Super Sub: Why The Navy’s Next “Boomer” Is The Most Important Program In The Pentagon Budget (From Forbes)

Few Americans seem to give much thought anymore to the fact that Russia has over a thousand nuclear warheads aimed at America.  If even ten percent of those warheads ever reached these shores, it might well spell the end of the Republic.  So deterring such an attack by possessing the assured capacity to retaliate in kind is crucial to our nation’s survival.  Problem is, the Russians, the Chinese, and other countries know where our bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles are located, so they could be destroyed in a surprise attack.  Not so the Navy’s boomers — its ballistic-missile submarines that patrol silently beneath the world’s oceans, beyond the reach of a first strike.  That is America’s first and last line of defense against nuclear Armageddon, so it must be preserved.  With the existing fleet of 14 Ohio-class boomers due to begin retiring in 2027, execution of the Navy’s Ohio Replacement Program must be kept on track; any delay would result in the number of available subs drifting below the service’s stated requirement of ten operational boomers — potentially destabilizing the strategic balance.  I have written a commentary for Forbes here.