The Potentialities of Deception as a Survival Aid for a Retaliatory Missile Force

An examination of the potential of deception as a survival aid for a retaliatory missile force. Deception is viewed as any measure that induces a conservative enemy planner to assign a fraction of his attacking force to "false targets," thus diluting his attack and correspondingly increasing the expected surviving fraction of the defender's retaliatory force. A generalized cost-effectiveness analysis indicates that successful, inexpensive (10 percent of system cost ) deception measures show handsome payoffs over a wide range of enemy attack characteristics. Moderately costly measures (25 percent of system cost) show more limited utility; and expensive measures (over 40 percent of system cost) indicate rapidly diminishing payoffs. Two hedges against failure of deception are suggested: (1) if possible, design the scheme so as to retain the option to convert to the "real thing"; and (2) allocate the budget to a greater-than-optimal fraction of misiles so that, although payoffs are decreased if deception is successful, penalties are reduced if deception fails.