Members of Congress and former U.S. officials continue to disagree over the necessity to field a new nuclear-armed cruise missile, the Long-Range Stand-Off (LRSO) weapon, and cited Wednesday the Russian nuclear modernization program as a factor complicating U.S. strategic deterrent needs.
Subcommittee member Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) spoke at a Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the benefits of fielding a new nuclear cruise missile to be deployed on strategic bombers, including offering a clear signal of intent during a nuclear crisis, and preserving leverage over Russia and China as they develop their own advanced nuclear cruise missile programs.
“Nothing in Russia or China’s recent behavior suggests they would voluntarily give up their cruise missile capabilities if we unilaterally surrender arms,” Hoeven said. North Dakota is home to one of the U.S. bomber bases, the Minot Air Force Base.
The Air Force plans to award a contract in fiscal 2018 for nuclear cruise missiles to replace the service’s aging air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM). The new weapon, expected to cost between $20 billion and $30 billion for approximately 1,000 missiles, would be compatible with various aircraft and will carry either conventional or nuclear warheads.
Subcommittee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a vocal opponent of the program, repeated her concerns about the cruise missile’s “excessive” cost and its potential to spark a misunderstanding with adversaries.
Citing redundancy, Feinstein also said the Air Force’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM) is an existing conventional alternative to the nuclear cruise missile.
“The JASSMR and the Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missile would appear to carry out any mission that the new [LRSO] can perform, without the risk of nuclear escalation,” she said.
William Perry, former secretary of defense, testified against the cruise missile program and called for “rejecting those weapons that increase the risk of a nuclear war by accident or . . . by miscalculation.”
However, Franklin Miller, principal of The Scowcroft Group and former National Security Council senior director for defense policy and arms control, said Russia’s nuclear modernization program should instead encourage the U.S. to sustain the LRSO program. Russia is deploying two new types of intercontinental ballistic missiles, two types of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, a new class of ballistic missile submarines, and two types of dual-capable cruise missiles, according to Franklin. It is also building new heavy bombers, he said.
“The Russians are putting these systems into the field right now, whereas the programs in the [U.S.] president’s triad modernization will not even begin to enter the field until the mid-2020s,” he said.
