The nuclear triad consists of three different delivery systems for nuclear warheads. There are bombers, submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The US is embarking on a decade long upgrading of our nuclear arsenal. Some critics believe that the time has come to retire ICBMs.
If our early warning system signals the launch of ICBMs from Russia, our military assumes that they will arrive in the U.S. in about thirty minutes. The Pentagon will inform the President and he will meet with our top military men in the Pentagon situation room. If he is not in Washington, D.C., the nuclear football that is always with the President will be used to validate his identity to the staff gathered in the situation room.
It is assumed that the President will have about ten minutes in which to discuss retaliation before the missiles arrive. We have a fleet of ICBMs in Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. Since they are at a fixed location in silos, the Russians would definitely target them. So if our ICBMs are going to be launched, they have to be gone by the time the Russian missiles land in the U.S. The problem with the short time line is that the detection of ICBMs from Russia may be a false report. Such mistakes have been made in the past and may be made in the future. Ten minutes may not be enough time to verify that the launch warning is a mistake and a U.S. President may launch a massive attack on Russia. The detonation of even a few nuclear warheads anywhere in the world would be disastrous. The detonation of hundreds of warheads would mean the end of human civilization.
Because of concerns over hacking the electronic systems in the ICBMs, there are no communication links onboard so there is no way to cause the missiles to self-destruct in case the original launch warning turned out to be false. Of the three legs of the nuclear triad, it is the ICBMs that are most likely to cause an accident and, for this reason, former defense officials, scholars of military strategy and some members of Congress have started calling for an end to the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad.
The experts that are calling for the end of our ICBM deployment say that we can rely just fine on the other two legs of the triad. Nuclear bombers in the air will take more time to reach their targets and they can be recalled over secure communication channels if there is a mistake. Nuclear armed submarines are stationed near their targets and are virtually undetectable so they not under any deadline to launch an attack.
These are dangerous times with the relationship of the U.S. and Russia deteriorating, Russia talking about use of tactical nuclear weapons against NATO, North Korea threatening nuclear attacks and concerns about the tensions between Pakistan and India. The U.S. is getting ready to spend hundred of millions of dollars on upgrading our ICBMs. It would probably be a better idea to cancel the ICBM program entirely and use that money for something else. Our ICBMs serve no good purpose for our defense and create an unnecessary risk of a mistaken hurried response to a false enemy launch warning.
Minuteman III ICBM:
