Counterforce Issues for the U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces

U.S. strategic nuclear forces consist of three parts land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles ICBMs, long-range bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles SLBMs. Together these three parts are known as the TRIAD. These forces are an important part of perceived U.S. military power, and as such serve a variety of political and military functions chief among these functions is that of deterring a Soviet nuclear attack. To deter such an attack, U.S. forces must be capable of surviving a Soviet nuclear attack against them usually referred to as a counterforce attack in sufficient numbers to threaten retaliation that would be unacceptable to the Soviet Union. In recent years, concern has grown that one element of the U.S. TRIAD, land-based ICBMs, might become vulnerable to a first strike by a Soviet ICBM force consisting of increasingly accurate missiles armed with Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles MIRVs. Although current and programmed U.S. forces will continue to provide a capability to destroy Soviet urban industrial centers in a second strike, additional nuclear weapons might be required for deterrence of a Soviet counter force strike, since a U.S. threat to destroy Soviet cities might not be credible as long as U.S. cities remained intact and the Soviet Union retained forces capable of destroying them. Some analysts argue that unless U.S. strategic forces were capable of retaliating against the Soviet ICBMs remaining after a first strike against the United States, the Soviet Union might be able to gain an advantage by destroying the U.S. landbased missile force.