A Disturbing Meeting
Last August in my hometown of Omaha, located near Offutt Air Force base (home to US Strategic Command) a “Deterrence Symposium” was held. To hear the participants tell it, all we can do is spend billions, if not trillions more on weapons of mass destruction. This is always their refrain, give us more. It should be obvious that this is conflicted advice as many in the military chain of command go on to lucrative positions in the arms industry, as evidenced by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s previous stint at Raytheon (now called RTX).
Just Because, That’s Why
There is no explanation as to why more Chinese or Russian weapons poses any more danger to the US, when according to best estimates it only takes 400 nukes to destroy the planet. The macabre math looks like this; 100 weapons would kill about 2 billion people. This would occur with the initial blast, the deaths from radiation poison, and other medical conditions that would go untreated, as the health care infrastructure lies in ruins, and finally from starvation that would follow the inability to grow food in a nuclear winter. If 100 kills 2 billion, then 400 kills nearly all life on earth. Given the effects of famine, the actual number of missiles needed to destroy humanity is likely less than 400. Currently the world possesses way more than enough capacity to obliterate civilization.
The current level of overkill looks like this:
Country Deployed Deployed Reserve/ Military Total
Strategic Nonstrategic Nondeployed Stockpile Inventory
Russia 1710 0 2670 4380 5580
USA 1670 100 1938 3708 5044
France 280 NA 10 290 290
China 24 NA 476 500 500
UK 120 NA 105 225 225
Israel 0 NA 90 90 90
Pakistan 0 NA 170 170 170
India 0 NA 172 172 172
North Korea 0 NA 50 50 50
Totals 3804 100 5681 9585 12,121
One hopeful note is that these numbers, as awful as they are, are significantly lower than they were at the height of the Cold War. The total was over 70K in the late 1980s, as can be seen here. The point is that 70K or 12K, there are more than enough weapons to make the rubble bounce multiple times. It is all overkill.
A Feasible Alternative
The defenders of the status quo will, of course, claim that this is necessary to deter other nations from attacking the US. Yet, all we need to create nuclear deterrence is enough survivable retaliatory capacity to inflict a crushing blow upon any who would attack or seek to impose nuclear blackmail. It is my argument that submarine based missiles alone can do this at much less cost all while making us safer.
First, as to cost. It is estimated that the cost to modernize the US nuclear triad (land-based missiles, bombers, and submarine launched missiles) is estimated to cost $540 billion dollars over the next 10 years. I’ll take the overs on what the final total will be.
To replace just the bombers will cost up to $700 million per plane and at least $120+ billion. This is according to Defense One, an industry supported publication. This, of course, is money the US does not have, as the government is $31 trillion in debt already, with a looming entitlement solvency crisis around the corner. The nation is not more secure if it is totally bankrupt. We can easily dismiss the need for anachronistic delivery vehicles such as planes, they are simply not needed, and not worth the expense, in a modern era of advanced technology, that need not rely on humans being able to deliver the payloads to their intended targets. Upgrades to subs can be done much more slowly over longer periods of time to maintain their undetectability. Even with these upgrades the US saves billions.
Second, relying on land-based deterrence is positively dangerous. No one is certain if an ICBM missile will survive a direct hit in a preemptive attack. This fact drives a “use it or lose it” mentality. So, the military position is that if the US does not launch their missiles before the enemies’ missiles arrive, then they may never get to use them. This, in turn, drives a “launch on warning” policy. Consider this, if the US military really thought that missile silos could withstand a direct hit, then they would not need to contemplate a launch on warning policy. A launch on warning policy means that the President only has a few minutes to determine the fate of the planet. This is also one of the reasons why the US President possesses “sole authority” regarding the release of nuclear weapons. All of this is irresponsibly susceptible to either a mistake, a cyber-terrorist attack, or a mentally unstable US President.
If the US uses only mobile, underwater, undetected submarines, it will have all the retaliatory capacity it needs to create a nuclear deterrent. The 400 nukes I referenced above as being enough to destroy the planet, are only about 4 US subs worth of payload, and the US currently has 18 Ohio class subs capable of launching nuclear weapons.
Things Would Get Better
Having only submarine based retaliatory capacity means that the “lose it or use it” mentality evaporates. It becomes possible to wait until you are certain that enemy missiles have hit before launching a retaliatory strike (this does nothing to alter the current destructive reality of any nuclear exchange). This means that the US can revoke its dangerous “launch on warning” policy. Additionally, the US could easily then forswear a first use of nuclear weapons, which it has never done. This itself enhances global security by making other nations less leery of the only nation in history to have used nuclear weapons. On top of that, with this new safer, patient nuclear posture, the US can back away from granting the President sole authority to authorize the release of nuclear weapons. This provides an additional check and balance that makes the nation and the world more secure.
Is any of this perfect? Of course not. It still leaves in place a patently immoral policy of threatened world and civilizational destruction. The best policy would be a globally negotiated simultaneous elimination of all nuclear weapons, with stringent verification procedures. We can and should work toward this. That said, we can still engage in some real harm reduction right now by pursuing a rational policy of resetting the nuclear posture of the United States. In fact, this can be a solid first step toward a broader disarmament. If the world can reduce the number of weapons from 70K to 12K during the Cold War, which it did, then we can make this reasonable, rational plan a reality today.
So, a policy of one, submarine based nuclear deterrent leg, will make the US safer, more secure, ease global tensions and save massive amounts of money that the US desperately needs elsewhere. I encourage you to contact your federal Representatives and Senators to embrace this policy in the name of military security and fiscal responsibility.
Praise Be to God
