This memorandum provides a brief summary on thoughts concerning `Strategic Withholding` (or perhaps, `Nuclear Parsimony`). It is chiefly meant to further support the view that there should be other significant doctrines besides `Brute-Force Retaliation`. The basic doctrinal argument is that it may be broadly disadvantageous to fire one`s missiles in equal, or `total` retaliation. It may be better to reply only softly, or not at all. The basic justification rests on an assumption of extended war, and on a logic addressed to what`s best for the surviving population and capability at any given point. In most strategic wargame exercises, it is rarely apparent that this principle is taken into account. The essential point of argument is that an extended war is not so different from peacetime posturing.

For over a year we have been advocating the development of a hardened or ruggedized version of Diamond which will be suitable for sequential detonation of multiple explosives in one emplacement hole. A Plowshare-sponsored device development test, named `Yacht` is proposed for execution in Area 15 at the Nevada Test Site [NTS] in late September 1972. The test is designed to evaluate the ability of a ruggedized Diamond-type explosive assembly to withstand the effects of an adjacent nuclear detonation in the same emplacement hole and then be sequentially fired. The objectives and experimental plan for this concept is provided.

Stability crileria are developed for the stability of motions of particles in a bucket while subjected to an acceleration voltage at small frequency difference {Delta}{nu}. The motion is stable if {Delta}{nu} {>=} {nu}{sub s} where {nu}{sub s} is the phase oscíllation frequency. This is essentially the same criterion as that the buckets not touch.