Word: icbms
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...Vladivostok by Brezhnev and Gerald Ford and imposes equal numerical limits on the two strategic arsenals. Using weapon launchers as the basis for measuring these arsenals (it would be almost impossible to identify each warhead accurately), the treaty will limit each side to a combined total of 2,250 ICBM launchers, long-range bombers and submarine tubes capable of firing strategic ballistic missiles by the start...
...pending agreements from the SALT talks, ongoing now for a decade, will limit for the first time all strategic nuclear delivery vehicles--ICBM and SLBM launchers, heavy bombers, and long-range air-to-surface ballistic missiles--to 2400, eventually to 2250. The U.S. currently possesses about 2100 such systems, the Soviets about 2500; it will thus require the Soviets to reduce by about 250 missile launchers...
...arms race. It allows both the Soviets and Americans to continue to modernize and replace their current weapons with more powerful ones. Therefore SALT partially funnels strategic competition from quantitative to qualitative grounds. SALT will allow both sides to deploy on new land-based system such as the MX ICBM in the U.S.; it will also allow those systems to be mobile, although the U.S. wrote in the 1972 SALT I agreements that mobile systems would violate the spirit of the negotiations...
...allowing improving accuracies and yields in ICBMs, SALT does not solve the long-term problem of vulnerability of land-based systems. This is a goal for SALT III. It also will not limit military spending and may very well increase it. The U.S., in not atypical fashion of "negotiating through strength," is deploying the new Trident submarine; the projected ten Tridents will cost the taxpayer about $20 billion. Additional systems, under consideration as "bargaining chips" to obtain Senate ratification of SALT, are the MX ICBM at $30-50 billion, and several thousand air-launched cruise missiles at $30 billion...
...install considerably more electronic gear in ground listening posts than can be carried by satellites. This is especially important in monitoring missile launchings and impacts. The sensitive equipment, like sophisticated radar, can calculate an ICBM's length and diameter and thus contribute significantly to SALT II verification. Reason: under the expected terms of the accord, if such dimensions are increased or decreased by more than 5%, the weapon would have to be designated as a "new type" of missile and be subject to a sharp limitation on deployment. (Some critics of SALT caution that the margin of error...