Word: polarises
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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In March, speaking of Soviet intentions, Secretary Laird said flatly: "They are going for a first-strike capability [the ability to so devastate the American arsenal that the U.S. could not retaliate]. There is no question about that." That statement flew in the face of testimony by Pentagon intelligence experts...
The distinction is important, because a crucial point in the argument is just how many deliverable H-bombs the U.S really needs to make retaliation a sufficiently convincing threat to the Russians. The "optimum" retaliatory force, according to former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, consists of 400 one-megaton warheads delivered...
THE standard ballistic missile carries only one nuclear warhead. That has long seemed inefficient to Pentagon planners, considering the huge cost of missiles and the space required to store them. In the early 1960s, they developed the first improvement: a multiple warhead known as MRV (for Multiple Re-entry Vehicle...
> The Poseidon version can carry up to twelve warheads and has a 2,900-mile range. The Poseidon MIRVs are thus of the "low kiloton" type, designed to be used against cities, while the Minuteman Ill's might be used to hit the adversary's iCBMs in hardened...
The Pentagon is unhappy about the prospect of losing Okinawa. Strategically, however, removal of nuclear weapons and bombers should have little effect on overall U.S. capability. The four Polaris submarines and five Navy aircraft carriers now in the area, plus nuclear-armed planes in South Korea and possibly the Philippines...