Long Live The Triad Of Nuclear Weapons

Update As Of 11/26/2013

Of course, the authors of the Cato study mentioned below continue on to promote their piece as recently as 11/13/2013 in the New York Times titled “Ending Nuclear Overkill” (here).

Both authors are apparently obsessed with overkill as it appears in every title or did they choose this title for sensationalism to scare the s*** out of the reader (pardon my French).

Yes, we probably have so called nuclear overkill capacity on this globe and it might get worse see the sorry negotiations with Iran, which is about to become another nuclear power. Naivete will not help us here. Peace through strength and if necessary overkill capacity!

Trigger

Today (9/26/2013), I discovered a new paper by the Cato Institute titled “The End of Overkill? Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy”. I have read only the executive summary not the whole paper.

The authors’ main objective is summarized in the first paragraph of that summary as follows (emphasis added):

“U.S. security does not require nearly 1,600 nuclear weapons deployed on a triad of systems—bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)—to deliver them. A smaller arsenal deployed entirely on submarines would save roughly $20 billion annually while deterring attacks on the United States and its allies. A missile dyad is more politically feasible but saves less.”

What Is Wrong Here?

You do not put all your eggs in one basket, this applies to weapon systems too! Thus, to rely only on submarines as U.S. nuclear deterrence and capability is naive and dangerous. What if the enemy finds something to effectively disable all U.S. submarines?

I strongly believe that the delivery of nuclear weapons by air craft offers other benefits that can not be matched by submarines. What about tactical nuclear weapons? What about neutron bombs, which may at the critical time not be deployed on submarines. Air crafts can easily be reassigned, reloaded etc. probably much more easily than submarines.

Whether a further reduction of nuclear weapons makes any sense in a world where we have to contend with more than rather with less nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future is questionable.

Conclusion

I am certainly not dogmatic about the triad, but these authors missed the point by a wide margin.