentagon analysis, recently circulated among members of the House of Commons Defence Committee, puts it at the top of a list of Soviet activities in strategic defence.

The other items' on the list are:— ‘ .

0 construction, of a new phased-, array ballistic missile.early-warn-ing and tracking radar near Krasnoyarsk in central Asia which has the potential for ABM battle management;

0 extensive research into advanced technologiies for. possible ABM defence that, could also be applied.to an American-style Star Wars concept, such as laser and

particle beam weapons; 0 maintenance of the world’s only operational anti-satellite (Asat) system; 0 modernisation of Soviet air defences, some of which, the Americans claim, may have a limited ABM capability, 0 improvements in passive defences, such as bunkers for key personnel and “hardened” or mobile missiles. The Krasnoyarsk radar is of particular interest because it is similar to the phased array the Americans plan to build at Fylingdales to upgrade the performance of Britain’s BMEWs chain. In fact, the Russian arms control negotiators at Geneva have offered to halt work on Krasnoyarsk if the Americans will abandon Fylingdales Mark H — an offer that was promptly rejected. The Pentagon has meanwhile claimed that the Soviet radar is a violation of the ABM Treaty because it is in the “wrong” place for an early warning installation; that is not on the periphery of national territory ‘ and not orientated outward. . .

The Foreign Office, is also, doubtful whether the Krasnoyarsk array is technically a,breach of the treaty, but this cautious position probably owes more to British concern not to damage the prospects of arms control than to confidence in Soviet, assurances that the new radar will simply be used for “space tracking.” The Soviet Asat weapon consists of a killer satellite that can be manoeuvred into 'orbit close alongside an enemy reconnaissance

satellite — though only in low orbits — and then destroy if with an explosion. > The Americans < are now busy developing their bwn weapon, a small homing missile launched from an F-15 fighter, which promises to be a good deal more flexible and effective when it becomes operational some time after 1987.

The Reagan Administration’s assessment of all this Soviet activity is that “the U.S.S.R. may be preparing an ABM defence of its national territory” — that is the so-called break-out from the 1972 ABM Treaty — which might lead the Kremlin leadership “to believe that it could launch a nuclear attack against the United States or our allies without fear of effective retaliation.”

This alarmist interpretation of the Soviet programmes is used by some hawkish officals in Washington to justify talk of extending Star Wars research into testing and possible deployment, or even the immediate abrogation of the 1972 treaty.. If the United -States administration needed to 'demonstrate that the Soviet 'military have never • really lost their interest in .strate- . gic defence, and that ironically, ’ they share soipething of President Reagan’s instinctive anhorreuce of • the,M.A.D. doctrine, then the point, has been made. Perhaps the best- hope for those opposed to Reagan’s S.D.I. is that in a few years time, under a new President and a budget drastically reduced by’ Congress, ’it will em-. erge as .little’ more than a new 'American -ABM programme, still planted on (he ground, but with m.uch better computers. . ■ •

Moscow Ballistic Missile Defense