Defense One:
Two weeks ago, a draft of the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review was leaked to the Huffington Post. The draft reportedly calls for lowering the explosive yield on a portion of U.S. submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs, and it immediately triggered concerns that the United States will lower the nuclear threshold.
If this draft-level proposal is approved, we are unlikely to see the official U.S. rationale until the Review is released. In the meantime, a few points are worth injecting into the nascent debate. Lowering the yield on some SLBMs would be a modest force structure change, not a major departure from the United States’ approach to nuclear deterrence.
A low-yield SLBM would diversify the means of delivery for proportionate response options to limited nuclear attack. Similar to the much-maligned nuclear air-launched cruise missile, the purpose of a low-yield SLBM would be to raise the nuclear threshold of potential adversaries rather than lower it for the United States.
