Long-Range Stand-Off Cruise Missile is as Important for Nuclear Deterence as new Bombers, Boomers

In the dog-eat-dog, admiral-eat-general world of budget warfare in the age of sequestration, it’s easy to pit programs against each other. The Navy’s new nuclear missile submarine and the Air Force’s Long-Range Strike Bomber, for example, are both huge strategic-weapons programs with enormous bills coming due in the next decade and much debate over who should pay. Strategic Command chief Adm. Cecil Haney emphasized here this afternoon that he needs both of them — and more.

“Strategic deterrence is more than the triad platforms,” the bombers, submarines, and ICBMs, Haney said. Other aspects — from EMP-proof communications to early warning satellites are equally important — and potentially as expensive. In particular, Haney said today, “moving forward with the replacement for the Air-Launched Cruise Missile [ALCM] is just as important as having a future bomber.”

Built in the 1980s but upgraded since, the nuclear-tipped ALCM gives Air Force bombers the ability to reach out and touch a target from hundreds of miles away, instead of having to fight or sneak through enemy air defenses to drop bombs. A single B-52H can carry 20 ALCMs, arguably the sole reason that the subsonic, non-stealth bomber remains relevant to nuclear warfare half a century after it entered service. Indeed, as stealth-defeating radars and long-range anti-aircraft missiles improve further — as part of the Pentagon’s efforts to defeat what it calls “Anti-Access/Area Denial” (AD/2AD) — even the stealthy B-2 and the future Long-Range Strike Bomber may well need cruise missiles to strike the hardest targets.

“As we look at the world and as it gets more and more complicated,” with the proliferation of A2/AD, Haney said, “it’s very important to be able to have standoff capability.”

But the ALCM is getting old. Its successor would be something called the Long-Range Stand-Off (LRSO) weapon, but work on the LRSO has slowed. Though the Air Force is invested in extending the ALCM’s lifespan, but a replacement would need to be ready ca. 2030.

link.