wolit (04/22/83)
Basically, a weapon is stabilizing (i.e., tending to reduce the likelihood of war) if it deters the enemy from attacking you without threatening his ability to deter you from attacking him. A weapon is destabilizing otherwise, since if the enemy is not deterred, he may attack you, and if he thinks his deterrence is threated, he may find it more attractive to attack now. MIRVs, by themselves, are somewhat destabilizing, since (assuming both sides have about the same number of launchers) they allow their possessors to aim more than one warhead at each of the enemy's launchers, which increases the threat to his deterrence. If each MIRV warhead is given an improved yield-accuracy, the threat is intensified. Finally, simply OWNING land-based ICBMs is destabilizing IF the other side has accurate/powerful MIRVs, since (because their location is fixed and well-known), YOUR deterrence is threatened (making YOU more likely to shoot first). The MX loses on all these counts. Jan Wolitzky