DEFENSE: Second Thoughts on SALT I

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For now, the U.S. is applying pressure on the Soviets mainly through a couple of bargaining chips for SALT II: the B-l and the Trident submarine. Experts agree that neither weapon is an immediate military necessity; for example, the Air Force's durable fleet of 527 B-52 bombers, which the B-l would replace, is expected to remain effective into the 1980s. SALT I thus lends support to a recent Brookings Institution forecast that the first $100 billion U.S. defense budget could arrive in 1977.

Despite its shortcomings, SALT I is so far a fairly clear plus. Though a great deal depends on how the Soviets behave, the U.S. does not appear to have lost anything of substance, at least for now. It has, in fact, scored some important gains: a stop in the recent rapid Soviet offensive buildup, including a halt in the production of the fearsome SS-9s and any later systems.

Even so, the net effect of the agreements may be, as Columnist I.F. Stone protests, merely to move the situation "from the super-crazy to the plain crazy." Yarmolinsky laments that it seems impossible to get back to the ideal situation "where, under the worst circumstances, some strategist in the Kremlin will turn to a colleague and say, 'But Ivan, if we go ahead with that plan they'll turn the Soviet Union into a large lake.' " Both sides already have the capability to carve out several large lakes. The massive commitment to offensive weapons is such that for the present each side must continually upgrade its deterrents lest the other gain a first-strike capability—the ability to strike so quickly and so powerfully as to wipe out any chance of a retaliatory attack.