A nuclear sea-launched cruise missile will help deter nuclear aggression
By: Vic Mercado  
There is no higher security requirement than deterring a nuclear attack against the U.S. homeland or our allies and partners. Today, the United States is in the early stages of comprehensively modernizing the nuclear forces to protect the United States from such an attack. Redeveloping a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, or SLCM-N, is a vital component of our modernization plan.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. reduced the size of its nuclear stockpile by over 80 percent. This includes a more than 90 percent reduction in weapons carried by theater and tactical — or “nonstrategic†— nuclear systems. The United States retired both the warheads and the systems that carried them, including the nuclear Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missile. The TLAM-N was deployed from 1983 to 1991 on surface ships and submarines before being retired in 2010. Unfortunately, Russia and China did not follow our example regarding this class of weapons, and are instead expanding their arsenals despite repeated U.S. overtures for negotiations.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/08/05/a-nuclear-sea-launched-cruise-missile-will-help-deter-nuclear-aggression/
