Defense: Next, Poseidon

For more than a decade, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have maintained a nuclear balance of terror. Today the Russians possess approximately 400 intercontinental missiles, 125 submarine-launched missiles and 700 medium-range missiles targeted on Western Europe. The U.S. has 940 Minuteman ICBMs, which can take off in 32 seconds, 54 Titan II missiles, which carry considerably more megatonnage than the smaller Minuteman, and 608 sub-borne Polarises—1,602 birds in all. With additions already under way, the flock will soon total 1,720 and pack a combined wallop equal to 1.8 billion tons of TNT, more than half a ton for every human being on earth. Nonetheless, the U.S. is planning yet another expansion of its missile arsenal.

The reason is new intelligence indicating that the Russians have begun deploying an anti-missile system, probably to protect their major cities. The Soviet setup is similar to the U.S.'s Nike-X concept, based on automatic firing of sentinel missiles to detonate incoming warheads.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara acknowledged that "we must assume they will deploy an effective system," even though U.S. missiles and bombers will still be able to penetrate Russian defenses. To enhance the U.S. retaliatory capability, McNamara has recommended production and deployment of the Poseidon missile—a king-size, submarine-fired weapon armed with a bigger brain and decoys with which it can filter through an anti-ballistic defense. The Pentagon has also ordered a special nine-month study of whether the U.S. should build an even bigger super-rocket, tentatively designated the ICM (for Increased Capability Missile).

As for the U.S.'s anti-missile missile, Nike-X, in which more than $2.4 billion has been invested in research, McNamara said only that there has been no decision to deploy it. Privately, he is opposed to Nike-X's deployment. For one thing, there is Nike's cost—a minimum of $30 billion; moreover, McNamara says, even if Nike-X is installed, the Russians could overwhelm it with an expenditure of only $5 billion in additional offensive power. He remains convinced that as long as the U.S. maintains its retaliatory capability, a nuclear exchange is highly unlikely.