With the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and, with the end of the Cold War, two questions arise. How large should force reductions be in a START-II accord. How much can the major nuclear powers reduce their nuclear arms and still maintain strategic stability. The results of the analysis presented here are summarized by the following five statements: (1) In the development of target lists, it is important to prioritize. A standard approach is to identify a break-point in the list of installations, to target only those facilities that are above the break-point, and to assign as many weapons as necessary to key installations to achieve damage goals. As an alternative, a systematic method is suggested here that uses the concept of target value. First, an ordinal list of targets must be developed. Then, values can be assigned to targets in a way that leads to reasonable set of targeting priorities and to a useful figure of merit to assess strike effectiveness. (2) Two complementary observations can be made, based on an analysis of optimum attack tactics against a target base with a value structure: It is not practical to size the stockpile based on the number of targets in the target set because a small change in the damage goal for the strike results in large change to the required inventory. By prioritizing targets, it is possible to make large reductions in the force structure while causing only small reductions in the expected target value damaged. (3) Prudence dictates building into strike plans hedges against degraded weapon performance. (4) The impact of defenses on the required offensive inventory depends on details about the management of defensive systems. (5) If timely information can be obtained about damage to targets so that follow-on weapons can be allocated only to undamaged targets, the number of weapons required to achieve the specified damage coal can be reduced significantly.
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