Nuclear Deterrence Matters

The elites in Washington are at it again as many of the so-called smart folks oppose the Navy’s deployment of low yield re-entry vehicles on submarine launched intercontinental ballistic missiles to further deter a new Russian strategy that openly advocates early nuclear weapon use in the event they are in a losing war with NATO on the European continent. I know, lots of technical mumbo jumbo, right? Here’s the bottom line: the Russians have long sought an effective low yield nuclear capability, otherwise known as “tactical nukes” and the USA has field some also. But, many of the USA’s adversaries have come to believe that we would never use our nuclear arsenal because our current agreements have left us with large yield (think a mushroom cloud 10 times or more larger than Hiroshima) because of many thoughtless comments from recent USA national security leaders like Barack Obama and his crowd. That’s bad for nuclear deterrence. The situation with the Iranians we face in asymmetric warfare is a good lesson here: the Iranians willfully went after the USA in the Iraq war and with proxies in other areas of the Middle East for years because we made ourselves appear weak and it got worse with the Iran Nuke Deal. We were forced to kill Soleimani in order to re-establish deterrence in that arena and they still fired a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles at our bases in Iraq. This 5 kilo-ton warhead, affectionately known as the W76-2, a modified version of the Navy’s W-76, re-establishes the fact that we have an extremely accurate and rapid capability to respond to ANY adversary that decides they could get away with small nuclear attacks in any theater. Yes Russia, yes China, and yes, I’m talking to you also Iran. If you attempt such folly, we will find you and you will pay a price that you never expected to pay. Don’t do it.