strategic missile
strategic missile, jet- or rocket-propelled weapon designed to strike targets far beyond the battle area. Strategic missiles are either of the cruise or ballistic type. Cruise missiles are jet-propelled at subsonic speeds throughout their flights, while ballistic missiles are rocket-powered only in the initial (boost) phase of flight, after which they follow an arcing trajectory to the target. As gravity pulls the ballistic warhead back to Earth, speeds of several times the speed of sound are reached.
Strategic missiles represent a logical step in the attempt to attack enemy forces at a distance. As such, they can be seen as extensions of either artillery (in the case of ballistic missiles) or military aircraft (in the case of cruise missiles). Ballistic missiles are rocket-propelled weapons that travel by momentum in a high, arcing trajectory after they have been launched into flight by a brief burst of power. Cruise missiles, on the other hand, are powered continuously by air-breathing jet engines and are sustained along a low, level flight path by aerodynamic lift.
Although experiments were undertaken before World War II on crude prototypes of the cruise and ballistic missiles, the modern weapons are generally considered to have their true origins in the V-1 and V-2 missiles launched by Germany in 1944–45. Both of those Vergeltungswaffen, or “Vengeance Weapons,” defined the problems of propulsion and guidance that have continued ever since to shape cruise and ballistic missile development.
Given the extremely long ranges required of strategic weapons, even the most modern guidance systems cannot deliver a missile’s warhead to the target with consistent, pinpoint accuracy. For this reason, strategic missiles have almost exclusively carried nuclear warheads, which need not strike a target directly in order to destroy it. By contrast, missiles of shorter range (often called tactical- or battlefield-range) have been fitted with both nuclear and conventional warheads. For example, the SS-1 Scud, a ballistic missile with ranges of up to 185 miles (300 km), was fielded with nuclear warheads by Soviet troops in eastern Europe from the 1950s through the ’80s; but in the “war of the cities” during the Iran-Iraq conflict of the ’80s, many SS-1s armed with conventional warheads were launched by both sides, killing thousands of civilians. Other “dual-capable” short-range ballistic missiles are the U.S. Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), with a range of about 185 miles (300 km), and the Russian SS-26 Stone (or Iskander), with a range of 310 miles (500 km). (In this section, missile systems of Russia and the former Soviet Union are generally referred to by their NATO designations.)
The near-exclusive focus on the nuclear capacity of strategic-range weapons confined serious development of cruise and ballistic missile technology to the world’s nuclear powers—particularly the United States and the former Soviet Union. These two countries took different paths in exploiting missile technology. Soviet cruise missiles, for instance, were designed mostly for tactical antiship use rather than for threatening strategic land targets (as was the U.S. emphasis). Throughout the ballistic missile arms race, the United States tended to streamline its weapons, seeking greater accuracy and lower explosive power, or yield. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, perhaps to make up for its difficulties in solving guidance problems, concentrated on larger missiles and higher yields. Most U.S. systems carried warheads of less than one megaton, with the largest being the nine-megaton Titan II, in service from 1963 through 1987. The Soviet warheads often exceeded five megatons, with the largest being a 20- to 25-megaton warhead deployed on the SS-7 Saddler from 1961 to 1980 and a 25-megaton warhead on the SS-9 Scarp, deployed from 1967 to 1982.
Most other countries pursuing missile technology have not developed strategic weapons to the extent of the United States and the former Soviet Union. Nonetheless, several other countries have produced them; among these are the United Kingdom, France, China, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, South Korea, and North Korea. Also, as with any technology, there has occurred a transfer of ballistic missile technology to less-developed countries. Combined with the widespread capacity to produce chemical warheads, such weapons represent a potent addition to the arsenals of emerging powers of the developing world.