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The land based ICBM force has had little utility since submarine launched ballistic missiles reached maturity. SLBMs guarantee devastating retaliation if anothe

The land based ICBM force has had little utility since submarine launched ballistic missiles reached maturity. SLBMs guarantee devastating retaliation if another nation initiates nuclear war. Bomber-delivered nuclear weapons offer flexibility including last minute re-targeting or mission abort. What does the land based ICBM force offer that bombers and submarines don't? Pork for rural areas and missile contractors, according to this article. I should have figured that out on my own sooner.

gen3 6y ago
The article did mention how they are used to draw fire away from populous areas. I think that has value...
- mauvehaus 6y ago
  Perhaps, but what will all those survivors eat? Glow in the dark bread? The fact that the land is sparsely inhabited doesn't mean the densely inhabited parts of the country don't depend on it.
hddu 6y ago
How many foreign controlled nuclear weapons are currently on us soil? Why spend billions developing rockets or stealth bombers when you can just load one up on a civilian boat, land on your enemies shore, and truck it to a safehouse in your target city. Let is sit there until you need to detonate it.
- evgen 6y ago
  Given the amount of attention that has been paid to just this sort of scenario for more than two decades (along with prodigious spending on detection capability at ports) I would bet large sums that the answer to that is 0 or possibly 1. The danger of what you suggest is in getting caught, and the terribly unpleasant consequences of same; if I were in charge when some country tried that my first question would be if we knew where every family member of the leadership of that country slept...
- Nathanael_M 6y ago
  Is this just a hypothetical or is there evidence of this taking place?
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Considering the low cost and high potential reward it's a reasonable bet that all sides are either doing this or working on it. And considering how easy it is to bypass ports while smuggling drugs, the idea that port monitoring will prevent it is unconvincing. For obvious reasons, no side will announce its efforts publicly. Nor will any side announce discovery of other efforts until a hot war starts to seem like a good idea.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    The CCP's BRI is exactly this. The US has already started forcing the CCP to divest US ports because of this scenario.
i_haz_rabies 6y ago
Not to mention the entire reason to launch a first strike is to take out ICBMs. Remove ICBMs from the equation and there is almost no incentive to initiate a first strike.
- baybal2 6y ago
  No, the entire reason to fire first is to try to win a war. You will not attack first if you have no confidence in gaining even a marginal victory, or solid favourable stalemate. You don't want to weaken you enemy's reluctance to engage in attrition warfare if your objective is to win a battle, and not a war.
  - i_haz_rabies 6y ago
    You're agreeing with me. The entire purpose of a first strike is to destroy land based ICBMs so the enemy cannot retaliate and thus winning you the war. The purpose of the other two points of the nuclear triad is to make it so retaliation is always possible.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
The big advantages of land based ICBM’s over the other are as follows. With respect to bombers, they are a lot more certain. With modern anti-aircraft systems, it is uncertain how many bombers would actually make it through. With respect to SLBM, they are less prone to destruction in normal warfare. What happens if an enemy destroys a ballistic submarine? Do you go to nuclear war over that? What about two? With land based ICBMs to destroy one, you basically need to attack it with a nuclear level weapon in the middle of the country making your intentions clear. Finally, as mentioned in the article, the land based ICBMs absorb a lot of the enemy nuclear arsenal, since there are a lot of them dispersed over a wide geographic area.
- philipkglass 6y ago
  With respect to SLBM, they are less prone to destruction in normal warfare. What happens if an enemy destroys a ballistic submarine? Do you go to nuclear war over that? What about two? The only way that I see this question arising is if there were direct, open warfare with another highly capable nuclear weapons state. But if the US has gone to war with such a NWS, I think that the logic of rational deterrence has already failed on at least one side -- even if neither side has yet used nuclear arms. Outcomes after that point can't be calculated on the basis of rational cost-benefit analysis because rationality is no longer the driving force. I find the logic of mutually assured destruction sound as far as it goes. Empirically, it seems correlated with a long period free of (direct) warfare between great powers. But I fear that this mechanism is brittle. It's one accident or leadership cognitive error away from shattering.
brandmeyer 6y ago
Cost. Missile silos are by far the cheapest source of nuclear weapons for the US. That's why there are only 20 B-2 bombers, and 14 Trident submarines in service right now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- philipkglass 6y ago
  Treaty obligations limit the count of American nuclear weapons before costs do. Minuteman III ICBMs are technically capable of carrying multiple independent reentry vehicles but treaty compliance means that they all carry one warhead in practice. Trident II SLBMs are still deployed in MIRV'd configurations -- though with fewer warheads than they are technically capable of -- so in practice there are more warheads deliverable by the American submarine fleet than by its land based ICBMs. Of the 280 submarine launch tubes, only 212 were counted as deployed with as many Trident II missiles loaded. The treaty counts a missile as deployed if it is in a launch tube regardless of whether the submarine is deployed at sea. The United States has declared that it will not deploy more than 240 missiles at any time. Assuming each deployed submarine carries a full missile load, the 212 deployed missiles correspond to 10 submarines fully loaded with a total of 200 missiles. The remaining 12 deployed missiles were onboard one or two submarines loading or offloading missiles at the time the count was made. The data shows that the 212 deployed missiles carried a total of 945 warheads, or an average of 4 to 5 warheads per missile, corresponding to 70 percent of the 1,344 deployed warheads as of September 1, 2017. The New START data shows the United States now has just under 400 Minuteman III ICBMs in silos, down from 405 in March 2017. Normally the Air Force strides to have 400 deployed but one missile was undergoing maintenance. Although the number of deployed ICBMs had declined from 450 to 400, the total numbers of missiles and silos have not. The data shows the Air Force has the same number of missiles and silos as in March 2017 because 50 empty silos are “kept warm” and ready to load 50 non-deployed missiles if necessary. Reduction of deployed ICBMs started in 2016, five years after the New START was signed. And the actual ICBM force is the same size as when the treaty was signed. The 399 deployed ICBMs carried 399 W78/Mk12A or W87/Mk21 warheads. Although normally loaded with only one warhead each, the Trump NPR confirms that “a portion of the ICBM force can be uploaded” if necessary. We estimate the ICBM force has the capacity to carry a maximum of 800 warheads. "New Data Shows Detail About Final Phase of US New START Treaty Reductions" https://fas.org/blogs/security/2018/01/new-start-full-data/ https://fas.org/blogs/security/2018/01/new-start-full-data/
Aeronwen 6y ago
They provide something for other countries to aim at besides major cities.
SkittyDog 6y ago
Land-based ICBM forces can cost significantly less money to procure and maintain than an equivalent force of SLBMs or bomber-launched standoff missiles. Also, both SLBMs and bomber-launched weapons are vulnerable to tactical countermeasures. Fast-attack submarines do routinely shadow patrolling ballestic missile subs, with a credible intent of attacking and destroying the missile subs if a wartime launch appears imminent. Both bombers and air-launched standoff weapons are vulnerable to interceptor fighters and ground-based SAMs... Whereas nobody has really managed to crack the problem of successfully intercepting a mass MIRVed ICBM attack in the terminal flight phase. But the biggest issue is that we never really know whether our enemies have developed some new capability (be it technological, procedural, or intelligence-derived) that would critically compromise the effectiveness of a major weapons system. If we put all our eggs in one basket, we become more vulnerable to a catastrophic, war-losing breakdown like that.

gen3 6y ago

The article did mention how they are used to draw fire away from populous areas. I think that has value...

mauvehaus 6y ago
Perhaps, but what will all those survivors eat? Glow in the dark bread? The fact that the land is sparsely inhabited doesn't mean the densely inhabited parts of the country don't depend on it.

hddu 6y ago

How many foreign controlled nuclear weapons are currently on us soil? Why spend billions developing rockets or stealth bombers when you can just load one up on a civilian boat, land on your enemies shore, and truck it to a safehouse in your target city. Let is sit there until you need to detonate it.

evgen 6y ago
Given the amount of attention that has been paid to just this sort of scenario for more than two decades (along with prodigious spending on detection capability at ports) I would bet large sums that the answer to that is 0 or possibly 1. The danger of what you suggest is in getting caught, and the terribly unpleasant consequences of same; if I were in charge when some country tried that my first question would be if we knew where every family member of the leadership of that country slept...
Nathanael_M 6y ago
Is this just a hypothetical or is there evidence of this taking place?
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Considering the low cost and high potential reward it's a reasonable bet that all sides are either doing this or working on it. And considering how easy it is to bypass ports while smuggling drugs, the idea that port monitoring will prevent it is unconvincing. For obvious reasons, no side will announce its efforts publicly. Nor will any side announce discovery of other efforts until a hot war starts to seem like a good idea.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  The CCP's BRI is exactly this. The US has already started forcing the CCP to divest US ports because of this scenario.

i_haz_rabies 6y ago

Not to mention the entire reason to launch a first strike is to take out ICBMs. Remove ICBMs from the equation and there is almost no incentive to initiate a first strike.

baybal2 6y ago
No, the entire reason to fire first is to try to win a war. You will not attack first if you have no confidence in gaining even a marginal victory, or solid favourable stalemate. You don't want to weaken you enemy's reluctance to engage in attrition warfare if your objective is to win a battle, and not a war.
- i_haz_rabies 6y ago
  You're agreeing with me. The entire purpose of a first strike is to destroy land based ICBMs so the enemy cannot retaliate and thus winning you the war. The purpose of the other two points of the nuclear triad is to make it so retaliation is always possible.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

The big advantages of land based ICBM’s over the other are as follows. With respect to bombers, they are a lot more certain. With modern anti-aircraft systems, it is uncertain how many bombers would actually make it through. With respect to SLBM, they are less prone to destruction in normal warfare. What happens if an enemy destroys a ballistic submarine? Do you go to nuclear war over that? What about two? With land based ICBMs to destroy one, you basically need to attack it with a nuclear level weapon in the middle of the country making your intentions clear. Finally, as mentioned in the article, the land based ICBMs absorb a lot of the enemy nuclear arsenal, since there are a lot of them dispersed over a wide geographic area.

philipkglass 6y ago
With respect to SLBM, they are less prone to destruction in normal warfare. What happens if an enemy destroys a ballistic submarine? Do you go to nuclear war over that? What about two? The only way that I see this question arising is if there were direct, open warfare with another highly capable nuclear weapons state. But if the US has gone to war with such a NWS, I think that the logic of rational deterrence has already failed on at least one side -- even if neither side has yet used nuclear arms. Outcomes after that point can't be calculated on the basis of rational cost-benefit analysis because rationality is no longer the driving force. I find the logic of mutually assured destruction sound as far as it goes. Empirically, it seems correlated with a long period free of (direct) warfare between great powers. But I fear that this mechanism is brittle. It's one accident or leadership cognitive error away from shattering.

brandmeyer 6y ago

Cost. Missile silos are by far the cheapest source of nuclear weapons for the US. That's why there are only 20 B-2 bombers, and 14 Trident submarines in service right now.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
philipkglass 6y ago
Treaty obligations limit the count of American nuclear weapons before costs do. Minuteman III ICBMs are technically capable of carrying multiple independent reentry vehicles but treaty compliance means that they all carry one warhead in practice. Trident II SLBMs are still deployed in MIRV'd configurations -- though with fewer warheads than they are technically capable of -- so in practice there are more warheads deliverable by the American submarine fleet than by its land based ICBMs. Of the 280 submarine launch tubes, only 212 were counted as deployed with as many Trident II missiles loaded. The treaty counts a missile as deployed if it is in a launch tube regardless of whether the submarine is deployed at sea. The United States has declared that it will not deploy more than 240 missiles at any time. Assuming each deployed submarine carries a full missile load, the 212 deployed missiles correspond to 10 submarines fully loaded with a total of 200 missiles. The remaining 12 deployed missiles were onboard one or two submarines loading or offloading missiles at the time the count was made. The data shows that the 212 deployed missiles carried a total of 945 warheads, or an average of 4 to 5 warheads per missile, corresponding to 70 percent of the 1,344 deployed warheads as of September 1, 2017. The New START data shows the United States now has just under 400 Minuteman III ICBMs in silos, down from 405 in March 2017. Normally the Air Force strides to have 400 deployed but one missile was undergoing maintenance. Although the number of deployed ICBMs had declined from 450 to 400, the total numbers of missiles and silos have not. The data shows the Air Force has the same number of missiles and silos as in March 2017 because 50 empty silos are “kept warm” and ready to load 50 non-deployed missiles if necessary. Reduction of deployed ICBMs started in 2016, five years after the New START was signed. And the actual ICBM force is the same size as when the treaty was signed. The 399 deployed ICBMs carried 399 W78/Mk12A or W87/Mk21 warheads. Although normally loaded with only one warhead each, the Trump NPR confirms that “a portion of the ICBM force can be uploaded” if necessary. We estimate the ICBM force has the capacity to carry a maximum of 800 warheads. "New Data Shows Detail About Final Phase of US New START Treaty Reductions" https://fas.org/blogs/security/2018/01/new-start-full-data/ https://fas.org/blogs/security/2018/01/new-start-full-data/

Aeronwen 6y ago

They provide something for other countries to aim at besides major cities.

SkittyDog 6y ago

Land-based ICBM forces can cost significantly less money to procure and maintain than an equivalent force of SLBMs or bomber-launched standoff missiles. Also, both SLBMs and bomber-launched weapons are vulnerable to tactical countermeasures. Fast-attack submarines do routinely shadow patrolling ballestic missile subs, with a credible intent of attacking and destroying the missile subs if a wartime launch appears imminent. Both bombers and air-launched standoff weapons are vulnerable to interceptor fighters and ground-based SAMs... Whereas nobody has really managed to crack the problem of successfully intercepting a mass MIRVed ICBM attack in the terminal flight phase. But the biggest issue is that we never really know whether our enemies have developed some new capability (be it technological, procedural, or intelligence-derived) that would critically compromise the effectiveness of a major weapons system. If we put all our eggs in one basket, we become more vulnerable to a catastrophic, war-losing breakdown like that.