TY  - BOOK
AU  - Kent,Glenn A.
AU  - DeValk,Randall J.
ED  - Project Air Force (U.S.).
ED  - Rand Corporation.
ED  - United States.
TI  - Strategic defenses and the transition to assured survival
SN  - 0833007378 (pbk.)
AV  - UG740 .K46 1986
PY  - 1986///
CY  - Santa Monica, CA
PB  - RAND
KW  - Arms race
KW  - History
KW  - 20th century
KW  - Ballistic missile defenses
KW  - Strategic Defense Initiative
KW  - Soviet Union
KW  - Military policy
KW  - United States
N1  - "October 1986."; "Project Air Force"--Cover; Includes bibliographical references; Also available on the internet via WWW in PDF format
N2  - This report details the anatomy and calculus of the ballistic missile portion of the transition to a robust nationwide strategic defense posture, as proposed by President Reagan on March 23, 1983. To provide insight into the policy issues surrounding the transition, the authors develop an analytic format based on ballistic missile "defense potential." The defense potential format demonstrates that, if highly survivable strategic defenses were deployed as an adjunct to current superpower ballistic missile forces, the United States could make the transition to the President's goal of assured survival from ballistic missile attack without having to pass through a period during which either the United States or the Soviet Union would have great incentive to launch a first strike against the other. However, if the defenses are vulnerable to attack and/or if both superpowers continue to deploy weapons capable of destroying hard targets but fail to adopt corresponding offensive force survivability measures, a stable transition would become less likely
UR  - http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R3369/
ER  -