Word: warhead
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Although many respected observers argue the case, it makes little sense to worry unduly about the vulnerability of the land-based leg of the triad when it accounts for only 20% of the 12,000 warheads in America's strategic nuclear arsenal. Even in the unlikely event that a first strike wiped out the entire American land-based missile force, the U.S. could still obliterate the Soviet % Union with a fraction of the 5,300 warheads on its modern missile submarines and the 4,700 on its bombers. Though the first operational test last week of a Trident II missile...
...critical question thus becomes which of the missiles to buy. The ten- warhead MX, which Reagan dubbed the Peacekeeper, is a proven, highly accurate ICBM. In one option, the 50 MX's already deployed in ICBM silos would be supplemented by another 50 "garrisoned" on special railroad cars stationed on military bases. If a U.S.-Soviet confrontation loomed, the missiles would be moved out on 180,000 miles of railway across the nation. The main advantage of this scheme is its relatively low price tag: an estimated $12 billion for 50 missiles carrying 500 warheads. A somewhat cheaper option...
...single-warhead Midgetman (a misnomer for a missile weighing 37,000 lbs.) would sidestep the vulnerability problem by being deployed on hardened, tractor-drawn launchers. In times of crisis, the launchers could be dispersed over thousands of square miles on and off military reservations. But while military planners consider the Midgetman more survivable in a surprise attack than the MX, it is much more expensive: $39 billion for 500 missiles carrying 500 warheads...
...choice between the two missiles must take into account the projected overall ceiling of 4,900 land- and sea-based ballistic-missile warheads that has been set in the START negotiations. With smaller numbers of warheads on both sides, there is a strategic advantage in single-warhead missiles like Midgetman. By dispersing its quota of warheads on a larger number of Midgetman missiles instead of concentrating it on a smaller number of MX's, the U.S. could greatly complicate a Soviet first strike...
...Gandhi said in 1986 that it would take "maybe longer than . . . a few weeks" for India to deploy A-weapons. In February 1988 India successfully tested the Prithvi, a 150-mile-range ballistic missile that can carry a payload of 2,000 lbs., more than enough for a nuclear warhead...