Verification Technologies: Measures for

Monitoring Compliance With the START

Treaty

December 1990

OTA-ISC-479

NTIS order #PB91-131813
Contents

Page

Preface oe****. *.o*. ..*. ... ... *.. ... ... e**. ... .*. *.. .*o**. *.. ... ... .**. ... ... ... oo. *. **o .

Congressional Requests for This Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Project Guidelines ... ..o. **. ... ... *.e*. **. *.. .*** **. ... .*. ... ***. ..** .*. ... *.. .o. o.** *

Project Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Summary .*o. ..*$*e. ..** ... ... .*. ..** .* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Context for This Report ***. ... **** ... *.. ..*oe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Overview of the Arms Control Monitoring Process . . . . .

Assessing Monitoring Needs

Monitoring Inter-Continental

and Capabilities . . . . . . . . . .

Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)

● ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎

● ✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎☛☛✎☛☛✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎☛☛ ✎

✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎

Monitoring Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Monitoring Bombers and Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

1

1

1

3

3

3

6

6

10

12

14

Boxes

Box Page

A. START Monitoring Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

B. National Technical Means of Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Figures

Figure Page

1. Canisterized SS-18 Being Loaded Into Silo . *...**.*...*....*.,,...*....*....**.....*..

2. Ohio-Class Strategic Missile Submarine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3. Reconnaissance and Bomber Versions of the Soviet Tu-95 Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tables

10

13

15

Table Page

1. U.S. and Soviet Positions on START Treaty Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. Current U.S. and Soviet Strategic Nuclear Forces Under START . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3. Types Of Onsite Inspection (OSI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4. Why Might the Soviets Cheat on START ICBM Limits? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4

5

9

11

ii
Foreword

If negotiations continue on track, a Treaty between the United States and the Soviet

Union on Strategic Arms Reductions may come before the Senate early in 1991 for its advice

and consent. In the coming months and years, Congress will be faced with various issues

related to arms control in areas such as chemical weapons, conventional forces, and perhaps

START II. In particular, arms control verification will be an issue of growing importance.

Congress will need to reach conclusions about the verifiability of agreements, about the

benefits and risks to the United States of increasingly comprehensive verification regimes,

about what level of national resources should be devoted to verification activities, and about

what directions the development of U.S. and international verification capabilities should

take.

The Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees asked OTA to

undertake a study centering on the technologies and techniques of monitoring the Strategic

Arms Reduction Treaty, still under negotiation. This is the summary of the first of the reports

to be produced by that study. The report describes the role of monitoring in the arms control

verification process. It surveys the types of on-site inspection and their costs, risks, and

benefits. It also examines the INF Treaty experience for lessons relevant to START. Our

general discussions of the monitoring process and on-site inspections are relevant to other

types of arms control as well as to START. The report outlines the monitoring tasks specific

to START and suggests the cooperative and unilateral measures available for a START

monitoring regime. It does not attempt to predict which of the possible cooperative measures

will finally be negotiated in the START Treaty. The full, classified report is available to those

with appropriate security clearance and “need to know."

In preparing the reports summarized here, OTA sought the assistance of many individuals

and organizations (see Acknowledgments). We gratefully acknowledge their contributions.

As with all OTA reports, the content remains the sole responsibility of OTA and does not

necessarily represent the views of our advisors or reviewers.

- Directo r

iii
START Verification Advisory Panel

James R. Blackwell

Director, International Security

Meridian Corp.

Rodney Nichols, Chairman ChairmanChairmun

Scholar-in-Residence

The Carnegie Corporation of New York

Ashton Carter

Director

Center for Science and International Affairs

Harvard University

Sidney Drell

Professor and Deputy Director

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Richard Garwin

IBM Fellow

Thomas J. Watson Research Center

James Goodby

Distinguished Service Professor

Carnegie-Mellon University

Lt. Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, USA (retired)

Chairman, The Atlantic Council

Sidney Graybeal

Chief Scientist

SAIC

Roger Hagengruber

Vice President for Exploratory Systems

Sandia National Laboratories

William R. Harris

The Rand Corp.

Adm. Bobby Inman, USA (retired)

SAIC

Michael Krepon

President

Henry L. Stimson Center

Stephen Lukasik

Vice President and Chief Scientist

TRW Space and Defense Sector

Raymond McCrory

former Chief, Arms Control Intelligence Staff

Consultant

Ernest Mettenet

former CEO, Hercules Aerospace

Consultant

Stephen Meyer

Professor of Political Science

MIT

Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, USA (retired)

Director of National Security Studies

Hudson Institute

George Rueckert

Senior Analyst

Meridian Corp.

Albert D. Wheelon

former Chairman and CEO, Hughes Aircraft Co.

Consultant

Charles Zraket

Trustee

The MITRE Corp.

NOTE: OTA appreciates and is grateful for the valuable assistance and thoughtful critiques provided by the advisory panel members.

The panel does not, however, necessarily approve, disapprove, or endome this report. ~A assumes full responsibility for the

repmt and the accuracy of its contents.

i v
OTA Project Staff—START Verification

Lionel S. Johns, Assistant Director, OTA

Energy, Materials, and International Security Division

Alan Shaw, International Security and Commerce Program Manager

Thomas Karas, Project Director

Arthur Charo 

Brian McCue

Christopher Waychoff

Administrative Staff

Donna Reynolds

Jacqueline Robinson-Boykin

Louise Staley

Contractor

Seymour Weiss
Acknowledgments

OTA gratefully acknowledges the assistance of individuals in the following organizations for their help

in supplying information or in reviewing drafts of this report (the contents of the report, of course, remains the

responsibility of OTA):

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Defense Nuclear Agency

Hercules Aerospace

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory

M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratories

Martin Marietta

The MITRE Corp.

Office of the Secretary of Defense

On-Site Inspection Agency

Pacific Sierra Research Corp.

Sandia National Laboratories

System Planning Corp.

U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Arms Control

U.S. Intelligence Community Staff and Agencies

vi
PREFACE

Congressional Requests for This Study

Early in 1989 the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee requested the Office of Technology

Assessment to:

. . . identify and analyze the monitoring and verification issues raised by the prospective regimes currently under negotiation respecting a START Treaty,

including what kind and number of ‘anytime,

anywhere’ inspections might be needed, if any, to

resolve concerns about covert inventories or production facilities.

The Committee asked for a classified report, which

they received in July 1990. The unclassified summary of that report is published here.

In April 1989, The House Committee on Foreign

Affairs added its own request for OTA”. . . to assist

Congress in understanding the technical issues

connected with monitoring compliance with the

prospective START Treaty.” The request letter

outlined the kinds of issues it thought an OTA study

might usefully address:

●

●

●

●

●

What kinds of monitoring tasks will be involved in verifying START compliance?

What kinds of monitoring measures might be

included in a START verification regime?

How would various monitoring measures complement or substitute for one another?

What would be the relative contributions of

various kinds of monitoring measures to the

overall verification process?

What can be learned from the INF Treaty

verification experience that might be relevant

for START?

In addition, the House Committee letter expressed

particular interest in the “. . . newer technologies

that can be brought to bear on such cooperative

verification measures such as manned on-site inspections, manned perimeter and portal monitoring,

and unmanned on-site monitoring, ’ saying that “it

would be useful to place these technologies in the

broader context of verification technologies and

methods.

In May 1989, OTA put before the Technology

Assessment Board (TAB), and the Board approved,

a proposal for a project which would attempt to

address the concerns of both the Senate and House

request letters. The report summarized here and th e

projected final report are to be the products of that

project.

Project Guidelines

In consultation with the Committees and TAB,

OTA determined that it could best serve their wishes

by observing the following guidelines:

the implications for U.S. national interests of

on-site inspections of U.S. facilities should also

be considered (a point that emerged from

consultations with TAB members);

the report would analyze possibilities for cheating on agreements (a point emphasized strongly

during TAB deliberation on the project proposal);

the report would not offer a detailed critique of

the START Treaty, which in any case was

likely to remain under negotiation while OTA

pursued its research (to provide background for

Senate deliberations on START, ideally the

interim report would precede by some months

the submission of a signed treaty to Senate for

ratification);

the report would not offer a judgment on the

verifiability or non-verifiability of the Treaty;

instead, it would attempt to provide Congress

with background about the monitoring process

that would help with that broader judgment;

and

an overall assessment of the strategic implications of the prospective START agreement for

U.S. national security would be outside the

scope of the OTA study.

Project Reports

The project proposal for this study conceived of

an interim and a final report. As external events and

the project itself developed, the OTA project staff

decided to divide its tasks into two major sets that

would address the somewhat differing concerns of

the two requesting Committees. This seemed a more

productive course than making an interim report that

would be merely a preliminary version of the final

report.

The initial report focuses on the needs of the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee in preparing to

-1-
2 ● Verification Technologies

deliberate on ratification of the prospective START

Treaty. It describes the role of monitoring in the

arms control verification process. It surveys the

types of on-site inspection and their costs, risks, and

benefits. It also examines the INF Treaty experience

for lessons relevant to START. The general discussions of the monitoring process and on-site inspections are relevant to other types of arms control as

well as to START.

The report outlines the monitoring tasks specific

to START and suggests the cooperative and unilateral measures available for a START monitoring

regime. Note that not all of the cooperative measures

available will necessarily be negotiated into the

Treaty. The Joint Draft Treaty was not directly

available to OTA or to the requesting Committees,

though information about its contents was. In the

discussion of specific monitoring technologies, the

report limits itself to those which may be available

(though not necessarily applied) at about the time a

START Treaty is ready to be signed and ratified.

The final report of the project is due early in 1991.

The bulk of the final report will not focus on the

START Treaty as such, although it may contain a

section updating the Special Report for the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee to use in its START

ratification deliberations. Instead, the final report

will look beyond the early implementation of a

START Treaty to the longer term. It will explore

technologies that may not be initially applied in

START, but that might later supplement the START

verification regime or be applied to other arms

control arrangements. It may also review lines of

further research on verification technologies that

Congress might wish to support.

As the initial report most directly addresses

questions posed by the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, the final report will concentrate on the

issues raised in the House Foreign Affairs Committee request letter. Topics for examination in the final

report (which may be issued as a series of shorter

reports) include:

●

●

●

●

the utility of an Open Skies agreement or other

aerial surveillance arrangements for arms control monitoring;

options for monitoring limits on sea-launched

cruise missiles, should such an agreement be

considered;

program options for arms control monitoring

technology research; and

(tentatively) update of initial report in light of

further information on Treaty contents.
SUMMARY

Introduction

If a Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START)

Treaty is submitted to the U.S. Senate for advice and

consent, the question of verification will be a major

topic of debate. The report summarized here illuminates the issues, but does not resolve the debate. The

preface describes the terms of reference guiding the

project of which the full report is a product. Here is

a summary of what the report does and does not do:

. the full report does

--describe the currently available techniques

by which Soviet compliance with a START

agreement could be monitored by the United

States;

—treat the technology of arms control verification as the application of a set of techniques, not just as the devices which those

techniques might employ;

—indicate, for the most part qualitatively, the

potential utility, limits, costs, and risks of

those techniques;

. the full report does not

—assess whether the prospective START agreement would be in the U.S. national interest;

—analyze the details of the draft START

Treaty under negotiation as the report is

being prepared;

—predict which of the verification provisions

discussed in the report will actually be

included in the treaty;

-describe in detail the characteristics of the

devices employed in National Technical

Means of verification (NTM);

-discuss all types of NTM.

Because of security classification, only the summary of this report will be published. The full report

will remain secret but will be available to Congress.

The desirability of a START agreement will

depend on whether it offers a net gain in national

security —a judgment that will rest on several

factors taken together. Those factors include the

value of mutually reducing or limiting forces, the

benefits and costs of the verification regime, the

incentives and disincentives for the other party to

cheat, the overall efficacy of intelligence about

Soviet strategic forces, and the resiliency of the

United States’ own forces. This report directly

addresses only one of those factors, the implications

of possible verification measures.

Context for This Report

A START Treaty will be aimed at setting and

maintaining mutually agreed ceilings on weapons of

certain types. The stated purposes of setting these

ceilings include stabilizing the strategic balance and

reducing first-strike incentives. Table 1 summarizes .

the published points of U.S.-Soviet agreement and

disagreement on START limits as of July 1990.

To assess verification needs for a START Treaty,

it is as important to bear in mind what the agreement

probably will not limit as well as what it will limit:

●

●

●

●

●

Although the nominal deployed strategic nuclear warhead limit under START will be

6,000, in fact the proposed counting rules will

allow the two parties to deploy legally several

thousand more warheads in bombs, short-range

attack missiles, and air-launched cruise missiles on bombers (although, in practice, they

may not choose to do so).

The production and storage (as opposed to

deployment) of the types of Inter-Continental

Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) deployed in fixed,

land-based launchers probably will not be

limited: these legally produced missiles could

conceivably form the basis for a later, overt

breakout from treaty constraints.

Certain types of ballistic missiles probably will

be legally deployed with fewer than the actual

number of reentry vehicles (RVs) with which

they have been tested; in a later, overt treaty

breakout, these missiles might be quickly

converted to carry more RVs.

The treaty probably will not limit production

and storage of nondeployed SubmarineLaunched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs); conceivably, with the establishment of a clandestine

deployment infrastructure, extra SLBMs could

be based on land to augment existing ICBM

forces.

Production of submarine-launched cruise missiles probably will not be limited, and they

could be used in strategic nuclear roles.

These legal paths to circumvention or preparation

for breakout, available to both the Soviets and the

- 3 -
4 ● Verification Technologies

Table 1—U.S. and Soviet Positions on START Treaty Limits (as of July 1990)

U.S. position Soviet position

Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles

(SNDVs) a: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... 1,600

Heavy ICBMs (Inter-continental

Ballistic Missiles) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Other ICBMs, SLBMs

(Submarine-Launched Ballistic

Missiles), Bombers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Non-deployed SNDVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Long-range nuclear SLCMs

(Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles) . . . . . . . . .

Ballistic Missile Throw weight: . . . . . . . . . . . .

Warheads: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ballistic Missile RVs

(Reentry Vehicles) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ICBM RVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mobile ICBM RVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Heavy ICBM warheads (Soviet

SS-18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Limit of 154; ban on production, flight-testing, or

deployment of new types of heavy ICBMs; limits

on flight-testing or modernization of existing

types

No sublimits; an agreed number of heavy bombers may be removed from 1,600 SNDV limit by

conversion to conventional-only capability

Numerical limits to be determined only on nondeployed ICBM types that have been flighttested from a mobile launcher; restrictions on

location and movement of other nondeployed

ICBMs; ban on rapid reload of ICBM launchers

Not limited, but (for 5 years) politically binding

annual declarations of total numbers deployed,

not to exceed 880

Aggregate throw weight of Soviet ICBMs and

SLBMs reduced to 50% below level existing at a

date to be negotiated; neither side to exceed this level

6,000

,.. 4,900; For existing types, a quota of on-site

inspections to verify that deployed missiles

contain no more than the number agreed for

each type at the 1987 Washington Summit

. . . . . . 3,300 or 3,000

. . . . . . . . . 1,100

. . . . . . . . . Cut 50% to 1,540 on 154 ICBMs

SLBM sub-ceiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No sublimit

Air-launched weapons: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No direct sublimitsb

ALCMs

(Long-range nuclear cruise

missiles) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ALCMs with range over 600 km; attribute 10

each to the first 150 U.S. heavy bombers and

8 each to the first 210 Soviet heavy bombers;

limit actual numbers equipped-for to 20 per

U.S. bomber, 12 per Soviet bomber; above

the 150- and 210-thresholds, attribute numbers as equipped; no limit on non-nuclear

ALCMs deployed on aircraft outside treaty

Gravity Bombs and SRAMs (ShortRange Attack Missiles) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Each bomber not equipped for ALCMs counted

as having one warhead

same

Same limit; ban on development, testing, and deployment of new types;

production, flight-testing, or modernization of existing types permitted.

Same

Same

same

same

same

Same, but sides not agreed on procedures for future types

If 3,300 sublimit on ICBMs, then must

also be 3,300 sublimit on SLBMs

same

same

3,300, if similar limit on ICBMs

same

same

same

4betrlctions also apply to ICBM and SLBM launchers. Mobile launchers for heavy ICBMS are banned.

%owever, the number of bombers is limited by the ceiling orI strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. In addition, “counting rules’’ would specify the number of

ALCMS each bomber is considered to carry-which might be lees than the actual number the bomber cardes.

SOURCE: Adapted from U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agerq, /ssuss BdeMudearand Space Ta/ks: U.S. and soviet Pruposa/s, July 3, 1990.
Summary ● 5

United States, need to be taken into account when

evaluating both any military advantages that the

Soviets might hope to obtain by cheating on a

START agreement and the responses available to

the United States. The United States also will

certainly continue to monitor Soviet production and

deployment of weapons whether they are specifically restricted by START or not. It can continue to

judge what margins of uncertainty are acceptable

and what actions, if any, should be taken to maintain

U.S. security. It could decide, for example, to

undertake matching military activities not limited by

the treaty.

The United States may also choose to maintain

specific hedges or safeguards against the possibility

of future Soviet departures from treaty limits. Such

safeguards might take the form of continued, treatycompliant research and development on weapons

that could be used, if necessary, to counter Soviet

treaty-breakout. They might take the form of treatycompliant maintenance of manufacturing facilities

capable of building forces in numbers beyond treaty

knits. Or, they might take the form of reducing the

payoff to the Soviets of cheating by, for example,

deploying mobile missiles resistant to large-scale,

first-strike attacks.

The verification and compliance process for

START will include:

● monitoring treaty-limited Soviet forces and

activities through both National Technical

Means (NTM) and onsite inspection (OSI);

. judging whether these forces and activities are

in legal compliance with, or are ambiguous

with respect to, the terms of the treaty;

, ● deciding what steps, if any, to take in response

to ambiguities or suspected violations; and

. deciding what steps, if any, to take in response

to confined violations.

Verification issues should be evaluated in the

entire strategic context of the treaty. The terms of

reference of this OTA assessment preclude the

report from analyzing that larger context. At

some points, for example, this report calls attention

to important issues of Soviet strategic force capabilities and intentions that extend beyond treaty compliance, and that may be important to judging

whether a treaty is in the national interest. NevertheTable 2-Current U.S. and Soviet Strategic Nuclear

Forces Under START

Us. Soviet

Strateglc Nuclear Delivery

Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,966 2,470

ICBM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 1,373 (240 mobile)

SLBM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656 924

Bombersa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 155

Warheads .................13,292 11,006

Ballistic missile

reentry vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . 8,146 9,766

ICBM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2,450) (6,410)

SLBM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (5,696) (3,356)

Air-launched weapons . . . . . 5,146 1,240

(bombs, short-range

attack missiles,

and ALCMs)

%ledium bombers not inducted in this table. In START negotiations, the

United States has argued that the Soviet Union shoukt make a politically

binding declaration on the numbers and capability of its Tupoiev 22-M

(Baddire) bomber, while the Soviets say the Backfire is not a strategk

bomber.

SOURCE: John M. Collins and Dianne E. Rennack U. SJS.otiet Mi//tary

Balarnx: Statistical Trmds, 1980-1989, As of Jarruary 1, 1990

(U.S. Congre=, Ccmgresaional Research SsmAce, August 6,

1990). The preface to the previous edition of this repoR points

out that this unclassified study “. . . is intended to provide

Congress with a starting point for quantitative analyses of the

U. SX30viet military balance and assodated ksues. Data may

differ indetall from dassifieddocwnents, but patterns portrayed

in these pages are dependable. ”

less, the report does not directly address either the

larger questions of the risks and benefits of a

strategic arms reduction agreement or the entire

process of verification. Instead, it focuses on the

narrower problem of analyzing various measures

that could be applied to the tasks of monitoring

compliance with treaty provisions.

Scenarios for Soviet cheating on START need

to be evaluated not only in terms of the technical

feasibility of the potential violation, but also in

terms of the probable cost and difficulty of the

required deception, the nature of the military

advantage to be expected from successful cheating, and estimates of the Soviet propensity for

cheating. This report addresses only the first two

issues. There appears to be bipartisan agreement

(with some dissent) in the United States that the

minimum criterion for a START Treaty verification

regime is that it be able to detect militarily significant violations in time to allow corrective action.

There is less agreement on how to determine what

would constitute a militarily significant violation

and whether any plausible verification regime could

succeed.
6 ● Verification Technologies

Overview of the Arms Control Monitoring

Process

Monitoring measures can collect evidence that

would contribute to the following purposes of

verification:

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

verify baseline data exchanged by the two sides

about their forces and facilities,

verify elimination of weapons,

verify compliance with limitations on long

lead-time capabilities for breakout from treaty

ceilings (e.g., conversion of production plants

that could add to stockpiles of stored missiles),

resolve questions about compliance,

increase the cost of attempting evasion,

detect signs of intentions to violate or break out

from treaty provisions,

threaten exposure of violations, and

detect violations.

Arms control monitoring is a process both of

detection and of deterrence of cheating. If the

potential cheater worries about getting caught, then

the requirements for deterring him may be less

stringent than those of assuring oneself that cheating

is impossible.

Monitoring compliance with a START Treaty

will require estimating numbers and a variety of

characteristics of several weapon systems (see box

A). Arriving at those estimates will involve the

identification, compilation, assessment, and analysis of a multiplicity of indicators, or pieces of

evidence. Intelligence sources-primarily NTM—

will collect most of this evidence, but onsite

monitoring and inspections will also collect some.

Arms control monitoring may bethought of as the

continuous assembling of many pieces of a puzzle to

form a coherent picture. A potential cheater in an

arms control agreement might strive to hide some

pieces and fake others to cause the monitors to

generate a false picture. Creating a coherent, internally consistent, and lasting false picture for vigilant

observers is not easy. The monitors can adopt various

tactics to make it still more difficult. Because many

of the specific methods of monitoring are highly

secret, the potential cheater can never be certain

which specific pieces of the puzzle are being

collected. In addition, the verification provisions of

a treaty can be designed to increase the cost or

difficulty of cheating. Monitoring measures that

Under the prospective START agreement, the

United States will probably need to monitor:

. the number, by type, of deployed, fixed,

land-based ICBMs (i.e., those in launch silos)

and the number of nondeployed ICBMs that

could be either fixed or mobile-based;

● the number, by type, of deployed and nondeployed, road-mobile ICBMs and their launchers;

● the number, by type, of deployed and nondeployed, rail-mobile ICBMs and their launchers;

. the existence of required, authentic tags on

certain missiles and launchers;

. the number, by type, of ballistic missile

launching submarines and their launchers;

● the number, by type, of deployed submarinelaunched ballistic missiles (SLBMs);

● the number of warheads on each type of

ballistic and cruise missile;

● the aggregate numbers of warheads carried by

such missiles;

● the aggregate throw-weight of the ballistic

missiles;

● the number, by type, of deployed heavy

bombers that can carry air-launched cruise

missiles (ALCMs);

● the number, by type, of deployed heavy

bombers that cannot carry ALCMs;

● the number, by type, of deployed ‘‘former’

(previously nuclear-equipped) heavy bombers

that do not carry nuclear weapons;

● the number, by type, of any missiles, launchers, or bombers eliminated to reach agreed

ceilings for those types.

SOURCE: Offke of Technology Assessrnen~ 1990.

increase the number, variety, and complexity of

the false pieces of information that the cheater

must create can improve the monitoring process.

Assessing Monitoring Needs and

Capabilities

Arms control monitoring, then, is a more complex

and sophisticated process than just depending on one

source of information to detect one type of objector

activity. In most cases, no one technical collection

device or cooperative verification measure will by

itself monitor compliance with, for example, mobile

missile deployments. Instead, the monitoring proc-
Summary ● 7

ess will involve piecing together information from a

combination of types of sources: previous experience in observing the other side’s forces, various

kinds of NTM, required declarations about treatylimited forces, required notifications about activities

involving those forces, and various types of OSI.

NTM and OSI (and, possibly, aerial surveillance)

can work complementarily to make covert arms

control violations more difficult and costly. It is not

possible in a report of less than “Top Secret/

Sensitive Compartmented Information” (TS/SCI)

levels of security classification to detail the potential

and limits of this interaction. Therefore, the unclassified, and even the classified versions of this

report necessarily give an incomplete impression

of the monitoring process as a whole.

Missing at this level of classification, for example, are the range of monitoring technologies available and the precise capabilities and limitations of

individual technologies. Most importantly, because

it cannot cite specific examples, a report at this level

cannot convey the synergism among the various

NTM and between NTM and various cooperative

monitoring measures, including OSI.2 Box B cites

some open-source literature that discusses NTM.

Arms control monitoring applies a diverse set of

techniques and technologies to collect evidence and

assemble a picture of Soviet forces and activities. It

is not feasible to develop a set of objective, quantitative

measures of how likely a given verification regime

would be to detect a given level of treaty violation.3

Instead, the overall confidence the United States

should place in a verification regime will remain

a matter of complex qualitative judgment.

In practice, arms control monitoring capabilities

will always fall well short of omnipresence. From

the U.S. point of view, developing a verification

regime for START has involved a multidimensional tradeoff among a variety of costs and

benefits. These include:

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

the improvements in monitoring confidence

that the United States expects to gain from

additional expenditures on NTM and on inspection arrangements;

the resources the United States is willing to

spend on such monitoring capabilities;

the degree to which the United States is willing

to risk revealing some monitoring capabilities

by confronting the Soviets with evidence of

noncompliance;

the degree to which the United States is willing

to expose military, intelligence, scientific, engineering, and industrial sites to Soviet inspection;

the resources the United States is willing to

spend on protecting potential inspection sites

from intelligence gathering by Soviet inspectors;

consistency of inspection arrangements with

the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the

Constitution;

what onsite and other cooperative measures the

Soviet Union is willing to accept; and

the degree to which the United States wishes to

preserve some kinds of flexibility for U.S.

forces, and therefore take on more difficult

monitoring tasks.4

Thus, there is no objective or quantifiable answer

to the question, “how much verification is enough?”

Instead, evaluation of the prospective START

verification regime must be a complex economic,

political, military, and diplomatic judgment.

The most reliable way to monitor compliance

with-and deter violation of—limits on TreatyLimited Items (TLIs) will be to observe the TLIs

(both by NTM and OSI) at several stages of their

“life cycles. ” The potentially monitorable stages

INATO ~d Warsaw Pact IMtiOm &ve kn engaged in negotiations over an ‘Open Skies’ agreement for reconnaissance fligh~s over one another’s

territories. Though not intended for arms control monitoring per se, such flights might contribute to the NTX4-OSI complement. And although

treaty-related aerial inspections are not under negotiation for START, they could in principle play a role in later START monitoring arrangements or

other arms control verification regimes.

2A clm~lfi~ ~Pndix t. this Iwofl addresses this latter point. It also attempts to idiCde the range Of NT’M t~hologies av~able for ‘TaT

monitoring tasks, but it does not detail the technical limits and capabilities of individwd systems.

3Neverthel~s, it is psible to @yze quantitatively some monitoring measures. For example, if insFtors ~n rePeat~Y ‘x

amine randomly

selected samples of missiles at declared deployment sites to see if they are “legal” (e.g., not exceeding warhead limits for that type of missile), then

quantitative analysis can show the probabilities of given levels of violation over specit3ed periods.

4For exmple, permit~g deploym&t of heavy bombers that no longer carry nuclear weapons, hmkrs tit do not carry ~-~~ch~ ‘X

Missiles (ALCMS), and bombers that do carry ALCMS requires distinguishing among these types and monitoring whether significant numbers of one

type have been converted to another type.
8 ● Verification Technologies

The U.S. intelligence community has a considerable array of information collecting resources.a This array

includes, but is not limited to, the so-called ‘‘National Technical Means (NTM) mentioned in previous arms

control agreements. President Jimmy Carter publicly identified imaging satellites as a form of NTM. The SALT II

Treaty provided that certain telemetry from missile tests should not be encrypted, implying the ability of the treaty

parties to collect such signals. A 1983 State Department publication defined National Technical Means as:

Assets under national control for monitoring compliance with the provisions of an arms control agreement.

National technical means include photographic reconnaissance satellites, aircraft-based systems (i.e., radars and

optical systems), as well as sea- and ground-based systems such as radars and antennas for collecting telemetry.b

There are many other, still classified, NTM. National technical means of collection beyond those specifically

allocated to arms control monitoring tasks are also likely to produce useful information.

The Soviet Union also possesses NTM. In an interview in the Soviet military publication Red Star, Star, Soviet Col.

General Alexander Maksimov reported:

Space reconnaissance makes it possible to obtain an image in the visible spectrum with resolution down to

0.2-0.3 meters. This means that from orbit it is possible to see every player on a soccer pitch, to determine whether

a bomber of the B-1 type is equipped with missiles . . . radio-technical reconnaissance makes it possible to locate

radiation in practically all bands and to determine the source of this radiation , . . space reconnaissance makes it

possible to intercept radio conversations . . . with the help of retransmitter satellites, all this information can be

obtained in close to real time.c

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, reporting on the Soviet intelligence threat to U.S.

communications, noted:

Telephone communications, in particular those sent over microwave lines or through a satellite, are extremely

vulnerable to interception and provide a lucrative target of opportunity . . . Satellite communications are potentially

an extremely valuable source of information as they can simultaneously transmit thousands of telephone, TV, and

computer to computer transactions . . . [such vulnerabilities] affect the communications of our national leadership,

military and defense industries, tactical military operations, weapons research and development, and economic

interests. d

aNumerous publications purport to describe U.S. NTM. Some of these are: James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace (New York+ NY: Penguin

Books, 1983); William E. Burrows, Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Secm”ry (New York NY: Random House, 1986); David

Hafemeister, “Science and society test IX: Technical means of verification” American Journal of Physics 54(8), August 1986, pp. 6934599;

Jeffrey Richelsonj The U.S. Intelligence Communi fy (Ctidge, MA: Bdlinger, 1989), chs. 7-10, pp. 145-198, and America’s Secret Eyes in

Space: The U.S. Keyhole Spy Satellite Program (New Yom NY: Harper & Row, 1990); Richard A. Scribner, Theodore J. Ralstom and William

D. Metz, The Verification Cha/Jenge (Boston, MA: Birkhaeuser, 1985), pp. 47-86; Kosta Tsipis et al., eds., Arms Control Verification: The

Technologies That Make It Possible (33msford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1986). Neitber OTA nor the Intelligence Community endorses these

works as containing accurate information.

~.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, “Security and Arms Control,” June 1983

cInterview of Maksirnov by Col. M. Re&ov, Krasnaya Zvezda , July 29, 1989, p. 3, translated by the U.S. Joint Publications Research

Service, JPRS-USP-89-009, Sept. 22, 1989, pp. 48-50.

%J.S. Congress, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Report, January 1,1983 to December 3], 1984, report 98-665.1985, p. 34.

include: design and development, test and evaluation, production, deployment, storage, maintenance

and repair, exercise, reliability testing, and elimination

Onsite inspection at some of these stages could

force the potential cheater to try to construct secretly

and to conceal a separate infrastructure to support

any illicit weapon deployments. Such an infrastructure would then be at risk of detection by NTM.

Onsite inspections may also perform an indications and warning function about the other side’s

intentions toward future treaty compliance. Frequent

and unjustifiable obstruction of OSI would suggest

a less cooperative attitude and possible intent to

depart from treaty provisions. It would likely lead to

heightened vigilance through NTM.

Onsite inspections should be seen as a useful

supplement to NTM, not as a substitute for them.

Except for limited cases, such as the sampling of

deployed missiles in a designated deployment area,

OTA has not been able to identify a way of

determining the “right” number of onsite inspec-
Summary ● 9

tions for a given level of monitoring confidence. All

other things being equal, the more inspections, the

better: but all other things will never be equal. The

benefits of being able to carry out onsite inspections in the Soviet Union must be weighed against

the costs and risks of undergoing Soviet inspections in the United States. This is an important

consideration for any type of inspection, but it bears

especially heavily on an assessment of ‘‘anytime,

anywhere’ suspect-site inspections (SSI).

The first major potential cost of OSI is loss of

sensitive information to Soviet intelligence collection. Allowing Soviet inspectors access to some sites

may risk the compromise of classified or propriety

information, hardware, or processes. The second

major potential cost of OSI is financial. The implementation of an OSI verification regime includes

many expenses, both obvious and hidden. Most of

these expenditures are intended to reduce the risk of

intelligence losses. The Federal Government will

bear some of the costs; others, however, will fall on

companies whose facilities are to be inspected. A

less tangible cost is the burden of intrusive inspection requirements that interfere severely and often

with normal industrial or military operations.

The dollar cost of the START verification regime

will depend very much on treaty details, The current

direct cost of the On-Site Inspection Agency (OSIA)

for carrying out Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF)

inspections is about $40 million per year. Adding

START inspections would increase that cost in

rough proportion to their numbers and types. The

major costs come with site preparation. If many

hundreds of sites had to be prepared for the

possibility of being inspected, the costs could run to

tens of billions of dollars. In the more likely event

that some tens of sites would have to be prepared, the

cost might only run to a few hundred million.

Completely unlimited, ‘‘anytime, anywhere’ SSI

might help deter Soviet noncompliance with a

START Treaty, but such an inspection regime

appears impractical because it would maximize the

costs cited above. More limited SSIs and other kinds

of onsite inspections can still give more confidence

in Soviet compliance with START Treaty than could

NTM alone. (See table 3. Note that the nomenclature

of this table is not intended to replicate START

Treaty terminology. For example, the most recent

draft treaty refers to PPM as “perimeter and portal

continuous monitoring, ’ a term that combines the

Table 3--Types of Onsite Inspection (OSI)

Baseline Inspection:

Inspectors travel to sites designated in the treaty to validate

exchanged information and make measurements of all or

some treaty-limited items (TLls). This baseline information

serves as the main reference for ail future data comparisons

by the signatory countries.

Elimination inspection:

Inspectors observe as TLIs are destroyed completely or in

part, or are converted to a function not limited by treaty.

Close-Out Inspection:

Determines that treaty-related activities have ceased at a

designated facility and confers a change of status. For

example, a heavy bomber manufacturing plant might be

converted to building commercial transport planes. An inspection team could be sent to check that the conversion had taken

place and then change the status of the site to “formerly

designated.” The new status might mean fewer or less

intrusive inspections, or it might simply be a confidencebuilding measure.

Designated-Site Inspection (DSI):

The most general form of inspection is the DSI. During a DSI,

an inspection team looks for illegal TLIs at treaty-designated

sites. Procedures can be written so that objects that might

conceal a TLI are exposed just enough to ensure compliance.

Sufficiently frequent and thorough DSIs may drive cheating

activity off site, possibly making it more expensive and difficult.

DSIs might be conducted routinely or sporadically, with short

or longer notice.

Suspect-Site inspection (SSI):

SSI inspection teams search for illegal TLIs at sites not

specified in the treaty. When a suspicious activity is detected

outside of designated areas, an SSI could be requested. SSIs

can in principle be completeiy unrestricted and take place

anytime and anywhere, or, as is likely under START, they may

be limited by a variety of criteria (e.g., quotas, site specifications, rights of refusal).

Perimeter Portal Monitoring (PPM):

In a PPM system, a team of monitors stand watch over the

portals (entrances and exits) and the perimeter of a site, in

effect throwing an impenetrable ring of observation around it.

The job of these monitors is to detect the illegal movement of

TLIs in or out of the site. PPM might be useful at facilities

considered too sensitive to allow inspectors prolonged or

repeated access to their interior. PPM can be employed alone

or in conjunction with inspections of the inside of the facility.

Reentry Vehicle On-Site Inspection (RVOSI):

RVOSIs are specialized inspections that seek to confirm the

number or presence of nuclear reentry vehicles on ballistic

missiles. Inspection teams can do this visually or with radiation

detection equipment. An RVOSI maybe one part of a broader

inspection.

Invitational Inspection:

As a means of building confidence, a party might invite its

treaty partner to inspect a location, even if the treaty did not

require it. For example, a party exercising a treaty right to

refuse an SSI might invite inspection of a related site as a

good-faith effort to allay suspicions. The inspection could be

specifically tailored to display compliance, while revealing as

Iittle else as possible.

SOURCE: Office of Technology ~sessment, 1990.

Us. “perimeter and portal monitoring” and the

Soviet ‘‘continuous monitoring." In the INF Treaty,

PPM is called “continuous monitoring. ” The table

establishes a framework for all potential types of
10 ● Verification Technologies

OSI, not just those adopted and named under the

START Treaty.)

Additional cooperative verification measures

can enhance the utility of both NTM and OSI in

monitoring arms control compliance. First, agreements not to interfere with NTM in certain ways

(e.g., not to encryptor otherwise conceal missile test

telemetry) can make NTM technical tasks easier.

Second, treaty-required declarations about force

structures, military facilities, and operational practices can make deception of NTM and OSI more

difficult: they can complicate the problem of creating false information that must be kept consistent

with what is previously declared and currently

observed. Third, treaty-required notifications of

such activities as missile tests and mobile missile

movements can also complicate the problem of

deception and, as well, help inspectors choose the

best times and places to inspect.

Monitoring Inter-Continental Ballistic

Missiles (ICBMs)

Possible violations of START ICBM limits, like

those of other START limits, should be evaluated

not only in terms of technical feasibility, but in terms

of cost and benefit to the cheater. Costs would

include the financial burden of building and deploying clandestine weapons as well as the loss of treaty

benefits if the violation were discovered. While

analyzing whether militarily significant benefits

of cheating are feasible to obtain is beyond the

scope of this report, such analyses would be key

to an informed debate on the adequacy of a

START verification regime. Table 4 illustrates the

issues involved in such analyses.

As table 4 suggests, it is not easy to identify

plausible motives for Soviet cheating on START

ICBM limits. Nevertheless, assessing verification

of compliance with those limits is important. First,

judgments of military significance vary: those who

are concerned that cheating might lead to important

Soviet advantages will want to understand the

cheating potential. Second, while desired levels of

monitoring confidence may vary with the estimated

military significance of the potential violation, the

United States would set an imprudent precedent by

doing no monitoring at all. Cheating, however

uninviting, should not be free. Third, should START

II or III lead to deeper force reductions, relatively

small levels of cheating could take on much greater

significance. START I verification procedures may

very well set important precedents for future agreements. Understanding the potential and limits of the

current options for monitoring compliance with

ICBM limits could help guide both future strategic

force planning and future arms control policy.

The monitoring of Soviet ICBMs for START

compliance will be best accomplished using multiple indicators collected over a span of time.

Militarily usable missiles are built and deployed

within an industrial, operational, and support infrastructure that is difficult--though not necessarily

impossible-to conceal indefinitely. National technical means, OSI, tags, and other cooperative

measures can discern traces of clandestine missiles

at various stages of the ICBM life-cycle: design and

development, test and evaluation, production, deployment, storage, maintenance and repair, exercise,

reliability testing, and elimination.

Figure 1-Canisterized SS-18 Being Loaded

Into Silo

A crane loads a Soviet SS-18 heavy ICBM, in its canister, into a

silo launcher. The SALT agreements limited ICBM launchers;

START limits deployments of the missiles themselves.

SOURCE: Department of Defense artist’s concept
Summary . 11

Table 4-Why Might the Soviets Cheat on

START ICBM Limits?

Pro Con

Gain a disarming first-strike capability against all U.S. nuclear retaliatory forces

Acquire first-strike capability

against U.S. land-based

ICBMs

Improve overall coverage of

time-urgent, hard targets

Increase invulnerability of reserve ICBM forces to U.S.

attack by concealing their

existence

Prepare to gain exploitable advantage in perceived balance of strategic forces by

overt treaty breakout

Unlikely with U.S. strategic triad

at START levels

Calculated capability already

high, with or without START,

against fixed missiles; extremely difficult if U.S. deployed mobile missiles

Ratio of weapons to such targets already high; gains may

be marginal

Soviet mobile ICBMs should

be sufficiently invulnerable

If this were feasible, storing up

legally produced lCBMs would

be cheaper and easier.

SOURCE: Office of Technology Assessment, 1990.

The SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks)

agreements between the United States and the Soviet

Union limited numbers of ICBM launchers, as

opposed to deployed missiles themselves. Since the

ICBMs then limited were designed to be launched

from large, fixed silos in the ground, launchers were

reasonable indicators of deployed missiles. The

advent of mobile ICBMs complicates the monitoring problem for START. Mobile missiles are

designed to be more difficult for the adversary to

locate and destroy in a preemptive nuclear strike.5

From an arms control monitoring point of view,

though, mobile missiles have the disadvantage that

they are easier to conceal than freed ICBMs. In

addition, mobile missiles are transported in relatively self-sufficient canisters that reduce the size

and complexity of their launch facilities; this feature

increases the importance of accounting for nondeployed as well as deployed mobile missiles.6

The monitoring problem is simplified when

entire classes of missiles are banned, as was the

case with SS-20s and other missiles in the INF

Treaty. In the case of START, strictly from a

monitoring point of view, barming a distinctive type

(rail or road) of mobile ICBM entirely would be

preferable to limiting their numbers. With a total

ban, there would be no legal infrastructure for that

type of missile. Therefore, there would be no risk

that the infrastructure that maintained legal missiles

could also service identical clandestine missiles. In

addition, there would be a lesser risk that clandestine

preparations could lead to an overt breakout in

which stored clandestine missiles augmented those

in an existing deployment infrastructure.

If an entire class of missiles were to be banned, it

might be preferable to choose those with Multiple,

Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs),

since substantially more single RV missiles than

MIRVed missiles would have to be hidden to

increase warheads totals by the same amount.

A combination of NTM and OSI might monitor

the number of RVs on a type of MIRVed missile.

The treaty might require that missile tests would be

announced in advance and that their telemetry be

unencrypted and intelligibly formatted. National

Technical Means could observe tests. Some uncertainties exist about whether such observations will

reveal the number of RVs with which a type of

missile can be practically deployed.7 An additional

monitoring measure could be to sample deployed

missiles periodically by OSI. Such inspections could

be carried out on both freed and mobile ICBMs.

Then, warhead augmentation would be primarily a

concern for overt breakout scenarios as opposed to

cheating during a period of presumed treaty compliance.

One means of ICBM monitoring would be to

tag major parts, such as first-stage rocket motors,

when they came out of the declared factory. These

tags might be read on any missile prior to flighttesting. In this way, missile parts (subject to tagging)

from an illicit, clandestine factory could not be

flight-tested. An important issue is whether the

Soviets would be willing to deploy missiles produced at such an unqualified plant. There appears

considerable controversy among experts about whether

they would or not, with each side asserting that its

own position is the consensuses Some would argue,

~s feature could also give one’s forces some resiliency against potential breakout from START limits by the other side: even hundreds of

additional, illicit warheads might not Mice to threaten a robust mobile ICBM force.

%e Soviet SS-18 heavy ICBM is also canisterized, but too large and heavy to be considered for mobile deployment. Moreover, unlike the

solid-fueled SS-24 and SS-25, it uses a liquid fuel that while it is storable in the missile, complicates handling.

Ton the other hand, large difference between tested and deployed numbers of RVS are @ely.

$(IZ4 will attempt to gather more information on this topic; if the information seems helpful, it will be included in a later work.
12 ● Verification Technologies

however, that even if the Soviets required tests,

static testing of missile stages on ground stands

would suffice to qualify a production line; if so, it

would seem to be necessary to monitor tags on

static-tested stages as well.

Tagging systems might also be used to monitor

either deployed or stored missiles. Deployed missiles could be periodically inspected to assure that

illicit missiles had not been introduced into the overt

deployment infrastructure. Stored missiles could be

sampled to assure that overt storage sites contained

only legitimate missiles.

Potential tagging technologies are improving with

time, but questions of counterfeitability, transferability, and operational practicality have not all been

resolved to the full satisfaction of all U.S. interests.

Particularly for the purpose of flight-testing missiles

from a clandestine production line, a cheater might

be willing to go to great expense to counterfeit a few

tags. If this were a concern, however, the monitoring

protocol could provide for later attaching supplemental tags to existing tags, thus greatly complicating the counterfeiting task.

Continued research on tagging systems should

yield further improvements. To permit application

of improved technologies, a START Treaty (or an

associated memorandum of understanding) could

provide for later upgrading of tagging systems. For

example, it may be possible to develop an electronic

tag that could be read remotely (from the air or from

space, perhaps by host-country-provided local radio

relay) and which could be trusted not to compromise

the survivability of mobile missiles.

One cheating scenario for rail-mobile or roadmobile ICBMs is for the cheater to produce

clandestine missiles and launchers (before or

after the treaty had gone into effect), store them,

and later overtly break out from treaty constraints by augmenting the existing deployment

infrastructure. For operational reasons, this might be

most quickly done with rail-mobile systems, in

which additional launcher cars could be hitched to

trains with existing crews and support cars. Monitoring missile and launcher production (or final

assembly) facilities probably offers the best

chance of deterring or detecting this stratagem.

Another cheating scenario for road-mobile

ICBMs utilizes “hot bunking”: illicit launchers

and their missiles would rotate in and out of

legitimate support bases, while observation of the

bases would show only a legal number of missiles

in garrison at any given time.9 If this scenario

were of concern, two treaty monitoring provisions would make it more difficult to execute.

First, a treaty could require prior announcement of

missile and launcher departures from their bases,

providing a basis for monitoring such announced

movements with NTM.10 Unannounced movement,

if detected, would then itself be a violation, as well

as indicating the possible presence of undeclared

missiles. Second, repeated short-notice reading of

tags of in-base missiles or launchers would very

likely detect illegal missiles; therefore, tags would

help to deter use of the legal infrastructure to deploy

illicit missiles. In addition, an Open Skies regime, if

agreed on, might help by raising the risk that illicit

missiles would be spotted.

Mobile ICBMs may also be limited to designated

deployment areas even after leaving base. Counting

missiles in these areas would be somewhat easier

than if the missiles could travel anywhere in Soviet

territory. In addition, confirmed sightings of any

undeclared missiles outside the designated areas

would be clear evidence of treaty violation.

Monitoring Submarine-Launched

Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs)

The primary indicator for monitoring submarinelaunched ballistic missiles will be the submarine

(SSBN) and the number of launch tubes it carries.

Such vessels cannot be concealed: they are large

and require a highly visible production and

support infrastructure. Moreover, under normal

Soviet practices, a high percentage of Soviet SSBNs

are in port at an given time.

START will generally (but not in every case)

restrict SLBMs themselves to carrying no more than

the maximurn number of RVs with which they have

been tested. The pros and cons of relying on this

counting rule and the utility of sampling deployed

missiles by OSI are discussed above in the section on

ICBMs.

While the term “hot bunking” has mainly been applied to road-mobile missiles, a similar concept could be applied to rail-mobile systems.

lq-he ST~T Tr~~, howev~, Ml pro~bly not ~n~ this provision. It will, however, require notilcation before mkfleS IMve ~e~ d=i~t~

deployment areas.
Summary . 13

Figure 2-Ohio-Class Strategic Missile Submarine

Above: Trident missile canisters being lowered into their launch tubes on an Ohio-Class (Trident) ballistic missile submarine (SSBN).

Below: open launch tubes on the same class of submarine. In START Treaty RV-counting inspections, Soviet observers would be allowed

to peer into an open tube to determine that an SLBM did not carry more than its attributed number of warheads. During inspection, missile

warheads would be shrouded by a shell that conformed to their shape.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Defense
14 ● Verification Technologies

Under START, the two sides apparently will

agree to permit deployment of some SLBMs with

fewer RVs than the maximum with which they had

been tested;ll to keep numbers within the START

limits, they could then count the SLBMs as only

containing the lower numbers. An OSI regime that

regularly sampled deployed missiles could probably

deter secret reconversions of the missile loads. There

would still be some risk of overt treaty breakout by

quick reconversion of deployed missiles, but the

payoff from abrogating the treaty for some additional SLBM warheads, as compared to ICBM

warheads, may be small.

A missile of concern might be the SS-N-23, which

the Soviets have apparently tested with as many as

10 RVs, but which START is to count as carrying

only 4. What the military consequences of changing

from the 4-RV configuration to the 10-RV configuration would be is another question. It seems likely

that, for some purposes, the 10-RV version would be

militarily less useful.12 Still, if these missiles were

converted to deliver 10 RVs, each 16-missile submarine carrying them could add up to 96 RVs to its

current 64. (In response, the United States might

upload its own Trident II missiles from 8 to 12 RVs,

adding 96 warheads to each 24-missile submarine.)

Note that RV uploading mayor may not be a treaty

breakout concern, but with adequate inspections it

need not be a treaty cheating concern.

Since the START Treaty will probably not restrict

nondeployed SLBMs, it is conceivable that longer

range missiles, such as the SS-N-23 or the SS-N-20,

could be adapted for clandestine (or overt but rapid)

deployment on land. The characteristics of these

missiles, however, do not seem to suit them well for

this scenario. In addition, many operational barriers

would have to be overcome to make this a feasible

cheating scenario.

Monitoring Bombers and Air-Launched

Cruise Missiles (ALCMs)

Given that START will permit both modernization and expansion of strategic bomber forces,

it is difficult to identify incentives to cheat on the

agreement’s bomber-related provisions.

Heavy bombers of the kind to be limited by

START are large, distinctive, and observable

objects requiring an extensive production, testing,

ture

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and support infrastructure. This infrastrucwould include:

assembly buildings scaled to bomber size (a

U.S. B1-B bomber is about 150 feet long, with

a wingspan of about 136 feet);

associated warehouses, offices, and engineering space;

power, transportation, and labor supplies;

security arrangements (e.g., perimeters and

guardhouses);

a large airstrip and associated support facilities

near the assembly plant;

testing facilities;

military air bases and associated facilities and

security arrangements; and

storage, transportation, and security arrangements for the nuclear weapons associated with

deployed bombers.

Moreover, deployed aircraft need to be operationally tested and maintained.

Variations in the configurations of Soviet and

U.S. aircraft somewhat complicate the monitoring tasks for bombers. The Soviet Union has

deployed some of its bomber airframes as tankers

and reconnaissance craft, and it does not wish these

to count against the 1,600 Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicle (SNDV) ceiling. The United States

intends to deploy bombers in different configurations (conventionally armed, armed with long-range

nuclear cruise missiles, and armed only with nuclear

bombs and short-range attack missiles). It does not

wish formerly nuclear, now conventional, bombers

to count toward the ceiling. Hardware arrangements

that may not be readily observable by NTM determine whether bombers can carry cruise missiles or

not, so some form of OSI seems desirable in this

case. A further complication would be added if

either side were to deploy non-nuclear long-range

cruise missiles on bombers other than those counted

as equipped for nuclear cruise missiles.

Agreement to base different types of bombers

at different locations may ease monitoring of the

different configurations. Short-notice inspections

1 l~e a=~ nu~m reflect the operational loadings the two sides say they are PIX.

12For tie -e ~ow.wei~4 a ~gernti of RVS will eachllave a smaller explosive yield, reducing its destructive capability agatit a given tmget.

The 4-RV version of the SS-N-23 may be step toward a “hard-target killer, ” but the 10RV version is not.

16 ● Verification Technologies

would then be more useful. In addition, bombers and

ALCMs will probably be subject to “counting

rules’ rather than inspections for numbers of

warheads carried. Each bomber not carrying ALCMs

will be attributed with only one nuclear warhead

counting toward the START limit of 6,000, even

though the aircraft will carry several bombs and

short-range attack missiles. Each ALCM-loaded

bomber will be attributed with a number below its

actual carrying capacity. It is expected that the

attributed number will be close to the typical loading

for such aircraft, but individual bombers carrying

more than the attributed number of weapons will not

be considered in violation of the treaty .13 (Note that

rules that permit deployment of more warheads than

those counting toward START limits preserve U.S.

strategic force planning options.)

Some potential would still exist for quickly

breaking out of treaty constraints by flying conventional bombers to nuclear bases for conversion.

Somewhat more difficult (depending on the bomber

type), but still plausible, would be to fly non-ALCM

bombers to ALCM bases for conversion. However,

given the already liberal allowances for bomber

weapon loadings, the incentive to breakout in either

of these ways will be small.

Since only nuclear ALCMs with a range beyond

600 km will be limited, another monitoring task for

START will be to estimate the maximum range of

deployed ALCMs. The difficulty of doing so could

result in some ambiguities about whether a longrange bomber will count under START as an ALCM

heavy bomber or a heavy bomber with nuclear

bombs and short-range attack missiles.

In the future, the deployment of long-range,

conventionally armed ALCMs would present

particularly difficult monitoring challenges because of the possibility for substitution of nuclear

ALCMs.