Putting four hundred more warheads on U.S. submarines means the sixteen D-5/2 missiles on each of the twelve Columbia-class submarines would be totally maxed out. No more warheads could be added to the submarine force.  

In fact, at 1,536 warheads, the submarine force alone would be some forty-six warheads above the New START limits. But worse, the United States would have no breakout or surge upload hedge capability, while the Russians could build up to 200–300 percent of the U.S. force quite quickly.

Finally, in one additional clever ruse, von Hippel claims that the United States could unilaterally safely reduce our allowed warheads to 1,000, such as killing ICBMs, compared to the 1,550 now allowed under the New START Treaty.  

Well, not to put too much of a point on things, but balderdash.  

As John Harvey, a top former Office of the Secretary of Defense official and National Nuclear Security Administration official, has noted, no such reductions to 1,000 were contemplated unless at the very least done with the Russians also verifiably reducing their forces to the 1,000 level, but only if such an outcome could preserve stability. 

And under such a scenario, without ICBMs, stability cannot be preserved. A continental United States-based force of twelve submarines and sixty bombers could be taken out by destroying five soft bases—three bomber facilities and two submarine facilities. Then, an anti-submarine warfare breakthrough could put America’s remaining four to eight submarines at sea in the patrol box area or in transit, at risk. Thus, this would place the entire U.S. deterrent—all of nine to twelve (versus over five hundred today), discrete targets—at risk.  

The elimination of which would put the United States out of the nuclear deterrent business. As a number of senior U.S. nuclear officials both military and civilian have explained, how is giving a country like North Korea the potential ability to put the United States out of the nuclear business stabilizing? And given the obvious objective, every Russian and Chinese technician and scientist would devote their time to finding the new coin of the realm—an anti-submarine warfare capability able to find America’s boomers at sea.   

The late Senator John Warner said at a seminar on Capitol Hill years ago that his biggest fear as Secretary of the Navy was: what if one of our boomers did not come home? How would a president know how it happened or what adversary did the attack? ICBMs are unambiguously in the central lands of the continental United States. Any attack on those missiles cannot be surreptitious or limited. The United States will know unmistakably that an attack has occurred and from where. A retaliatory strike is assured and any adversary knows that, which means deterrence works.

Peter Huessy is President of Geo-Strategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland and for over four decades has advised on the nuclear deterrent policy of the United States, while hosting since 1983 over 1500 breakfast seminars for Congress.  

Image: Reuters