If you haven't caught this yet, head over to Small Wars Journal and check out this post by the wonderfully named Neoptolemus.
There's an interesting idea teed sorta teed up here, one I'd be interested in hearing from this audience about, that of eliminating the Navy's SSBN fleet in favor of the two other legs of the triad. I've seen others discuss the possibility of a "new view" of nuclear weapons, one in which we negotiate henceforth to restrict nuclear weapons from "the commons"--that is, a nation's nuclear weapons would be stewarded within its own borders--sort of a "denuclearization" of the commons. Of course, were a nation to USE a weapon from its own geographical limits, it would likely traverse the air and space commons--but then of course, there would be bigger fish to fry than a commons violation.
Why do I find this idea interesting? Because pound for pound, I believe our fleet of SSN's to be more important to national security than our fleet of SSBN's--and the expense associated with replacing the Ohio Class could better be spent on dramatically increasing the number of SSN's--a platform I've come to believe occupies out-sized influence in a possible SE Asia scenario. Now mind, you, I'd rather build the SSBN's, SSN's and all the ships we need, and I'd like to see the resources come from a substantial re-thinking of our land power. That said--if my quixotic quest to unbalance the defense budget fails--the Navy could consider trying to get out of the SSBN business (sorry, ADM Rickover) and concentrate on conventional deterrence.
Bryan McGrath
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