Del Toro Missed the Boat on SLCM-N and on the Submarine Force's Role

For several months Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has been waging an overt and covert campaign against SLCM-N.  His public testimony makes clear that he not only misunderstands the role of a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile in national policy but also the role of the submarine force.

Second, Del Toro and Sen Kelly suggest that sinking enemy ships is the only mission for the SSN force.  Anyone familiar with submarines knows that that is palpably false.  SSNs are tasked with intelligence gathering, supporting Special Warfare Teams, and power projection/land attack in addition to sinking enemy surface and sub-surface combatants.  (Indeed some-old school naval purists suggested decades ago that adding conventional Tomahawks to the SSN mission set detracted from “their real mission”, but the ensuing years have proven how well sub-launched TLAM’s have served the nation.)

Third, the hidden secret underlying this issue is that the non-SSBN Navy does not want nuclear weapons aboard its ships.  This was not always the case.  Throughout the Cold War U.S. carriers deployed with nuclear gravity bombs and ASW weapons; surface combatants carried a range of nuclear-tipped anti-air and ASW weapons; and SSNs carried nuclear-tipped torpedoes and the SUBROC ASW systems.  From the 1980s until the end of the Cold War surface ships and SSNs also carried nuclear tomahawks (and those nuclear Tomahawks contributed significantly to deterring Soviet nuclear attacks on our aircraft carriers). Indeed, as a junior officer I served for three years on a ship with nuclear weapons.  For half that period I served as the Communications Officer, responsible, among other duties, for the proper handling, training, and exercising of the two-man control nuclear communications material; for the other half of my tour, I “owned” two nuclear-tipped anti-submarine rockets as the ship’s ASW officer.  The additional security, personnel vetting, and command and control associated with all the Navy’s nuclear systems was part of everyday life at sea and was eminently manageable – as thousands of Cold War Navy veterans will attest.  Once the non-SSBN Navy was “denuclearized” by President George H.W. Bush, a decision which made sense given the geo-political conditions and predictions at the time, preventing the return of nuclear weapons to the fleet became an obsession for some.  When President Clinton removed the last deployed nuclear system, the TLAM-N from SSNs, he directed the Navy to make plans to redeploy it if necessary.   The Navy’s “redeployment plan” was farcical, deliberately designed in manner so that it could not be implemented; in parallel, the Navy deliberately delayed developing a fire control system to allow the analog TLAM-N to be fired from digital Virginia boats for over a decade (until President Obama’s retirement of that system made the issue moot).  While Secretary Del Toro apparently still subscribes to this prejudice, it is wrong and needs to be addressed head-on and eliminated. 

Finally, there is the question of “best military advice”.  Numerous combatant commanders have called for deploying SLCM-N.  The Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, has told the Senate on multiple occasions: “SLCM-N is a tailored option the President should have”.  The Secretary should heed the wise counsel of the CNO and the warfighters who have ultimate responsibility for preserving deterrence and winning wars.

The Congress is to be commended for having created and funded the SLCM-N program.  The Administration needs to follow the law and proceed as rapidly as possible to develop and deploy the system.  And Secretary Del Toro should stop perpetuating and propagating myths about the program and get out of the way.

Franklin C. Miller served for three decades as a senior nuclear policy and arms control official in the Pentagon and on the National Security Council staff. He is a principal at the Scowcroft Group.