Political and Technical Verification Issues of Limitations on Sea- Launched Cruise Missiles

Abstract

This paper examines the political and technical verification issues associated with proposals to place quantitative and/or qualitative limits on the deployment of nuclear armed sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs). Overviews of the arms control relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, the development of the SLCM, and Soviet and American concepts of verification are presented. The views of the American arms control and defense communities regarding the SLCM is discussed in depth, accompanied by a detailed examination of the various methods which have been proposed to verify a SLCM limitation agreement. The conclusion is that there are no technological barriers, per se, to SLCM verification, but as the decision on an agreement's verifiability is a political one, the U.S. Navy should concentrate its arguments against SLCM limitations on the weapon's operational utility rather than argue that such an agreement is unverifiable.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1989
Accession Number
ADA209229

Entities

People

  • Robin K. Myers

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Arms Control
  • Arms Control Treaties
  • Detection
  • Electronic Intelligence
  • Geographic Regions
  • Inertial Navigation
  • Inertial Navigation Systems
  • Intelligence Collection
  • International Relations
  • International Security
  • Military Organizations
  • National Security
  • Naval Operations
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Treaties
  • United States
  • Ussr

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Missile Defense Systems.
  • Strategic Security Studies