FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force missile maintenance team removes the upper section of an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead in an undated USAF photo at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, U.S.. U.S. Air Force/Airman John Parie/Handout via REUTERS
Scot J. Paltrow, Reuters: Special Report - Nuclear strategists call for bold move: scrap ICBM arsenal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Imagine it is 3 a.m., and the president of the United States is asleep in the White House master bedroom. A military officer stationed in an office nearby retrieves an aluminum suitcase - the “football” containing the launch codes for the U.S. nuclear arsenal - and rushes to wake the commander in chief.
Early warning systems show that Russia has just launched 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at the United States, the officer informs the president. The nuclear weapons will reach U.S. targets in 30 minutes or less.
Bruce Blair, a Princeton specialist on nuclear disarmament who once served as an ICBM launch control officer, says the president would have at most 10 minutes to decide whether to fire America’s own land-based ICBMs at Russia.
“It is a case of use or lose them,” Blair says.
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WNU Editor: One of the better arguments that I have read on why the U.S. should abandon it's ICBM arsenal. I know planners and strategists have always viewed fixed ICBM sites as an essential component in America's nuclear triad .... it is also the main reason why a U.S. President has a 10 minute window to decide on whether to launch a counter-strike .... the reason being "use-it or lose-it". So why keep this leg of the triad .... with all of these risks? I am still waiting for a good answer. On a side note .... a possible solution/alternative to having fixed ICBM sites is to maybe do what both Russia and China have done in the past few years. Focus more on land-based systems that are mobile and easy to hide .... rather than fixed sites.
2 comments:
Silos are easy to kill?
In this day and age how fast can they get an airplane off the runway and far enough away to survive.
In the past given the sub ratio every boomer could have been followed. Now with robot subs?
As Wm. Brodie noted in various RAND Papers, the purpose of the Triad is to make nuclear war unwinnable, and thus improbable.
An "enemy" could sink your subs and shoot down your aircraft, with no great consequences for the winner or loser, but land based missiles, in silos or mobile, require that an "enemy" must nuke "the homeland", and vice versa.
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