UPDATE: On June 8th, USNI News reported that acting U.S. Navy is buying trouble rather than new capability. The SLCM-N project is starting small, just $15.2 million in this year’s budget compared to the billions for other nuclear programs. “more inclined to use them” and increase the risk of a nuclear war. “Arming such vessels with nuclear cruise missiles would also reduce the number of conventional missiles each boat could carry, at a time when Pentagon leaders argue that strengthening conventional deterrence is their top priority in the Asia-Pacific,” says Reif.īiden himself noted that fielding low-yield weapons as alternatives to more powerful ballistic missiles would make the U.S. Reif also notes that the nuclear capability will come at the expense of urgently needed conventional weapons. Reif describes the SLCM-N as “a costly hedge on a hedge” – an extra backup for an already extensive and growing nuclear arsenal – making it a pointless extravagance. “Reversing the Trump administration's plan to pursue a nuclear SLCM should be an easy choice,” Reif says. There is still time for the administration to change its mind in the next Nuclear Posture Review later this year, according to Kingston Reif, Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy at the Arms Control Association “The SLCM-N was truly low-hanging fruit ripe for cancellation in this year’s budget,” says Montgomery. Montgomery calls the message sent by the SLCM-N develpment “both surprising and troubling,” seeing it as potentially destabilizing, and says the Trump-era proposal should not have gone ahead under the new administration. “Doing so would erode the higher-priority conventional missions of the Navy by reducing the number of conventional missiles each boat could carry and increase the possibility of conflict escalation through miscalculation by blurring the line between conventional and nuclear cruise missiles on these vessels.” “Putting nuclear-armed missiles back on the conventional surface or attack submarine fleets of the Navy is a real cause for concern,” says Monica Montgomery, a research analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Currently, the only nuclear-armed subs are the fourteen Ohio-class ballistic missile subs, so SLCM-N on Virginia-class would more than double that at a stroke. Putting nuclear cruise missile on Virginia-class would be a quick and easy way of ramping up strategic capability. The 12 vertical-launch Tomahawk missile tubes of the USS Oklahoma City (SSN-723).
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