By Frank Gaffney Jr. ——Bio and Archives--November 12, 2013
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“The problem with Minimum Deterrence is not only that it rests on false, implausible or self-contradictory claims. More important is the fact that its recommended deep force reductions, no “new” U.S. nuclear capabilities, and application of U.S. nuclear deterrence only to opponents’ nuclear threats…would likely undermine the U.S. capacity to deter opponents and assure allies.”The fraudulent nature of Mr. Obama’s assurances about our security, in light of the deep reductions he is making in our arsenal, is further compounded by an unhappy fact: Whatever will be left of it, until such time as the planet somehow becomes nuclear-free, is inexorably becoming less and less credible as a deterrent. That is the predictable result of the decades-long failure to modernize the weapons themselves, to postpone the replacement of the missiles, aircraft and submarines that deliver them and largely to ignore the aging of the deterrent’s vital industrial base and the highly skilled personnel required to operate it. Concerns about such trends were much in evidence at a second conference concerning the nuclear “Triad” held last week at the Trident submarine base at Kings Bay, Georgia. It featured remarks by a number of senior commanders, legislators and officials with current or previous responsibilities for maintaining and operating our deterrent forces. One senior officer spoke of his son flying today the very same B-52 aircraft he flew as a young pilot thirty years ago. Worse yet, he mused that, given the Pentagon’s current plans to continue to operate these aircraft until 2040 – when they are eighty-years old – his grandson may do the same. Another officer observed that the present budget will result in five of our existing fleet of fourteen Trident submarines being retired before the first replacement vessel is ready to put to sea in 2031. And even that outcome will eventuate only if there are no glitches in the latter’s development or funding – something that is unlikely in the extreme. If we are lucky, we will have ten missile subs in service, just five each in the Atlantic and Pacific, for a ten-year period. If we are not so lucky, thanks to the fact that several have to be in port at any given time, the contribution such submarines can make to deterrence will become more and more minimal. And, if not eliminated by the Obama administration (unilaterally or otherwise), our only remaining land-based intercontinental-range missiles, the Minuteman III, have been in service for four decades. In short, we are, in the words of one speaker at the Triad Conference in Georgia, “rusting to disarmament.” The American people are largely unaware of this ominous reality, let alone the fact that no other nuclear power – and certainly none of the hostile ones – is following our lead. To the contrary, the threat grows by the day. [Notably, the Chinese last week widely disseminated maps showing American cities that would be destroyed by their submarine-launched missiles with devastating effects, both at the targeted population centers and downwind.] The truth is that our nuclear-armed bombers and land-based missiles and sea-going deterrent work every day there is not a large-scale conventional or nuclear war. We cannot afford to experiment with our arsenal’s resilience and effectiveness in ways that imperil that performance. The American people expect and deserve no less, and actions that mislead them or betray that duty amount to national security fraud.
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Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is the President of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times.