7 - Strat-X, ULMS and Trident I

Summary

I considered that we'd better surrender to Rickover so that we wouldn't have to surrender to the Russians.

Admiral Zumwalt.

While Poseidon development was still underway, and its final nature not yet completely decided, consideration began of another generation of fleet ballistic missiles. Ironically, the path that leads to Trident II – the first Fleet Ballistic Missile in which hard-target kill capability would be a clear requirement – began with a study based on the criteria of a different era. That study was called Strat-X, and embodied the cost-effectiveness orientation of the ‘systems analysis’ of the Mc- Namara era, and its emphasis on ‘assured destruction’.

STRAT-X AND ULMS

The Strat-X study was a response by Robert McNamara's Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Lloyd Wilson, to Air Force pressures in the mid–1960s for a new, very large ICBM, provisionally called WS-120A; it may indeed have been initiated precisely to kill the Air Force missile. Starting in late 1966, Strat-X was carried out by the Institute for Defense Analysis, and was submitted in August 1967. Its task was specified, in part, as follows:

Strat-X is to be a technological study to characterize U.S. alternatives to counter the possible Soviet ABM deployment and the Soviet potential for reducing the U.S. assured-destruction-force effectiveness during the 1970s. It is desired that the U.S. alternatives be considered from a uniform cost-effectiveness base as well as from solution sensitivity to various Soviet alternative actions.

Various strategic nuclear weapons systems were compared using criteria based on ‘assured destruction’.