The Briefing Room
General Category => Military/Defense News => Topic started by: rangerrebew on March 01, 2024, 03:11:09 pm
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STRATCOM Commander Affirms Need for Sea-Launched Cruise Missile-Nuclear
Posted on February 29, 2024 by Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor
By Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor
ARLINGTON, Va.—The operational commander of the nation’s nuclear arsenal has reiterated to Congress the requirement for a sea-based nuclear-tipped cruise missile.
Testifying Feb. 29 before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Air force General Anthony J. Cotton, commander, U.S. Strategic Command called for development and deployment of the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile – Nuclear (SLCM-N), a program called for in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).
Cotton called for continued modernization of the U.S. nuclear deterrent forces, including the SLCM-N.
“While our legacy systems continue to hold potential adversaries at risk, it is absolutely critical we continue at speed with the modernization of our nuclear triad, including land-based ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles], the B-21 [bomber], the B-52 [bomber], the Columbia-class submarine, the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, and LRSO [Long-Range Stand-Off weapon],” Cotton said.
The 2018 NPR called for the United States to “pursue a nuclear-armed SLCM, leveraging existing technologies to help ensure its cost effectiveness. SLCM will provide a needed non-strategic regional presence, an assured response capability. It also will provide an arms-control-compliant response to Russia’s non-compliance with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, its non-strategic nuclear arsenal, and its other destabilizing behaviors.”
https://seapowermagazine.org/stratcom-commander-affirms-need-for-sea-launched-cruise-missile-nuclear/
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The problem with missile launches from a submerged platform is that position is given away. In a strategic launch, the gloves are off and you're all in. In a lesser conflict, the thought of 'limited' nuclear war rears its head, and maintaining some uncertainty in the enemy's mind as to your position could increase survival and even cause the enemy to waste resources trying to find the launching vessel.
Mate this with an unmanned transport platform that can be used to expand the search area for the 'mother ship', and I think the transporting submarine might have better survival chances.
Will our adversaries use nuclear missiles, torpedoes, or depth charges to eliminate US Naval Forces in the event of a peer to peer conflict, or for that matter a mismatch?
It's possible, even likely, in the event of mismatched capabilities like open direct conflict w/North Korea, Iran, or other powers on the second, but still nuclear, tier--and I would not rule it out in a major powers conflict.