FOLLOWING his opponent's strategy in 1960, Richard Nixon has found a missile gap to talk about. He charges that the Democratic Administration has let America stand still during the last eight years while the Soviets mass-produced ICBM's and by early next year the two countries will probably have the same number of missiles. Although he admits that a halt in the arms race would be desirable. Nixon insists that the United States cannot bargain with the Russians until it re-establishes its superiority in weapons.

According to Pentagon estimates and private studies, Nixon's figures are correct. In the past 18 months this country, with its force of 1054 land-based missiles, has watched the Soviets climb from 340 to about 800 ICBM's. Despite official American predictions, the Soviets seem to be maintaining this pace.

But the number of missiles does not indicate relative strengths--both countries have been "equal" for most of this decade. Nixon's determination to increase the size of the arsenal is irrelevant as Robert McNamara explained in his final statement of military posture, because

with any "superiority" realistically attainable, the blunt, nescapable fact remains that the Soviet Union could still effectively destroy the United States, even after absorbing the full weight of an American first strike.

Nixon also considers an extensive Anti-Ballistic Missile System, which would cost at least 40 billion dollars, crucial for American defense. However, the United States has found it easy to develop missiles with multiple, independent warheads (MIRV) and decoy systems to fool the Russian ABMS. The Soviet Union would have little trouble finding similar ways to overcome any ABMS the Pentagon could build.

Nixon's emphasis on defense improvement is misplaced. Developments like MIRV indicate that the real problem in nuclear strategy is technological progress, but MIRV also shows that the United States is not standing still. Other American efforts include the modernization of the land-based Minuteman and the 656 sea-based Polaris and Poseidon missiles (which Nixon discounts in his calculations of nuclear superiority). The Soviets' major concern seems to be an ICBM that could follow an orbit through space to its target. Such a weapon could clude an ABMS system but would probably be quite inaccurate.

ANOTHER of Nixon's complaints has been that the Democrats let the Navy deteriorate. His favorite example of bureaucratic bungling is the Administration's decision not to give the carrier John F. Kennedy a nuclear power plant. He never says, however, that to be useful a nuclear carrier needs nuclear-powered escort ships. Two teams of nuclear escorts are being constructed, but in three years the Chester Nimilz will join the Enterprise as the second nuclear-powered carrier in the Navy. Equipping the Kennedy with nuclear power would have raised its cost by 50 per cent. Also the Kennedy could not have yielded the operational benefits expected from nuclear ships because it would have been limited by its conventional escorts.

Costly projects like the ABMS and nuclear power for the Kennedy could indicate that Nixon has already decided where to spend the money now being appropriated for Vietnam after the war is over. But now he supports these programs without explaining how to pay for them.

Republican charges about "mismanagement" of the Pentagon are misleading, but they appeal to voters for several reasons. Nixon stands in sharp contrast to Hubert Humphrey, who has emphatically stated that the United States has enough nuclear weapons. Humphrey's problem is that he seems willing to let the Russians catch up with, or possibly overtake, the United States. Such a position tends to worry most voters. And Nixon's concern about arms-control talks--that they should be negotiated "from strength and never from weakness"--seems more prudent than Humphrey's enthusiastic endorsement of arms negotiations.

While the Democratic platform pledged a "balanced defense" and a "vigorous research and development effort," its emphasis was on the need to "recognize that vigilance calls for the twin discipline of defense and arms control." The GOP's call "to restore superiority" is more likely to impress Americans wearied by the long war in Vietnam.

The Republican position also capitalizes on voters' vague suspicion that McNamara, who clearly had responsibility for nuclear planning, too often disregarded the advice his Joint Chiefs gave him. A Republican Secretary of Defense would probably be forced to adopt the same management techniques McNamara used to keep the Pentagon under control, but Nixon's rhetoric reassures uneasy voters.

The campaign's focus on nuclear strategy tends to overlook pressing questions about national defense, especially in regard to Europe and the Mid-East. The Soviet army's performance in the Czech invasion impressed Western observers as "brilliant" and "faultless"; in the Mediterranean, with ready access to any war zones in the Mid-East, the Soviets have recently established a fleet of at least 50 ships and have secured use of an excellent port in Algeria. NATO forces, on the other hand, are understaffed even by pre-invasion levels, and the U.S. Sixth Fleet, which has been weakened by sending reinforcements to the fleet off Vietnam, will probably lose its home ports in Spain within the next year.

American defense policy has troubles, but the one receiving the most attention in the campaign is not the most important--just the easiest to exploit. The New Nixon might not have learned much about strategic issues, but he's certainly a better politician.