The U.S. will abandon the nuclear cruise missile SLCM-N, the creation of which Donald Trump approved as a response to the threat from Russia
The Joe Biden administration has published three documents - National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Posture Review and Missile Defense Review - outlining its military priorities for the coming years. The administration emphasizes that Washington will maintain "a very high bar for the use of nuclear weapons".
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The United States will abandon one of its promising programs. We wrote that the U.S. Defense Department will decommission the 1.2 megaton B83-1 thermonuclear bomb because of its low capacity and high maintenance costs. Also the program to develop a sea-based nuclear cruise missile SLCM-N was abandoned.
The decision could help President Joe Biden respond to calls from fellow Democrats to reduce the nuclear arsenal without sacrificing key components of the nuclear "triad." It consists of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-capable bombers and submarine-launched nuclear weapons.
The SLCM-N program was approved in 2018 by former President Donald Trump in response to the threat from Russia. The Biden administration says there is no need for SLCM-N because there are other "the means of deterrence of limited nuclear use"
General Mark Milley stated in the spring of 2022 that there was a need for multiple variants of sea-based cruise missiles in the arsenal. A Pentagon spokesman said at the briefing that "all voices have been" heard. However, he stressed that one of the reasons for winding down the SLCM-N program is that even with full funding, the first missiles would not appear until 2035.
In conclusion, we should add that the Biden administration will keep one program that was initiated by the former president of the United States. We are talking about the project to develop the W76-2 low-yield ballistic missile for submarines. The program was launched in 2020 to address Russia's potential use of tactical nuclear weapons.
Source: Reuters