Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), in a naval hearing last week, said an aircraft carrying a B61 bomber will be a “much reduced cost” alternative to the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile aboard a conventional submarine.
“I am not opposed to, you know, having a tactical nuclear option at sea,” Kelly said at a Senate Armed Services committee hearing to the witnesses, including Secretary of the Navy John Phelan and chief of Naval operations Admiral James Kilby. “My big concern is how it affects our conventional submarine force. We got a significant overmatch with the Chinese, and this is kind of hard for me to say, as a naval aviator, that, you know, our submarine force is probably our biggest overmatch [against the Chinese and other adversaries].”
A planned nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) would be deployed on the Virginia-class submarines and would include a variant of the W80-4 air-launched cruise missile warhead. The W80-4 is something that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is already working on.
Kelly said the U.S. conventional submarine force is “the overmatch that we currently need, and integrating SLCM-N to a Virginia-class submarine is incredibly complex.”
When Kelly asked Kilby if a conventional or nuclear conflict was more likely in the western Pacific, Kilby answered, “I think a conventional conflict is more likely, and I hope it stays that way.”
“A conventional conflict is much more likely in the western Pacific instead of a nuclear conflict,” Kelly said, asking Phelan, “So do you think fielding a submarine with a tactical nuclear weapon capability will contribute to integrated deterrence inside the first island chain and in a Taiwan scenario?”
Phelan answered, “I think a lot depends on how that conflict takes place, what exactly they do, how we respond. And you could make the argument that SLCM-N gives the President more options.”
“It’s going to be costly, and I think it’s going to cost us in our ability to execute undersea conventional warfare against the Chinese or any adversary,” Kelly added. “And there are other options. B61 was deployed aboard the aircraft carrier that I served on and many others.”
Kelly said F18 carrier aircrafts can carry B61s. “If that’s what we really want and need for deterrence, we could probably do that at a much reduced cost, and at the same time, preserve the conventional submarine force that we have today.”
This is not the first time Kelly has spoken out about SLCM-N. In March, he told the commander of the Strategic Command Gen. Anthony Cotton that he thinks adding a nuclear warhead to the nation’s submarines could be “disruptive” to the maritime program. In a hearing in May, he also expressed a “big concern” to Vice Admiral Johnny Wolfe, the strategic programs office lead, over inserting a nuclear-armed missile into the Virginia-class submarine and disrupting training for a submarine that is not in the nuclear triad.
