Crunching the Numbers

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Part of the beauty of the original "build-down" approach was that it promised to be simple. But months of tinkering by various experts and Congressmen added a wide variety of refinements that make build-down as complicated as a Chinese menu—or perhaps a menu in Chinese.

Under the proposal, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would have to reduce their overall nuclear arsenals by 45% by 1996. The key to the plan is a new unit of destructive power called Standard Weapons Station (SWS), which was developed by retired Air Force Lieut. General Glenn Kent. In its simplest form, an SWS represents a warhead atop a ballistic missile, a bomb on a plane, a self-propelled cruise missile. Kent's plan includes complex formulas so that oversize warheads count extra. So do multiple warheads that are clustered on top of missiles with particularly powerful lifting capability, known as "throw-weight." The details are still being honed in Washington and would be negotiable with the Soviets.

As it is, the SWS calculus is a head-snapper. For example, the SWS's assigned to a bomber would be its total takeoff weight divided by a "K" factor. The K factor for a plane carrying cruise missiles would yield a greater SWS total than the K factor for an identical plane carrying bombs, which are viewed as less lethal. The K factor for land-based missiles takes into account the size and number of warheads. Thus the MX missile, with ten warheads, could count as ten SWS's—but the Soviet SS-18, which also has ten warheads, would equal 20.5 SWS's, because it has larger warheads and more throw-weight.

The U.S. and U.S.S.R. now have about 16,000 SWS's. To help it get down to 8,500 SWS's by 1996, the U.S. could replace its current 1,045 land-based missiles (2,565 SWS's) with 100 MX missiles (1,000 SWS's) and 500 single-warhead Midgetman missiles (another 500 SWS's). The Soviets could, if they wanted, keep 300 of their SS-18 missiles (6,150 SWS's) and fill the remainder of their quota with bombers and sea-launched missiles. But the goal is to penalize retention of such large weapons and move the Soviet Union—and the U.S.—to more stabilizing systems.