United States Counterforce Nuclear Weapon Capabilities

The monograph provides a history of the U.S. Single Integrated Operations Plan (SIOP), which established the priorities and options for U.S. use of nuclear weapons. It explains the meaning of “counterforce,” discusses the research and development effort to achieve these capabilities, and assesses U.S. and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile and submarine-launched ballistic missile capabilities. Completed in April 1987, the study was commissioned by Sweden’s Defense Research Establishment (FOA). Despite substantial efforts by both parties, the author finds that the U.S. and the Soviet Union faced multiple impediments to assuring a significant counterforce capability. The author observes how the U.S. and Soviet Union’s pursuit of counterforce capabilities would likely affect international arms control, as expected in the 1990s. However, the timing of the study could not have foreseen the beneficial changes that would result from the U.S.-Soviet strategic nuclear weapon agreements concluded between late 1987 and 1991.