America’s Tactical Nuclear Stand-Down Biden wants to cancel a cruise missile that offers discriminate options.
The Biden Administration has released an unclassified review of American nuclear forces, and buried in the bureaucratic prose is a contradiction. China and Russia are amassing large, diverse nuclear arsenals, but the U.S. is nixing a tactical nuclear missile that could help deter Vladimir Putin and other rogues.
The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review says the Biden Team will cancel the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, known as SLCM-N, which is a planned smaller “tactical” nuke that could be launched from U.S. Navy ships or submarines. The cancellation isn’t a surprise. The Administration zeroed out the missile in its budget proposal this year.
But the decision is notable for failing to adapt to growing dangers. To quote from the review, China has “embarked on an ambitious expansion, modernization, and diversification of its nuclear forces and established a nascent nuclear triad.” Beijing hopes to have at least 1,000 deliverable warheads by the end of the decade, offering new options to “leverage nuclear weapons for coercive purposes.”
Russia may have an overrated conventional force, but Mr. Putin has an “active stockpile” of up to 2,000 tactical nukes. By the 2030s, the posture review notes, “the United States will, for the first time in its history, face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.” Ponder that grim reality.
The U.S. will have to improve its weapons stockpiles, missile defenses and conventional military power, and a sea-launched cruise missile is only one small part of the arsenal. But the SLCM-N would give the U.S. an effective military response that can limit destruction if an adversary uses a tactical nuke. No President should have to choose between doing nothing or nuking Moscow. If the U.S. can respond in discriminating fashion to the use of a tactical nuke, an adversary is less likely to go nuclear in the first place.
Admiral Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, who supports the missile, has put it this way: “The current situation in Ukraine and China’s nuclear trajectory convinces me a deterrence and assurance gap exists.” Critics say the mission can be handled by aircraft or a low-yield nuke on U.S. ballistic submarines, but each comes with trade-offs such as the delay of moving planes into theater. Multiple options can’t hurt in a crisis.
The good news is that Congress gets a vote. The House and Senate defense authorization bills both include money for the missile. The White House says it “strongly opposes” such funding, and one reason is that the cruise missile “would not be delivered before the 2030s.” This is an argument for speeding up the program, not killing it.
The sea missile illustrates a larger problem: The Biden Administration is talking loudly about the threat from China and Russia, but the rhetoric isn’t backed by investment in military power. As a strategy, that’s dangerous.
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