The Arms Race and Command Economies since 1945 371after the missile race went into high gear, lasers and other “death rays”
capable of destroying enemy warheads with the speed of light re
mained fictional. The balance of terror therefore continued more or
less intact, despite all the efforts Americans and Russians put into
finding a way to shield themselves from the specter of sudden annihi
lation.
In one respect, the balance of terror became more stable. The de
velopment of spy satellites from I960 onwards gave each side sure and
complete access to information about the other’s missile installations
on land. This greatly advantaged the Americans, who found it far
harder to keep secrets than the Russians did. Presumably, mutual
acceptance of satellite surveillance from outer space arose as an acci
dental by-product of the fact that when Russia launched the first satel
lite, its path, inevitably, transgressed national frontiers. The Soviet
government was therefore unable to object when the United States
followed suit. The further fact that neither power was able to shoot
down enemy satellites when first they began to traverse space above
their respective home territories made it necessary to acquiesce in
what could not be prevented. Soon afterwards, the United States
developed satellites carrying high-resolution cameras that could relay
fine details of the Russian landscape back to earth. The Russians did
object to this, but only half-heartedly.
Satellite surveillance at once dispelled many uncertainties about
Soviet missiles. Indeed, in I960 when the “spies in the skies” first
started to work their magic, American officials discovered that the
missile gap was mythical. The Soviets had not in fact yet invested in
expensive rocket arrays poised to attack American cities, even though
their technical capacity to do so had been proved. Each side sub
sequently did install hundreds of missiles at carefully prepared launch
sites. But throughout the process, satellite surveillance detected every
new installation. Each government could feel confident of the facts so
miraculously made manifest since, even if perfect camouflage were
possible for a completed launch site, during construction telltale signs
were sure to show.
During the 1960s, therefore, each watched while the other installed
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to match those they were
themselves emplacing. Simultaneously, each power built and de
ployed submarines capable of lying silent beneath the sea for weeks at
a time before launching atomic warheads from below the surface.^11
- The accelerating pace of technical advance resulting from massive and systematic
research and development programs is illustrated by the fact that it took forty years for