To hear the Communists tell it, the U.S. has surrounded Russia with thickets of poised missiles. The picture is highly inaccurate. As the principal defender of the free world, the U.S. necessarily maintains many military installations overseas— 2,230 of them, according to a Pentagon count. But most of them are clearly unaggressive — supply depots, radar-warning stations, and so forth, with no strike capability at all. In only three foreign countries, Britain, Italy and Turkey, has the U.S. deployed strategic missiles pointed toward Russia. These intermediate-range missiles (IRBMs) are considered obsolescent, and the installations will probably be dismantled within the next few years. The IRBMs, with a range of 1,500 miles, were installed overseas in 1958-61 after Soviet space feats with big rockets led U.S. planners to believe that Russia would build up a big force of intercontinental missiles (ICBMs) capable of striking the U.S. The Russians concentrated instead on IRBMs, and today the Soviet Union has many more missiles aimed at Western Europe than the U.S. has missiles aimed at Russia. That point was underlined last week by Lord Home, Britain's Foreign Secretary, in a rebuke to the British intellectuals who keep equating Russian bases in Cuba and U.S. missile bases abroad. Said he: "We sit in Europe covered by every kind of missile directed at us from Russian soil. If you bargain between one base and another, you'll not get rid of one Russian base pointed at Europe, and you'll lose one of your own bases."
In U.S. strategic planning, the importance of strategic bases overseas has waned in the last couple of years, and will continue to diminish in the years ahead. Polaris missile submarines have given the U.S. a mighty strategic wallop that is independent of fixed bases overseas. The U.S.'s growing force of operational ICBMs — Atlas, Titan and, before long, Minuteman — is being stationed entirely within the U.S. But as long as Communism seeks world domination, the U.S. will continue to need military installations abroad. The current roster:
Britain. Four Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases, plus several Tactical Air Command (TAC) bases. The SAC planes are B-47s with a range of 4,000 miles; 7,200-mile B-52s are sometimes deployed overseas temporarily, but most B-52s are based within the U.S. The U.S. missile force in Britain consists of some 60 Thor IRBMs under dual U.S.- British control. The U.S. has notified Britain that the missiles will be withdrawn next year. At Holy Loch, in Scotland, the Navy has its only foreign Polaris station.
Italy. Two squadrons of Jupiter IRBMs— 30 missiles in all.
Turkey. One Jupiter squadron. Also a TAC base.
France. Nine Air Force bases, all tactical. President de Gaulle does not permit U.S. nuclear weapons in France.
West Germany. The weapons of the U.S. forces stationed in Germany include tactical missiles, but no IRBMs or SAC bombers. The Air Force has eight bases, all tactical.
The Netherlands. TAC base.
Iceland. An Air Defense Command unit of fighter-interceptor planes — purely defensive. Also a Navy antisubmarine installation.
Greenland. Two ADC bases.