Accent on Offense

Working on the theory that a strengthened offense is the surest defense, U.S. military men are marching toward the clearest definition of U.S. defense policy since World War II. They are steadily slowing down spending for purely defensive weapons and shifting the funds into harder-hitting, faster-moving weapons of offense. Last week President Eisenhower took the biggest step yet, approved an $800 million Pentagon proposal to:

P: Boost the number of operational Atlas ICBMs from 124 to 142 by the end of 1962, and speed production of train-borne, solid-fuel Minuteman ICBMs.

P: Prepare for six more Polaris-firing subs, for a total force of 21 in 1965, by starting to build such long-lead parts as reactors (construction time: 42 months).

P: Step up, by a year or even 18 months, the Midas satellite early warning system and the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS).

The President's decision underscored his conviction that, by judiciously selecting its first-string weapons and eliminating those of secondary strategic importance, the U.S. can build an adequate deterrent force within the $41 billion defense budget. Last week's speedup in offensive weapons stays within that limit. The money for it, and an extra $99 million to boot, will come from scrubbing two non-missile nuclear subs--designed mostly for antisubmarine warfare--and by slashing into programs for the BOMARC anti-bomber missile and its SAGE electronics net (TIME, April 4).

Those basically defensive weapons have become less effective as offensive weapons have become more sophisticated. World War II showed how difficult it was to stop attacking planes; no U.S. bombing raid was ever beaten back, and the worst loss rate suffered by the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain was 8% per mission. In the age of missilery and megatons, the problem is even more complex--and costly. To create the Nike-Zeus anti-missile missile system would cost the U.S. an estimated $14 billion--more than the entire Atlas program--and then no one could dream that it would knock out every nuclear-nosed missile. Last week the Army's chief of staff, General Lyman Lemnitzer, sadly surrendered hope of prying loose $137 million in Nike-Zeus funding now bottled up by the Budget Bureau (although Nike-Zeus is still in the budget for $324 million of research and development funds).

The new emphasis is more and more on deterrence. Military planners figure that the best way to prevent war is to perfect and produce the kind of retaliatory weapons that could survive any attack and then go on to devastate the aggressor. That means that the U.S. will rely more and more on early warning systems, heavy and accurate firepower such as Strategic Air Command bombers and Atlases have today, and the maximum amount of invulnerability--such as the mobile Minuteman and the underwater Polaris will boast tomorrow.

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