Conventional Weapons in Trident Submarines

Time to get a little Navy geeky on you. For the better part of the last 50 years, the US strategic nuclear force consisted of the famous "triad" of long-range bombers, land-based ICBM's in silos, and submarine launched ICBMS. The great thing about the sub-launched leg of the triad was its stealth and survivability; that were an enemy to launch a devastating counterforce strike on the US (against our missile silos and bombers), we'd have a response option. Our "boomer" (ballistic missile submarine) force is currently 14 Ohio Class boats, each with 24 Trident D-5 missile cells (with each missile capable of carrying a number of independently aimed warheads). But the boomers are getting old, and the submarine force is diligently working to replace them.

Currently, the boomer force does one thing and one thing only; it deploys boats out on patrol, where they silently wait for launch orders we hope will never come. It is an expensive but critical mission, and we must continue to invest in keeping this leg of the triad robust (though the triad itself has grown more unbalanced as the bomber force and land based forces have declined faster than the sub force).

It is time to think differently about this capability, and I see evidence that that thinking is well underway. The National Research Council has suggested that we arm our Boomer force with conventional as well as strategic nuclear weapons. Under these scenarios, the ability to have a quick strike option with the capability to target virtually anywhere in the world in under 1 hour gives us a much better ability to deal with what are known in the biz as "fleeting" targets. The big problem with such a capability is that when the boomers went to sea ONLY with nuke missiles in them, any launch detected by overhead assets would set off counterstrike alarm bells in the countries with such a capability...namely Russia and China. By placing conventional warheads on these ICBM's, we put China and Russia in the unenviable position of having to decide if they (or someone else) is being targeted with nukes or conventional weapons. Solving this notification problem is essential to fielding this world-wide quick-strike capability, and I'm glad we are moving down this path. I'd like to get to the point where we don't have anymore "the terrorist just left the compound" issues.

That said, those boomers can do even more than just launch nuclear and conventional ICBMs. We need to move forward with making these stealthy and survivable platforms into truly strategic assets. They must go to sea with a mix of nuclear and conventional weapons, in addition to being able to quickly re-seed satellites that may have been shot down AND to act as part of our missile defense shield by carrying the large missiles necessary for National Missile Defense.

The satellite re-seed capability is essential. We know the Chinese would seek to "punch our eyes out" in battle by targeting our overhead assets. Doing so though is incredibly complex and very, very expensive. Therefore, we should make the proposition dauntingly expensive for them. Put submarines to sea (and land base) with generic, software programmable satellites that can be quickly launched to cover gaps and outages caused by enemy ASAT weapons.

The re-creation of the Ohio Class follow-on as a truly strategic asset is not getting a lot of press today, but inside the Pentagon, strategists are beginning to realize the game-changing nature of this capability.