Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces

The United States currently is wrestling with the negative implications of lean defense budgets in the face of vigorous and expanding Soviet efforts. It is unclear whether vital programs of other sorts have been or can be funded at levels adequate to ensure effective U.S. and NATO competition with aggressive Soviet efforts in many arenas. That being the case, a decision to commit vital funds to new weapons of less obvious military worth should only be entertained if there simply is no political alternative than to proceed with this plan, and if the political importance of one particular approach rules out alternatives. Political leaders must, in short, base their decisions on the foreknowledge that long range theater nuclear force modernization would trade off with more adequate funding for central strategic forces and theater non-nuclear forces.