By Peter Huessy, Warrior Senior Nuclear Weapons Analyst
Nearly 70 years ago General Curtis LeMay, who would come to be the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force from 1960-65, told Congress when head of the US Strategic Command, he was deeply concerned about the survivability of the United States nuclear deterrent.
At the time, the US nuclear deterrent was primarily made up of US strategic bombers which ultimately numbered over 750 B52s, with the first model entering service in 1954 and the last H model delivered in 1962.
The problem was the nuclear weapons which these strategic bombers carried were stored in just 14 depots in the United States of America.
General Lemay was concerned that the Soviets, by attacking just those 14 depots, could eliminate the US nuclear deterrent by attacking not the bomber platforms, which carried the nuclear bombs, but the various bomb depots.
Remember at the time the US did not have the TRIAD insurance of solid-fueled, high alert land or sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles.
LeMay and the other senior military officers and civilian scientists thought there were two options that should be explored. One would be to put missiles on submarines at sea and the other would-be putting missiles in silos below ground.
Most experts considered both options highly improbable.
With the launch, however, of the Soviet Sputnik satellite in 1957, the US knew it had to act, especially in light of LeMay’s warning.
The US got to work.
This history confounds the popular conception that it was inter-service rivalry that led to the development of the next two legs of the nuclear triad rather than strategic necessity.
What LeMay and his colleagues were conscientiously seeking was nothing more than to nail down an assured retaliatory capability and enhance the survivability of our nuclear weapons against the formidable power of the Soviet Union.
The US Technology Feat
Remarkably, in just five years after Sputnik,* the United States industry and government together achieved two feats of technology mastery: (1) in 1960 deployed a missile small but powerful enough to be launched from a submarine, reaching nearly 2500 kilometers to their targets half way around the world; and (2) in 1962 Missouri…he first wing of what would become 1050 deployed ICBMs with an intial range of 8900 kilometers in silos at USAF bases in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Missouri.
Edward Teller convinced the Navy that 16 Polaris-type missiles, not a Jupiter derivative, could carry a one megaton warhead, but small enough to be deployed on a submarine, which was first operational in July 1960. Colonel Edward Hall similarly directed General Schriever’s Western Development Division and developed the first solid-fueled ICBMs and with an accuracy achieved through an advance in engine burnout predictability, while also funding Aerojet’s Polaris work.
The Navy warhead development was accomplished by the extraordinary work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which President Kennedy after the Berlin crisis, singled out as giving the US the technology advantage that enabled Washington to deter Khrushchev from attacking the US Army garrison in Berlin which the Kremlin had threated to do. [Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall instead.]
Minuteman’s Diplomatic Power
Similarly, the ICBM Minuteman I missiles first went on alert in October 1962, fortunately on exactly the same day as the United States discovered Soviet missiles deployed in Cuba, which could be launched at the United States and hit their targets within minutes.
President Kennedy later wrote that the new Minuteman missile was his “ace in the hole” that gave him a remarkable capability that could not be matched by the Soviet Union. By having additional military options, Kennedy was able to bring the Cuban missile crisis to a diplomatic close without breaking the barrier to the use of nuclear weapons, a point underscored by Admiral Charles Richard then Commander of the US Strategic Command in remarks in 2021 to a NDIA conference in Alabama.
Given this early history, it is puzzling that much written about US ICBMs fails to appreciate the remarkable military capability that the ICBMs bring to the United States nuclear deterrent and why the initial and subsequent deployments were strategically and politically such a benefit to the United States.
Washington deliberately decided to deploy these ICBM missiles in the heartland of the country, not as a “sponge” but as a signal to Moscow not to attack the US. The logic was airtight: the US assumption was that if the Soviets knew that to attack and take out the US ICBM force, Moscow’s leaders would have to make a very explicit decision to massively attack the heartland of the United States.
But Moscow had to know that any United States President would retaliate with whatever nuclear forces Washington had available, and that they would be so formidable as capable of destroying much of the Soviet military and war-fighting industrial capability. The United States, upon confirmation of a missile attack on the United States, could very well launch our still available ICBMs, and thus negate any benefit Moscow thought to gain from attacking first.
Thus, was born the very essence of deterrence because the United States upon confirmation of a missile attack on the United States, could very well rightfully launch our ICBMs before they were destroyed. ICBMs thus are the center of strategic diplomatic stability.
Minuteman’s Military Power
ICBMs also have formidable military capability.
First the growing accuracy of our missiles gave the US the ability to execute a strategy that could take out key military capabilities of the Soviet Union, and not solely put at risk urban populations. While the first Titan ICBMs had an average CEP of 1.5 miles, further technological advantages led to the Peacekeeper ICBM, deployed in 1986, as the center-piece of the Reagan era strategic modernization.
Second, accurate ICBMs helped the US to adopt a flexible response doctrine gradually developed by the Kennedy administration to give the US the ability to hold at risk Soviet military capabilities, as well as their industry, leadership and internal security forces, a counter force strategy that moved markedly away from the mutual assured deconstruction of cities, or the MAD doctrine of the early Cold War. ICBMs also are prompt, and thus can hold at risk targets that are time urgent and need destruction.
On the other hand, flexible response allows the US to jettison the immoral and less than credible strategy of massive retaliation against cities, especially in that population losses are hardly a deterrent to Soviet leaders. Since 1917, communist leaders, as detailed by the Black Book of Communism, often animated by Moscow’s money and weapons, have killed over 100 million of their own citizens, largely to obtain and keep power. Deterrence requires the US to hold at risk what the Russian leaders value and that is their military capability, their power, and their lives, but not necessarily their population’s held hostage.
Third, our ICBMs are not only more accurate and able to hold at risk key military targets, but also have a unique deployment mode consistent with strategic stability. For example, no matter the crisis, such as the Cuban missile crisis or the 6-Day Middle East war, the US could deploy the ICBMs on a day-to-day basis and without any operational change still deter and deal with a crisis or conventional conflict. Though at some point a US President might wish to show resolve through putting our strategic aircraft on strip alert or move mor submarines to sea, the option
of not showing any overt change in the US deterrent force is also available while preserving the full capability of the US ICBM force.
Therefore, the American President need not visibly improve the alert-rate or readiness of the force to be used, because whether day-to-day peacetime or in a conflict or in a crisis, the ICBMs remain 99% ready to fire with a Command from the President.
Fourth, the ICBMs also have an additional attribute. Fixed silos are easily counted, and therefore conducive to verified Arms Control limits and required transparency. The ICBM silos are clearly seen, giving both nations a reasonable understanding of each nation’s ICBM force level. Solid-fueled missiles such as Minuteman, also do not have to be erected and fueled prior to launch, and are thus highly survivable in fixed, underground silos, without having to be highly visible if preparing to launch.
Now it is true the Russians and the Chinese have mobile ICBMs. The US reviewed such an option but determined that the synergism between the three legs of the nuclear triad enabled each leg to be survivable on its own terms, and still give the US a collective robust retaliatory capability that an adversary could not eliminate in a preemptive first strike. Overall, from a perspective of holding at risk key adversary defense assets, having flexible response options, arms control transparency and strategic stability, ICBMs are a solid, cost-effective, and highly valued investment.
* The US deployed in 1960 the Titan I ICBM, but it was only ready once liquid fueled with a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen, and thus difficult to maintain and dangerous to operate.
By Peter Huessy is the Senior Nuclear Weapons analyst, Center for Military Modernization. Huessy is also President of Geo-Strategic Analysis, Potomac, Maryland
