Video Above: Pentagon to Deliver a Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile
By Kris Osborn – Warrior Maven
(Washington, D.C.) Several prominent members of Congress are raising alarm about reports that the Secretary of the Navy may cancel the nascent Nuclear Sea Launched Cruise Missile program called for in the Trump Administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.
“Reports that an Acting Secretary of the Navy would cancel a new Nuclear Sea Launched Cruise Missile after submission of the FY22 budget, and before a Nuclear Posture Review has been started — much less completed — is bewildering and short-sighted,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) said in a joint statement from the House Armed Services Committee.
The prospect that such a program might be cancelled arguably represents the very heart of growing debates about nuclear weapons modernization. A nuclear-armed sea launched cruise missile would introduce lower-yield nuclear options for commanders, something proponents argue is a needed deterrent against Russia, a country which already operates tactical nuclear weapons.
The Navy has already engineered and tested a low-yield, submarine launched ballistic missile, or SLBM, a weapon also emerging from the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. The now complete SLBM emerged as a reconfigured, low-yield variant of the Trident II D5 nuclear-armed sub-launched ballistic missile. The SLCM would be a “cruise missile” variant or option offering a low-yield attack possibility.
There have been, and continue to be, significant debates in Congress and among some at the Pentagon as to whether the introduction of new low-yield nuclear weapons could “lower the threshold” to the use of nuclear weapons and foster a mindset among some that some kind of limited nuclear exchange might be a viable option. There are two distinct schools of thought on this, one of which simply maintains that the use of any nuclear weapon, in any capacity, should be treated as a large-scale, precedent setting nuclear attack, prompting a massive retaliatory strike.
