of conventional forces, and therefore raising the nuclear threshold. FLEET AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS STANDARD missiles are ship-launched surface-to-air missiles (SAM) intended for surface combatant defense against air-breathing threats. Improvements, such as stand-off jammer suppression, vertical launching systems, and nuclear warheads, are intended to counter new, more capable air-breathing threats to warships. Upgrading conventional fleet air defense capabilities would reduce the prospective vulnerability of fleet battle groups operating in the projected combined Soviet air, sea, and subsurface severe threat environment. By improving the U.S. Navy's capability to perform a variety of vital missions in peacetime and in war, they contribute to the deterrence of war and to international stability, hence furthering arms control objectives. -The United States is not a party to any arms control agreement which restricts deployment of naval anti-air warfare weapons or their supporting systems. Article VI of the ABM Treaty contains a provision, included at U.S. insistence, which prohibits giving non-ABM missiles, launchers, or radar an ABM capability; the negotiating record sets forth a list of indicators for judging whether a SAM system has an ABM capability, including phasedarray radar and nuclear-armed interceptors. The programs discussed in this ACIS include the first U.S. mating of a non-ABM nuclear interceptor with a phased-array radar system. The Soviets have already deployed SAMs with phased-array radars. It is in the U.S. interest for both parties to the ABM Treaty to avoid steps making vertification more difficult. It is difficult to differentiate among systems intended for defense against air-breathing, tactical ballistic missiles, or strategic ballistic missile threats. To constrain U.S. programs without firm categorization criteria could result in the United States being more self-constrained than the Soviet Union in developing high performance air defense systems. -U.S. naval forces that were only equipped with conventional defenses would present more vulnerable targets for air-launched Soviet attacks. The possibility of a U.S. nuclear response could increase Soviet incentives to exercise forbearance in the use of nuclear weapons against U.S. naval forces. Whether the use of nuclear weapons over an ocean area would lead directly to escalating the associated land campaign is unknown. MEDIUM-RANGE AIR-TO-SURFACE MISSILE The medium-range air-to-surface missile (MRASM) is a conventionally armed, tactical cruise missile for both anti-ship and landattack employment. The MRASM would provide an improved conventional capability to disrupt such activities as airfield operations, to contribute toward the creation of maritime superiority required to put Soviet naval forces at risk, and to project forces worldwide. By enhancing NATO's conventional posture and U.S. capabilities worldwide, they support deterrence and regional stability. -SALT II limitations would have pertained only to air-launched cruise missiles with fuel exhaustion ranges of over 600 km; MRASM would not have been considered a long-range cruise CHEMICAL WARFARE The proposed fiscal year 1983 chemical warfare (CW) program includes active RDT&E of both deterrent retaliatory and defensive CW programs; procurement of an improved protective CW capability; initiation of actions needed to modernize the U.S. deterrent retaliatory capability and to dispose of the deteriorating chemical agent stockpile; and maintenance of chemical munitions. The program supports the U.S. objective of maintaining an adequate defensive and deterrent retaliatory capability, increasing the safety of the systems involved, as well as eventually concluding a complete and verifiable prohibition of chemical weapons production, development and stockpiling; and contributes to negotiations by allowing the United States to gain negotiating leverage in the area of chemical weapons arms control. -The U.S. CW program is fully consistent with, and complementary to, the pursuit of a CW ban and the U.S. policy of no first use of chemical weapons. -Congressional and Administration actions to construct and to equip Phase I of a binary CW production facility do not represent a decision to place greater emphasis upon CW but reflect U.S. national security policy to deter war. -Bilateral U.S.-U.S.S.R. negotiations on a comprehensive CW prohibition stalled in 1979 over verification issues; since then, multilateral interest in CW discussions has intensified within the Committee on Disarmament. —The Soviet Union can easily verify that the United States is actually conducting the CW programs which we openly claim. -U.S. policy is to pursue chemical weapons arms control and to maintain appropriate military capabilities to eliminate the existing large asymmetry in U.S.-U.S.S.R. CW capabilities, until such time as effective international agreements remove existing and future threats of CW. DIRECTED ENERGY PROGRAMS U.S. directed energy (DE) programs represent an effort to explore and, if feasibility is proven, to develop the potential of DE weapons, which would have potential mission advantages over many existing types of weapons against missiles, aircraft and spacecraft targets. While high energy lasers (HEL) and particle beams (PB) differ in state of development and in the technology required to realize them, they have potential for weapon systems of similar operational char 1 acteristics. Further, they could have similar implications for the future of the ABM Treaty, possible ASAT negotiations, and space defense issues generally. -Research conducted to stay abreast of technologies having military potential and to gain insight into what the Soviets and others may be discovering through their own research helps provide confidence that the United States can maintain an adequate balance of forces. -DE weapons research is not constrained by existing arms control agreements. The ABM Treaty bans the development, testing, and deployment of all ABM systems and components that are seabased, air-based, space-based, or mobile land-based. Although the Treaty allows the development and testing of fixed, land-based ABM systems and components based on other physical principles (such as lasers or particle beams), including such fixed, land-based components capable of substituting for ABM interceptor missiles, ABM launchers, or ABM radars, the Treaty prohibits their deployment unless the Parties consult and amend the Treaty. -DE weapons in an ASAT role are affected by the ABM Treaty, SALT I, and SALT II. These agreements prohibit the actual use of systems to interfere with national technical means used to verify compliance with strategic arms control agreements. They do not prohibit the development, testing, or deployment of systems that could be used in such roles. -New technologies like HEL weapons could serve arms control interests by encouraging nations to negotiate with one another in an attempt to avoid waging and possibly losing an expensive weapons race. It is not possible to make a reasonable assessment of the net impact of the HEL program on future global or regional stability. -Although the DE-related R. & D. efforts funded in the fiscal year 1983 budget have no more than marginal arms control effects now, this technology deserves continuing attention in the future. ABBREVIATED ARMS CONTROL IMPACT STATEMENTS As in the fiscal year 1982 ACIS, the fiscal year 1983 submission contains two sets of abbreviated ACIS: One for Department of Defense programs and one for Department of Energy programs. The abbreviated DOD ACIS contains two sections. Section I, listing programs for which ACIS were previously submitted, includes AntiShip Missile Systems, Large Area Ocean Surveillance Systems, Strategic Warning and Attack Assessment, Advanced Isotope Separation and Centrifuge Enrichment, and NAVSTAR Global Positioning System. While these programs have continuing arms control implications, they have had no significant changes in funding, program direction, policy, or international developments that would revise the Administration's analysis forwarded in early 1981. The need for updated ACIS will be reevaluated as these programs evolve. Section II includes other programs which meet congressional criteria for ACIS but for which in-depth ACIS were not prepared. For each program, a brief description is given along with its program element number and R-1 or P-1 report page and line number, as applicable. Activities within these programs are primarily associated with one or more of the following: -Programs in too early an exploratory research and development stage to determine with precision their possible arms control implications. -Programs providing continuing normal support for existing missions or deployed operational systems and organizations. -Production and procurement of a developed weapon system; nonnuclear munitions, cartridges, projectiles, rockets, etc., and associated equipment; spares and repair parts; associated electronic, communications, training and support equipment; support, storage, industrial and test facilities construction and operations; utility and specialized vehicles, ships, tanks, and aircraft; miscellaneous production charges, first destination charges and outfitting costs. In themselves, none of the activities in this category is judged to have a significant impact on arms control policy or negotiations. -Modification or modernization of an already procured system which does not significantly alter the characteristics of the system from an arms control standpoint. --Programs which were analyzed as in-depth statements in previous years and found to have little, if any, additional arms control impact. -Programs involving miscellaneous research, development, testing, and evaluation of programs not otherwise categorized, which are judged to have marginal, if any, impact on arms control policy or negotiations. The abbreviated ACIS for the Department of Energy programs list those activities related predominantly to normal maintenance and reliability assessment of the nuclear stockpile. Because they do not provide for additional warheads/bombs or for significant changes in characteristics or deployments, none of them is judged to have a significant impact on arms control policy or negotiations. The ACIS lists 24 different nuclear warheads and gravity bombs, with a brief statement about the weapons systems for which they were developed. CONTENTS Foreword by Hon. Charles H. Percy, chairman, Committee on Foreign Letter of submittal. Congressional Research Service digest of fiscal year 1983 unclassified arms Part I: Arms control impact statements submitted by the administration: B. Satellite systems survivability. C. Space surveillance technology.. |