The US Strategic Air Command, which controls more explosives than all

the other military forces of the world throughout history, is now

carefully targeting its missiles on the Arctic and the North Atlantic.

Where once its Mirvs and Minutemen were aimed at Soviet nuclear bases,

at the Red Army's command posts, and at the Kremlin in the heart of

Moscow, they are now to be aimed at places where they would do least

damage and hurt nobody.

The move is aimed at building confidence with Russia and with the

other remaining nuclear powers in the former USSR. No missile has ever

been launched accidentally, but there is always a possibility, and if

they are all aimed into the oceans, the world will be a safer place.

The New York Times reported the new policy this morning, and the

Pentagon has confirmed it. Now the Americans are trying to persuade the

Russians to follow suit. The unspoken assumption is that an accident is

far more likely to occur in Russia than in the US.

We would all sleep more soundly if Russian SS-18s and SS-20s were also

aimed away from populated areas. The various disarmament agreements,

Salt-1, Start-1 and Start-2, have provided for cutting both sides'

nuclear arsenals from some 30,000 warheads each to approximately 5000 by

the end of the decade. That still leaves a frightening number of

weapons, and both sides want them as safe as possible.

The Pentagon has been examining maps of the sea-lanes, to discover

those patches of ocean least frequented by ships and submarines. They

have to be within the range of the missiles, of course, and in the

general direction of their real targets.

Fortunately, the North Atlantic has plenty of dead spots where a

nuclear missile, or one of its war-heads, could, sink or even explode,

without damage.

Four of the former Soviet Republics still have nuclear missiles:

Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Kazakhstan. The Russians control them

all and propose to remove those in the other three nations. Ukraine and

Kazakhstan, however, are reluctant to lose their status as nuclear

super-powers.

They can hardly seriously contemplate using the missiles against

Russia, their only possible enemy, though some ultra-nationalists may

harbour such dangerous fantasies. Their greater interest is to sell the

missiles to the US. The Americans are quite ready to pay to dismantle

the missiles, and have set up a programme to help Russia dispose of its

nuclear materials. But Ukraine, in particular, wants more aid. The

quarrel is likely to continue, because the old-line Communist regime in

Kiev has balked at all market reforms, and Ukraine's economy is

collapsing.

Getting the missiles in Ukraine aimed at the open seas, therefore,

seems rather more urgent than changing the settings on American

missiles.

The New York Times quoted an unnamed Pentagon official who remarked:

''We don't worry about where French or British nuclear missiles are

pointed.''