The Stability and Deterrence Value of ICBMs

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By Peter Huessy, President of GeoStrategic Analysis, Potomac, Maryland – Senior Warrior Maven Columnist

ICBM critics continue their attack on America’s nuclear deterrent while pushing forward a series of false narratives. Specifically, on April 21 former Secretary of Defense William Perry and Tom Collina of Ploughshares write in *Defense One*the US must eliminate the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD). Their alternative is to have US to rely solely on Ohio and Columbia class submarines and to generate bombers back to alert if required by a failure within the submarine leg of the Triad, a sharply diminished sized deterrent the US has not relied upon previously by any US administration for the entirety of the nuclear age. 

They first assume since our 450 ICBM silos are in known locations, in a crisis the Russians will be tempted to pre-emptively launch enough missile warheads to destroy the US silos and their  associated launch control centers. They then next assume that since during any crisis a Russian launch to be imminent, this compels a US President to order our ICBMs to “launch first”, even before the US is certain that an attack is underway, and thus creating grave international instability.

Third, the temptation to launch first is too grave to be reflective of US policy. Thus, in a surprising twist, former Secretary Perry now argues the US ICBM force provides no useful deterrent role since they would only be fired after an attack on the US was confirmed and all Russian missile silos would be empty. Therefore, our ICBMs would never destroy any targets of substance since US ICBMs are targeted against the Russian ICBMs which will have already been launched toward the United States. In keeping with a “no first use” policy, which is the only moral policy to have, by definition  our ICBMs aren’t useful to deter because to destroy Russian missiles in their silos the US would have to attack Russia first.

Fourth, if ICBMs cannot be used against Russian military targets, what is their purpose? Perry and Collina invent a totally new role for ICBMs that lets them argue that it safe for the US to unilaterally kill GBSD, and eventually phase out all ICBMs. Perry and Collina now claim our ICBMS are nothing but a big “sponge”, deployed to do nothing more than to absorb upwards of 1,000 incoming Russian warheads. Consequently, the US can keep the 50-year-old “cheap” MMIII ICBM “sponge” force rather than replacing it with the more capable but they claim a more expensive GBSD “sponge.”.

Apparently the intellectual gas has run out of their  previous anti-ICBM arguments and they finally acknowledged what nearly every professional assessment, including Nuclear Posture Reviews published by the past four administrations, had already concluded. Any attack on America’s ICBM force would require over 900 warheads, [using two warheads for every US ICBM related target], and the US response from our deployed submarines, alert bombers, and surviving ICBMs, would be overwhelming, and as such would make any initial Russian attack suicidal.

This admission that any massive attack against the ICBM force is suicidal, eliminates any logical assertion underpinning their previous anti-ICBM arguments. A massive Russian attack is not going to happen, crisis or no crisis.