https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/magazine-washington-briefing/2830741/icbm-pentagon-missiles-submarines/

By Jamie McIntyre                                                                                          February 1, 2024 8:00 pm

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Whatever the cost overruns, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to prevent the program’s cancellation by certifying the missile is vital to national defense and that there are no alternatives.

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In Congress, there remains a bipartisan consensus that land-based ICBMs are a must-have part of the nuclear triad, even though they have some significant disadvantages compared to the other two legs — they can’t be recalled like bombers, and they can’t move around and hide like submarines.

But every head of the U.S. Strategic Command who has appeared before Congress in recent years has testified that the ICBM option provides important redundant capabilities, including being the most “responsive” leg, in that they can be launched in as little as seven minutes.

That fact alone sends chills through opponents of the land-based missiles.

With the location of silos impossible to keep secret, America’s nuclear missile fields are one big fat target, which would give any president who believes America is under nuclear attack only minutes to make a decision that could end life on Earth as we know it.