STRAT-X

Air Force Magazine ^ | 01/01/2010 | Peter Grier

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

In the mid-1960s, senior Pentagon officials became concerned about the state of the US nuclear deterrent force.

The Soviet Union for years had been churning out more and more heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles—long-range, fast-flying, silo-based nuclear weapons. At the same time, the Soviet Union had begun building anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense systems around important homeland targets.

The two developments, either singly or in combination, had the potential to alter the strategic superpower balance.

The problems were fundamental ones. First, increasingly numerous ICBMs posed a threat to America’s own weapons. How could the US maximize the portion of the nuclear arsenal to survive a Soviet first strike?

Second, ABM systems around Moscow, especially, generated doubts about US ability to hit key targets. How could Washington ensure that enough US weapons would get through in a devasting second strike, and therefore deter Soviet leaders from ever attempting a first strike?

To analyze this situation, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara in late 1966 launched a study aimed at developing some answers. That study was called Strategic eXperimental, or STRAT-X, for short.

STRAT-X turned out to be an intense, nine-month-long national effort. Participants intended it to be a game-changing look at the question of what nuclear systems the US should deploy in coming years. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, STRAT-X clearly succeeded.

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