Nuclear Weapons Essay: Rust to Obsolescence or Modernize to Credibility?
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Rust to Obsolescence or Modernize to Credibility?
By Peter Huessy, Warrior Senior Nuclear Weapons Analyst
Dr. Tara Drozdenko, with the Union of Concerned Scientists, writes June 7, 2024 in the Hill that all ICBMs should be eliminated from the US nuclear deterrent, referencing an upcoming meeting hosted by Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) and Representative John Garamendi (D-CA) who apparently seek to cut out Sentinel ICBM spending in the pending defense bill.
The essay cites many of the assumed defects of land-based missiles, and also invents a new problem that only disarmament advocates could embrace. Apparently, ICBMs are at fault for being possible Russian targets. Drozdenko is concerned that an attack on the US 400 Minuteman silos would cause a lot of fallout and nuclear radiation and kill millions of people.
However, she chooses not to apportion any accountability to the Russians that might launch nearly 1,000 warheads against the Minuteman silos, rather, it is the mere existence of the Minuteman silos that is accountable for drawing Russian missile fire. Consequently, if you remove the targets there would be no need for Russia to attack our ICBMs.
It is true that some of the 400 Minuteman missiles and their associated launch control centers are within hundreds of miles of major urban areas with 1.3 million people, including Denver and Omaha. But four other nuclear targets—the two submarine bases in Kings Bay, Georgia and Bangor, Washington and our bomber bases at Whiteman, Missouri, Minot, North Dakota and Barksdale, Louisiana, are near major population centers with 3.5 million people, all of whom also would be at risk if these five bases were destroyed with Russian nuclear warheads.
More perplexing is why not blame the people of New York and Los Angeles for also drawing nuclear strikes as their populations in the greater urban areas of these two cities are 38 million, a very attractive target. While the US deterrent policy is not to strike cities, major disarmament groups including the UCS have often advocated minimal deterrence that targets population centers (not military assets) to deter nuclear war, and the Russians and Chinese have no qualms about destroying cities as a means of deterrence.
An assessment done for the Sasakawa Foundation on the effect of just one 30 kiloton nuclear warhead denotating over Manhattan determined that 750,000 people would be killed instantly and 3 million over time. The point of the assessment with John Diamond was to call for stronger deterrence, not blame the people of the city of New York for getting attacked! But the US could move the folks of New York out of the city and not tempt Moscow.
