On the upcoming anniversary of Hiroshima, we will hear a lot of talk about how terrible it is to be a civilian target of an enemy aerial attack. Indeed, it is. Some nations have learned that lesson, but others apparently have not.
The Soviet Union is protecting its people against an attack by the United States (imaginary though that threat may be). But the United States is not protecting us against an attack by the Soviet Union (real though that threat may be).
The Soviets are ahead of the United States in deployed strategic defenses. They have the world’s only operational ballistic missile defense system; it is installed around Moscow, and they are constantly modernizing and improving it.
The Soviet system to detect and track ballistic missile attacks consists of three layers — a launch detection satellite network, two over-the-horizon radars watching for U.S. ICBMs, and two networks of large ballistic missile detection and tracking radars.
The Soviets have built a large early warning radar at Krasnoyarsk. It is well known that this installation violates the ABM Treaty of 1972. They are deploying large numbers of dual-purpose interceptors with ABM capabilities, and they are developing mobile radars and interceptors.
Additional radars under construction near Krasnoyarsk close the final gaps in the Soviet early warning radar coverage against ballistic missile attacks. Nine new large phased-array radars monitor almost all missile approaches to the Soviet Union.
The Soviets have invested enormous resources in strategic air defense weapon systems. The Soviets have nearly 12,000 surface-to-air missile launchers, more than 1,200 sites, 10,000 air defense radars, more than 1,200 interceptor aircraft assigned to strategic defense, and an additional 2,800 interceptors assigned to Soviet air forces that could also be used in strategic defense missions.
The Soviets are ahead of us not because they have superior knowledge or technology, and not because they have more resources, but because they have the political will to defend their nation.
Robert M. Gates, Deputy Director of the CIA, reported that “over the past ten years the Soviet Union has spent nearly $150 billion on strategic defense, or almost 15 times what the United States has spent.” The Soviets have spent as much on strategic defense, he said, as they have on their massive strategic offensive forces.
Every time we raise the subject of deploying Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, we hear a chorus chanting, “it won’t work.” It is obvious that the Soviets believe that defenses will work.
Some 30 Soviet scientists who emigrated to the United States signed an open letter to President Reagan. They told him that “the Soviet scientific community and government leaders believe that effective strategic defenses are technically possible and doable,” and that “the Soviet Union has been intensely working
