ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the problem of limiting research and development, particularly as it applies to strategic weaponry, the case of limitations on missile testing being taken as a principal example. It discusses the idea that strategic nuclear weapons have their primary role in deterrence of a major attack. That situation is a very different one than the one of ‘war fighting’, whether with nuclear weapons or conventional ones. If one is concerned with a ‘war fighting’ situation, marginal changes in weapons’ characteristics of one side or the other can really result in substantial advantages. The chapter presents the more specific question of missile testing, improvement in missile capabilities, and in particular, Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology. MIRVs have been deployed on American ICBMs and SLBMs, and the yields are large compared with the Hiroshima bomb, but small compared with some of the weapons which have since been tested.
