ABSTRACT
The problem of bias in missile accuracy and its implications for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) vulnerability came to the forefront very late in the MX debate. Clear analysis of the operational problem for a Soviet attack on US ICBMs and the remainder of the triad only surfaced during the Reagan administration as an issue. It was in 1981 and 1982 that analysts really began to debate the MX vulnerability question in this light. Critics of the interim basing of MX in Minuteman silos argued that such a deployment would actually increase the incentives for the Soviet Union to initiate a preemptive nuclear strike. Placing missiles in mobile launchers rather than in fixed silos was another conceptual alternative for the problem of ICBM vulnerability. Several sea-based modes were proposed as alternatives to land-based deployment of a new ICBM. For those opposed and supportive of the various MX basing modes considered, technical and bureaucratic factors loomed large, as the conventional wisdom suggests.
