RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS Research and analysis are important to the development of US positions in arms control negotiations and to the on-going work of US delegations in the various international arms control fora. Such activities are also required to support AC DA's statutory and other activities. The quality of ACDA research is enhanced by the presence of visiting scholars on leave from their universities for one to two years service with ACDA. The work of both permanent and visiting officers is supported by the ACDA Computer Center and the ACDA Library. Some research, because of its specialized nature or because ACDA lacks specific expertise, is accomplished by contract with outside sources. One such unique source of research on arms control issues is the Hubert H. Humphrey Doctoral Fellowship Program. Economics Research Efforts to control or to limit arms have direct relevance to resource allocation. ACDA economists analyzed country defense budgets, weapons costs, the economic burden of defense spending, and economic forces which enhance or detract from arms control efforts. For example, ACDA economic studies on the Soviet Union during the year were directed to analyzing the defense share of the output of Soviet industry and the nature of the military impact on investment -101 and consumption. The ACDA optimum control model, DYNEVAL, was converted for use on the new ACDA VAX computer. Continued surveillance of the US defense budget was continued through close cooperation with various Defense agencies. The ACDA Force Costing Model continued to prove useful to the Department of Defense in performing analyses of the Five Year Defense Plan. As a member of the President's Economic Adjustment Committee, ACDA participated in the preparation of a report to the Armed Services Committees of the Congress entitled "Economic Adjustment/Conversion," which examined the feasibility of establishing an office of conversion in the Department of Defense. Several steps to strengthen existing mechanisms were proposed, although the feasibility of an office of conversion was not confirmed. AC DA was represented on the interagency committee concerned with drafting a report to the Congress on the impact of offsets used by importing countries in paying for US arms transfers. During the year, ACDA was represented on the interagency committee concerned with US participation in NATO Economics Directorate affairs. The Committee revewed and developed a large number of NATO reports on the Soviet and Eastern European countries' economies, Soviet military spending, and Soviet industry. Also, the Agency published the sixteenth edition of World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, reported on page 108 of this report. This publication requires constant surveillance of the economies and military spending activities of 145 countries. ACDA also provided the US member of a United Nations expert group which, under the General Assembly agenda item, "reduction of military budgets," prepared an empirical study of the feasibility of constructing price indexes and conversion parities for comparing military expenditures at different times and among diverse national currencies. The United States and seven other countries made available various information in support of this study. Despite their advocacy of agreements to reduce military budgets, no country of the Soviet bloc particpated. Operations Analysis Studies and Computer Support A number of analytical studies were performed during the year in support of the development of arms control options and of the investigation of verification and compliance issues. Studies related to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT) included a review of the statistical aspects of TTBT verification, an analysis of the correlation between our estimates of the yield of Soviet underground nuclear tests and our estimates of the yield of Soviet nuclear weapons, and an analysis of the yields of publicly announced Soviet tests. In the START area, ACDA reviewed the Soviet strategic mission capabilities and compared the vulnerability of silo-based and rail-mobile-based missile systems. In addition, ACDA conducted several analyses in support of the compliance study. These included a study of the BACKFIRE production rate, an investigation of radar-missile acquisition range, and the relationship between the accuracy and yield of nuclear weapon systems. This in-house analytical work was supplemented by a number of external research studies, including studies on the Soviet view of arms control issues such as their concept of stability and their view of the US START proposal. Verification research questions were addressed in examining factors required to estimate bomber gross weight and on-site inspection requirements for monitoring the number of air launched cruise missiles. In addition, ACDA initiated a series of research projects on various aspects of TTBT verification. These studies, which will be carried out over the next year, range from the evaluations of yield estimates from individual seismic stations to decision procedures in verification to further improvement of ACDA's seismic detection computer model. This analytical work was further supplemented by a number of papers given at professional society and international technical working groups. These papers covered such issues |