A New Numbers Game

When U.S. and Soviet negotiating teams meet on Nov. 30 in Geneva to resume arms reduction talks, they will be playing a complex and slippery numbers game. Though its origins are murky, the term “zero option” has been used by different people to describe various schemes for eliminating or reducing intermediate-and medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe. On the face of it, President Reagan’s version seems straightforward enough. The President has proposed to cancel the planned deployment of 108 Pershing II and 464 ground-launched cruise missiles. In turn, the Soviets must agree to dismantle some 350 aging SS-4 and SS-5 missiles, plus 250 or more new SS-20 missiles.

But there is more here than meets the eye. First, the Soviet missiles are already in place, while the ones proposed for NATO are still in the testing stage. Second, there is a considerable disparity in the range and potency of the weapons involved. The new U.S. missiles carry only one warhead, as do the SS-4s and SS-5s. But the SS-20s are equipped to carry three warheads. Thus Reagan’s proposal really calls for a trade-off of 572 American nuclear warheads for more than 1,000 Soviet ones. In his speech, Reagan claimed that the Soviets had a 6-to-1 nuclear advantage over the U.S. In doing so, he failed to include U.S. forward-based nuclear-equipped aircraft and submarines, or NATO weapons. According to the independent London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Soviet advantage over NATO forces is closer to 3 to 1.

The Soviet concept of a zero option is different. President Leonid Brezhnev has said that if NATO dropped its deployment plans, the U.S.S.R. would “reduce the total” of its missiles; but by how much, he did not say. NATO would not have a single ground-based missile capable of reaching the U.S.S.R. Yet there would be numbers of Soviet missiles within striking distance of Western Europe, just as there are today.

The Soviets marshal their own numbers to show that a rough parity in theater nuclear weapons already exists between NATO and the U.S.S.R. How so? Because Moscow counts “delivery systems” differently. Soviet estimates for NATO include the American submarines and aircraft based in Europe that are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The Soviets also count British and French bombers and missiles, even though the French are not part of the NATO military structure. According to the Soviet count there are 986 NATO delivery systems. Their own total, they say, is 975. But this does not include all Soviet fighter-bombers and submarines that could deliver nuclear warheads.

There is no doubt why the Soviets are so alarmed by the prospect of new U.S. missiles in Europe. A Pershing II based in West Germany could drop a 20-kiloton warhead within 80 ft. of a target in the Soviet Union some 1,000 miles away just eight minutes after firing. The ground-launched cruise missile, or GLCM, is even more accurate, and able to avoid radar by hugging the terrain, following maps in its internal guidance system.

The Soviet missiles are more of a mixed bag. The clumsy, inaccurate SS-4, first deployed in 1959, has a range of 1,200 miles and a single, one-megaton warhead. The obsolescent SS-5 can throw its megaton warhead some 2,500 miles. But the SS-20, with its 3,000-mile range, is a formidable weapon. Each of its three, separately targetable 150-kiloton warheads is accurate within 100 yds.

The wildly divergent numbers reflect the sharply different interests of the two superpowers. The U.S. wants to redress the imbalance presented by the existing Soviet nuclear arsenal. Moscow fears that the Pershing Us and cruise missiles will give the U.S. a first-strike capability from Europe. The differences are so deep that the game to be played out in Geneva could end before the first hand is dealt.