OPINION — The U.S. has a triad of strategic nuclear weapons, air-launched from bombers, sea-launched from submarines, and land-based intercontinental missiles launched from underground silos.
There is a reason. The triad’s purpose is to deter a foreign nuclear power from attempting a first strike to wipe out this country’s nuclear capability with the most-deadly of weapons.
Does the U.S. need a triad of intermediate-range conventional and nuclear weapons? It already has thousands of conventional sea-based and air-launched cruise missiles with that range. No one is claiming three versions of such weapons, including land-based, are needed to prevent the ones the U.S. has from being used.
Instead, the only reason seems to be that the Chinese and Russians, who face each other across a common 2,600-mile border, have thousands of them.
Nonetheless, that is where the U.S. seems to be heading, with the demise of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
That Cold War treaty between Washington and Moscow required the U.S. and Russia to destroy, and not replace, land-based nuclear and conventional cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges from 300 miles to 3,500 miles. The purpose, primarily, was to eliminate that category of nuclear weapons from the European theater.
The treaty did not eliminate air-launched and sea-launched nuclear or conventional cruise missiles, nor tactical nuclear bombs or shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush unilaterally ordered all nuclear Submarine-launched Cruise Missiles (SLCMs) removed from service as part of his initiative to eliminate all U.S. tactical nuclear weapons except bombs.
In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin, faced with growing Chinese intermediate-range missiles across his border, publicly sought to end the INF Treaty unless China and other countries were included. When the U.S did not agree, Russia secretly developed such a missile which it claimed did not violate the treaty.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has developed, produced and used in combat over the past three decades almost 2,000 conventional, Tomahawk SLCMs launched from Navy submarines and warships. Most recently, they were used in Syria and Yemen according to Raytheon, the U.S. government’s prime contractor for the weapon.
The available number of U.S. conventional Tomahawk SLCMs is classified but is said to be well over 1,000. The fiscal 2018 and 2019 Pentagon budgets included funding for 180 more of the newest versions which can be ordered to change targets mid-flight.
The U.S. has also been building and employing in combat, conventional air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) for over 30 years. A variety of U.S. aircraft can deliver them with the B-52H able to carry up to 20 conventional ALCMs. They have been used recently for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though old, the current conventional ALCMs have been upgraded and are scheduled to last through 2030.
The number of nuclear ALCMs was reduced to 500 under the 2010 Moscow Treaty, but plans are underway to introduce a new version, the Long-Range Stand-Off weapon (LRSO) to carry either a nuclear or conventional warhead. The Trump administration also has plans to produce a new, nuclear SLCM.
Since the U.S. Navy and Air Force have both conventional air-launched and sea-launched intermediate-range, conventional cruise missiles, why go back to producing additional land-based ones?
That is just what the Trump administration is doing. Plans are to test in the coming months a modified version of the conventional sea-launched, Tomahawk cruise missile, to be fired from the ground. If it works, a U.S. ground-launched cruise missile on a mobile launcher could be ready for deployment 18 months later, but it could be years before a combat-ready unit would be available.
The questions remain, where to deploy and why?
South Korea has its own missiles and missile defense systems.
Japan is planning to deploy surface-to-ship missiles with a 180-mile range on Okinawa next year. It’s developing a gliding missile that could travel more than 600 miles and has plans to purchase American-made, long-range, air-launched cruise missiles that could reach inland China, North Korea, and Russia.
Australia has its own collection of short-range missiles, although it has not ruled out accepting deployment of a U.S. land-based cruise missile. However, that planned missile could not reach mainland China which is more than 4,600 miles away.
Newly sworn-in Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper told reporters August 3, that he favored deploying conventional ground-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia, but said he did not know where they would be based.
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris, while serving as the head of U.S. Pacific Command in 2018, told Congress that he estimated that intermediate-range systems made up “approximately 95 percent” of the People’s Liberation Army’s overall missile force.
Why should the U.S. spend time and money developing a new generation of similar weapons when it, Russia and China are already in a race to develop hypersonic missiles, which eventually could replace them all?
House Democrats took a step toward blocking the new land-based intermediate-range missile by cutting $96 million from the fiscal 2020 Defense Authorization Bill that the Trump administration planned to use to develop it further. The money is in the Senate version of the bill so its future for now rests with the House-Senate conference on the measure.
It’s a small item, but an arms race in intermediate-range weapons might indicate we could be in for a more dangerous race at the strategic nuclear level should the New START Treaty with Russia not be renewed before February 2021.
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