A Conventional Future?
Written by Tom Marlowe
The performance of the Trident II D5 missile has pleased U.S. Navy officials, who have received record-setting support from the program’s contractor in the past year. Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., the manufacturer of Trident missiles for the Navy, reached a test launch milestone with the missile last summer, further demonstrating the missile’s reliability. Lockheed Martin announced 124 successful test launches of the Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) on August 26, 2008, since its first test in 1989, giving the program the largest number of successful test launches of any large ballistic missile or space launch vehicle program.
“In this recent test, Navy Strategic Systems Programs has again demonstrated the reliability and credibility of the Fleet Ballistic Missile,” said Melanie Sloane, vice president of Lockheed Martin Fleet Ballistic Missile programs, in a statement. “A long partnership combined with disciplined performance by the entire Navy and industry team in every aspect of this critical program has made each and every one of these 124 test launches a success.”
The Navy performed the tests as a means to demonstrate the reliability and the readiness of the Trident missile under guidelines established by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The tests involved converting operational missiles into inert missiles to render them harmless. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., used missile kits to convert the Trident missiles with safety devices and flight telemetry instruments. The tests last summer also served to verify the accuracy of the missile’s navigation subsystem.
The Navy’s Ohio-class fleet ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) have the capability to carry up to 24 submarine-launched ballistic missiles with multiple independently targeted warheads. The SSBN’s primary weapon, the Trident missile, was built in two versions. The first generation missile, Trident C4, has been phased out of service and replaced by the larger, longer-range—greater than 4,000 nautical miles (7,360 kilometers)—and more precise Trident II D5. The first eight submarines (SSBNs 726 to 733) were initially built to only carry the C4 missile. The first four Ohio-class (SSBNs 726 through SSBN 729) ended their strategic deterrent mission in the early 2000s when they began the conversion process into guided missile submarines (SSGNs). SSBNs 730 through 733 have been retrofitted to carry the D5 missile. SSBNs 734 to 743 were designed from the beginning to carry the D5 missile. The Trident II D5 missile is also provided to the United Kingdom, which equips the missile with U.K. warheads and deploys the missile on Vanguard-class U.K. submarines.
Life Extension Program
A life extension program is under way to extend the deployed life of the D5 missile to 2042, Lieutenant Clay Doss, Navy spokesman, told MSMF. The program will maintain the current performance characteristics over the life of the Ohio SSBN class. The D5 Life Extension (D5LE) program, first conceived in 2002, calls for the replacement of old parts in the Trident FBM with modern commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology where possible. The Navy first awarded Lockheed Martin with a $135 million contract modification on April 10, 2007, to support the D5LE program. The modification was to the original $655 million contract awarded to the company in fiscal year 2007 for production and deployment of Trident II D5 FBMs. The D5LE program extends the life of Trident II D5 missiles by about 14 years, according to estimates from the Department of Defense.
The original D5 contract called for the delivery of 425 missiles to the service with the final missiles in 2007. The modification granted that year called for another 108 extension missiles from 2011 through 2017. The Navy cites the cost of an original Trident II D5 as $30.9 million each.
Lockheed Martin received an additional contract valued at $849 million on December 20, 2007, to continue Trident support, which included an upgrade of the Trident guidance and re-entry systems. The Navy announced a modification valued at $721 million on December 1, 2008, to Lockheed Martin for further support on the Trident II D5 (as well as support to Trident I missiles).
The modification specified work that may occur on Trident II missiles to include missile body modifications, re-entry body modifications, D5 instrumentation systems and support equipment production, D5 production continuity hardware, procurement of components and re-qualification activities in support of D5 life extension requirements, critical components in support of D5 life extension requirements, field processing, engineering and operational support services, training material development and maintenance, spares and integrated logistics support, flight test analysis and range support, and safety assurance, among other activities.
Conventional Modification Program
In 2006, DoD’s Quadrennial Defense Review considered options for extending its ability to launch a prompt global strike with conventional weapons quickly and effectively. The result was a recommendation to modify nuclear Trident II D5 missiles with conventional warheads under a proposed Conventional Trident Modification (CTM) Program.
The Conventional Modification Program would yield a rapid, low-cost capability for providing conventional strike munitions, the QDR concluded. The document argued that the United States requires conventional missiles to effectively carry out its missions around the world, as the nation cannot launch nuclear missiles without an extraordinary provocation, and doing so would trigger strong reactions worldwide. DoD also felt it had a good opportunity to utilize existing contracting mechanisms and infrastructure to create conventional weapons quickly.
And so DoD requested $127 million in FY07 to begin putting conventional warheads on Trident missiles. The department estimated the total cost of such a program to be $503 million to convert an initial 24 Trident II D5 missiles, each of which would carry two conventional missiles with four kinetic warheads.
Congress rejected the proposals, however, and provided no funding for conventional Trident modifications. The Navy currently is not pursuing any modification of the TRIDENT II D5 missile to carry conventional warheads in accordance with continued congressional decisions against it, Doss confirmed.
DoD again requested $175.4 million in funds for Trident conventional modification in FY08, but Congress again refused to appropriate the money. It did allocate the funds to a defense account to study global strike alternatives and technologies under the Prompt Global Strike Program.
“The committee sees promise in CTM but is concerned over targeting doctrine and sees a need for additional effort to ensure that a conventional missile launch from a Trident submarine is not misinterpreted as a nuclear attack by other countries,” commented Representative Ellen Tauscher, chair of the House Strategic Forces subcommittee, on the funding in a speech on the House floor in May 2007.
The Navy therefore began a Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) technology refinement and demonstration project as a research and development project only to examine the conversion of nuclear missiles to close the service’s conventional munitions gap. The Navy planned a CPGS Flight experiment with a life extension test bed on a planned Trident II D5 missile flight to provide a test of communications and telemetry links for conventional missiles.
DoD, however, maintained that it could introduce measures such as advance notification and early warnings to prevent any mistake that a nuclear Trident had been launched. Defense officials felt they had struck upon a perfect means of developing a long-range conventional missile that could serve as a deterrent to terrorist groups.
National Research Council
Last August, the National Research Council issued a report that disagreed with the cautious position Congress had taken. The FY07 Defense Appropriations Act established the NRC Committee on Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability, which recommended the conversion of nuclear Trident missiles into conventional warheads as an option for prompt global strikes.
The NRC committee found credible instances where the United States would not be able to respond to an attack at all because a nuclear option would be an overreaction to the circumstances on the ground. Even in a case where a nuclear weapon were poised to launch at the United States or an ally, the committee found it preferable to attack the weapon’s ballistic missile launcher with a conventional missile rather than unleash a preemptive nuclear attack.
Of the options available for development, the NRC concluded that the CTM program offered the most effective option for striking quickly. Other systems are not capable of striking specific targets, the committee said, and CTM would reach a wider range of targets faster than the options at a more affordable price.
The ability of the U.S. military to accomplish some of its goals is severely limited because of its dependence on forward-based systems along with heavy bombers, the committee said. The systems are not able to realign themselves quickly, and any strike at a distance of 500 nautical miles or more requires more than one hour of flight time, which exceeds the desired time frame DoD would like for completing a strike.
“Conventional Trident Modification (CTM) has advantages over alternative CPGS systems in its near-term availability, low development cost, low opportunity cost, low technical risk, and minimal required changes in declared policy or doctrine. While CTM has limitations compared with other CPGS alternatives, it would be effective against many targets that current systems could not engage quickly enough, and it is the only CPGS system that could be available in the near term,” the report determined.
The committee warned that a thorough examination of policy, doctrine and operational issues would be required if Congress funded the CTM program, but that these issues were likely to be resolved easily. Those issues included the potential for accidental launch, the implications for nuclear deterrence, the impact of overflight and debris, and the implications for arms control agreements.
The NRC also recognized congressional concerns about “nuclear ambiguity,” or the fear that the launch of a conventional warhead on a known nuclear Trident could trigger a misunderstanding that nuclear missiles had been launched. While such concern is understandable, the report said, it is no reason to avoid development of the CTM program. “Nuclear ambiguity cannot be eliminated simply by avoiding a ‘legacy’ nuclear system, such as Trident,” the report stated. “The risk of a CPGS attack being misinterpreted and leading to a nuclear attack on the United States could be mitigated and managed through readily available mechanisms. The benefits of possessing a limited CPGS capability, such as that provided by CTM, outweigh the risks associated with nuclear ambiguity.”
Any missile delivery system capable of launching a conventional missile with long range and high accuracy also would be effective for nuclear weapons, the report declared, and so the question of nuclear ambiguity could linger over any such options.
Besides, the committee added, only Russia and China will have the capability to detect launches of ballistic missiles from sea-based platforms within the next five years or so. Any nation with the capability to detect the launch of such missiles would carefully weigh the significance of the attack prior to reacting to it.
“A foreign nation would be extremely unlikely to believe that the United States was starting a nuclear war with only a handful of missiles, and that nation would have every incentive, in its own interest, to determine definitively the character of the attack before responding,” the report said.
Any possibility of misunderstanding could be further reduced by open communication with nations such as Russia and China as well as allies to clearly share information on the capabilities of the CPGS system and how and when it is used. The United States could immediately notify other countries of a CPGS launch and even install monitoring systems to detect nuclear warheads, thereby assuring other nations that no launch of one had occurred.
FY09 and Beyond
The Fiscal 2009 Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, signed into law September 30, 2008, provides operating funds for DoD through March 31. But the bill itself is silent on the CPGS program, although it does authorize funds for the Navy’s procurement and modification of missiles in general.
Senate and House versions of the fiscal 2009 defense appropriations bill would have continued research and development on CTM programs, but they would not have made any commitments on further tests or conversion of missiles. DoD estimated it could convert 24 initial missiles within two years. The Obama administration now has the opportunity to evaluate the NRC report and then to continue to press Congress on support for CTM in FY10 and later years. ♦