On the Allocation of Effort Among Deterrent Systems

A study is made of the allocation of a fixed effort among several deterrent systems. The capability to retaliate should war be initiated by our enemy is used as the deterrence criterion. Assuming that the enemy's blunting effort can be allocated among our deterrent systems with full knowledge of our distribution, what is the best allocation of our effort? This problem is solved in detail for the case in which the alternatives consist of a system of fixed bases and a system of mobile units, such as the land-based titan and the submarine-based polaris. The results are illustrative only.