Are you confused when you hear talk about ICBMs, MAD, SS-18s, ABM, Trident, Minuteman? Do you feel out of it when the news or the conversation turns to talk about nuclear this or strategic that?
The answer to your problem is at hand. It’s a new book called “How To Make Nuclear Weapons Obsolete” (Little, Brown & Co., 1985) by a scientist who knows how to talk to non-scientists (which includes most of us). It isn’t as simple as “The One Minute Manager,” but two hours with it can enable you to converse both with people who know something about the subject and those who don’t.
The author, Robert Jastrow, is the founder of NASA’s Institute for Space Studies and has been prominent in the space program since its start. Now a Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College, he is a nationally recognized expert in nuclear physics, planetary science, and astrophysics.
Jastrow explains all the average citizen needs to know about satellites, missiles, warheads, ABMs, lasers, particle beams, and other exotic technologies which may become a reality by the end of the century. His illustrations are especially helpful in explaining our weapons and comparing them with the Soviets’.
No sooner was the SALT I ABM Treaty signed in 1972 but the Soviets built and deployed an entire new generation of ICBMs that were bigger, more destructive, and more accurate. They “knocked the stuffing out of Mutual Assured Destruction,” the MAD theory on which the ABM Treaty rested. The Soviets built a giant missile force able to destroy us, but in SALT I we had signed away our right to defend ourselves.
So what kind of a response does that reality require? Our options are (a) Launch on Warning (hit the nuclear button as soon as we get the warning from U.S. satellites and radars that Soviet missiles appear to be on the way), (b) ride out the attack and let the bulk of our land-based missiles be destroyed, (c) massively build up our own land-based missile forces to match the Soviet ICBM force on equal terms (this would take 500 MX missiles carrying 5000 warheads), or (d) build a defense.
Defense is the best response. Technologies already on the shelf will allow us to put into place in the early 1990s a simple but highly effective two-layer defense at a cost of roughly $60 billion.
The United States now has the means to build a miniature missile with elaborate computer brains called a “smart bullet” or a “smart rock.” It can sense an incoming Soviet ICBM, steer itself into its path, and disarm the nuclear bomb inside the ICBM. Its action is like tossing a keg of nails into the path of the speeding warhead, and that’s enough to upset the fragile electronics which control the nuclear bomb’s mechanism.
The smart bullet can protect our missile silos, communication lines that connect the President with top military commanders, bomber airfields, and submarine bases. This will decrease the vulnerability of our nuclear forces, improve our chance of retaliation, and therefore make any attack less likely.
Its effectiveness is conservatively estimated at 90%, and Dr. Jastrow thinks a defensive system will work even if it is only 80% effective. That means we can shoot down four out of five Soviet warheads in a mass attack, and the Soviets will know that we can strike back with our surviving weapons because most of our retaliatory forces, key missile silos, Trident submarine pens, air bases, and chain of command will survive.
It would be even better to have a defense to shield the American people, too. The laser defense is not yet proven, but it holds the promise of destroying Soviet missiles as they rise from their silos. A laser beam is like a searchlight which travels at the speed of light, focuses on the metal skin of an ICBM and burns right through it, just as the light of the sun can burn through a piece of wood or paper when focused on a narrow spot by a magnifying glass.
Jastrow also explains the particle beam, which shoots a stream of fast-moving hydrogen atoms at the missile, and may prove to be even better. Whereas the laser beam is absorbed at a missile’s surface and does not get into the interior, the atoms in a particle beam pass right through the metal skin of the missile and enter into the brains of the missile, driving it off course so it tumbles and destroys itself.
Jastrow’s book proves that we need not be fearful of the future so long as we use our technology to defend ourselves.
