Word: midgetmen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...presidential commission headed by onetime National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. At 38,000 lbs., it would be small enough to be hauled around by a trucklike vehicle. The Soviets could never pinpoint its location, and to destroy the entire area over which 500 or so Midgetmen might roam would require launching nearly every warhead at the Kremlin's command. Congress and the Administration embraced Midgetman, and the Air Force produced a design. The fiscal 1987 budget proposes spending $1.4 billion, double this year's figure, for development...
...proposal simply flies in the face of established deterrence theory. The main problem lies in the projected trend for land-based missiles. "Build down" would decrease the current force by almost half, from 1.050 missiles to a total of 100 MX's plus 500 yet-to-be-designed Midgetmen. The number of warheads on these missiles would decrease less from 2.145 to 1500 Reducing the number of missiles (i.e. potential targets) more than the number of warheads compounds an already existent problem--the fewer separate targets each side has, with more warheads, the greater the temptation in a crisis...
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