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The U.S. Needs a New ICBM Now

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corbe:
The U.S. Needs a New ICBM Now

By C. Robert Kehler
August 20, 2019



The United States relies on nuclear weapons to deter adversaries from attacking us and our allies and to assure allies that we will stand by our security commitments to them.  While 21st Century strategic deterrence and assurance strategies must be tailored to a larger number of independent actors and be built on a broad array of capabilities and elements of U.S. power, nuclear weapons remain foundational in all our national security calculations.  History shows that nuclear weapons provide a unique contribution to the highest U.S. national security priority, the prevention of war and attacks on the United States and allies.  As the late renowned professor Bernard Brodie observed decades ago, “We have ample reason to feel now that nuclear weapons do act critically to deter wars between the major powers, and not nuclear wars alone but any wars.”[1]

Since the early 1960s, U.S. strategic deterrence has been based on a triad of nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), long-range heavy bombers, and a supporting command, control, and communications (C3) system.  Each leg of the U.S. nuclear triad contributes uniquely to deterrence.  Submarines at sea are the most survivable, bombers are the most flexible, and ICBMs are the most responsive.  Together, the three legs of the triad provide unparallel support for deterrence; there is not a more effective way to meet our deterrence objectives.  As seven other former commanders of United States Strategic Command and I wrote in early 2017:  “The combined capabilities of the triad provide the president with the mixture of systems and weapons necessary to hold an adversary’s most valuable targets at risk, with the credibility of an assured response if needed—the essence of deterrence.”[2]

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https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/08/20/the_us_needs_a_new_icbm_now_114680.html

Cyber Liberty:
This is important, because the Russians have let slip the knowledge they are in the testing phase of a new rocket engine capable of traveling long distances at extremely low altitudes that are under the radar of the defending countries.  Gone would be the days of early detection.

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