Governors of Maryland and Education the Politics of Peacekeeper Rail Garrison

摘要

In 1985, the Congress capped at 50 the number of Peacekeeper ICBMs that could bedeployed in vulnerable Minuteman silos, thereby sending the Reagan administration and the Air Force in search of another basing mode so that 100 of the ton-warhead missiles could be deployed as recommended by the Scowcroft Commission. The result was Peacekeeper rail garrison--a strategic nuclear weapon system that combined the Peacekeeper missile with railroad trains garrisoned at military installations. The missile trains would have dispersed across the nation's railways only during times of 'national need like the Cuban Missile Crisis. This case study examines the politics of that weapon system in order to contribute to the literature regarding weapons acquisition, test a number of propositions suggested by the bureaucratic politics model, and assess the influence of nonbureaucratic forces and actors on Peacekeeper rail garrison's fortunes.