The U.S. may want to “re-MIRV” its ICBMs and regain a conventional, more than 1,500 mile long-range strike weapon lost when the Air Force decommissioned its Boeing [BA] AGM-86C/D Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missiles (CALCM) in 2019, Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, the head of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), suggested on Feb. 29.
The Air Force B-52H bomber and the future Northrop Grumman [NOC] B-21 Raider are to carry the nuclear AGM-181 Long Range Standoff Weapon by RTX [RTX]. LRSO is to replace the nuclear AGM-86B ALCM, which has a W80-1 warhead that Air Force officials said can come in a lower-yield configuration. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is to provide the W80-4 warhead for LRSO.
In response to a question at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing from Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) on his top takeaways from last October’s Strategic Posture Commission report, Cotton said that the commission recommendations “validated many of the things that we’re looking in house in Strategic Command in regards to what we do with the current arsenal and stockpile.”
“I’ve memorized pages 48 and 49 of the commission’s report, which has 81 recommendations,” he said. “Of those, I have prioritized what I think should be the things we get after first. I do believe that we need to take serious consideration of uploading and re-MIRVing the ICBM and what it takes to potentially do that. Part of that report also says the importance of having a credible and effective conventional force. Part of that is looking at and ensuring that we have the right long range standoff conventional weapons that could be placed on a bomber, as an example. And then, the look at what does all legs of the triad look like in regard to capacity and how can you expand capacity, and how do you build the modernized force that has modularity where we can always keep pace, as opposed to the current system where it’s really hard to do that.”
U.S. officials have said that China has MIRVs on its ICBMs, and Russia has MIRVed ICBMs and submarine launched ballistic missiles, while the U.S. deploys MIRVs only on SLBMs.
“Uploading” some or all of the nation’s hedge nuclear warheads would move them from storage to fielded ICBMs. A Federation of American Scientists (FAS) report last October said that the U.S.-Russia New Start Treaty, due to expire in 2026, establishes a national ceiling of 1,550 deployed warheads. FAS warned that a U.S. breaking of that limit would likely cause Russia to do so as well.
LRSO may field by 2030, and Cotton has suggested that STRATCOM may want to accelerate and increase the planned Air Force buy of 1,087 LRSOs (Defense Daily, Feb. 2).
At the Feb. 29 SASC hearing, in response to a question from Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) on the B-21, Cotton said that “the limited production rate of the B-21 is the only thing I wish we could do a little quicker.”
Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante said this month that “there’s no big ramp” for the B-21 and that the limited annual production numbers would help insulate the program from congressional cuts (Defense Daily, Feb. 8).
“It would be nice to have more than 100 (B-21s)?” Cramer asked Cotton on Feb. 29.
“Yes, sir,” Cotton replied.
The future bomber force is to include 75 re-engined B-52Hs, at least 100 B-21s and possibly 145 or more of the advanced stealth bombers.