Research for National Military and Defense Policies

U.S. defense officials have often said that the Soviet Union expects Western Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW) forces to attack its Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBNs) and thus is prepared to defend them in war. These Soviet expectations may have been encouraged by U.S. declaratory policy on the subject--that is, the totality of official and other authoritative statements on strategic doctrine and policy, ASW technology and programs from which Soviet observers reach conclusions about U.S. intentions. This paper reviews U.S. declaratory policy between 1970 and 1985 to determine specifically what that policy has been and then to infer what it has probably meant to the Soviets. It concludes that throughout this period official U.S. declaratory policy has implied an intent to engage in strategic ASW and that the Soviets have had strong reasons to believe that their SSBNs have been and will continue to be targets of U.S. ASW forces.

This paper identifies a basic strategic dilemma for France - on the one hand, French leaders identify the political purpose of nuclear weapons as the defense of French territory; on the other hand, a number of external pressures are inducing a need for France to provide a more explicit definition of the role of French nuclear weapons in the West European security system.

This paper examines France's tactical and strategic nuclear policies, and analyzes the changes which French nuclear forces are likely to undergo in the 1980s and 1990s.

See 02 049001 for abstract.