U.S. weapons for future defense to include relics

By Robert Burns

WASHINGTON

The lineup of weapons the Pentagon has picked to fit President Barack Obama's defense strategy, called "Priorities for 21st-Century Defense," features relics of the past.

They include the Air Force's B-52 bomber, whose current model entered service shortly before Obama was born. There is the even older U-2 spy plane, which began flying in 1955 and burst into the spotlight in May 1960 when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in one over the Soviet Union.

When Obama went to the Pentagon on Jan. 5 to announce his new defense strategy, he said that as the United States shifts from a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will "get rid of outdated Cold War-era systems." He was not specific.

But when the first details of the Pentagon's 2013 budget plan were announced Thursday, it was clear that some prominent remaining Cold War-era "systems" will live on.

That includes not just the B-52 and the U-2, but also the foundation of U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy: a "triad" of nuclear weapons that can be launched from land, sea and air.

That concept, credited by many for preventing nuclear conflict throughout the Cold War, is now seen by some arms control experts as the kind of outdated structure that the United States can afford to get rid of.

Some think the United States should do away with at least one leg of that "triad," perhaps the bomber role. That would save money and clear the way for larger reductions in the number of U.S. nuclear weapons - an Obama goal in line with his April 2009 pledge to seek the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The United States now has about 5,000 operational nuclear weapons, about half as many as a decade ago. They can be launched from ballistic missile submarines, from underground silos housing intercontinental ballistic missiles, and from B-52 and B-2 bombers at air bases in Louisiana, Missouri and North Dakota.

The Air Force, which provides the land and air legs of the triad, argues for preserving that Cold War-era configuration.

"It remains our conviction that as you go down (in numbers of nuclear weapons), the triad actually becomes more important," Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, told reporters Friday. "The diversity, the variety, the attributes associated with each leg of the triad reinforce each other to a greater degree."

The B-52 has been modernized many times and is now used in a variety of roles, including close-air support of troops in conflict, and it can carry missiles, bombs and mines.

The land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force dates to 1959. Ballistic missile subs, known as "boomers," were launched in 1960; the current Ohio-class fleet dates to 1981.

The administration is nearing completion of an internal review of how many nuclear weapons are required to meet today's security needs; that process will lead to decisions on whether to reshape the nuclear arsenal.

The only move the Pentagon is making on the nuclear weapons front in the 2013 budget is a proposed two-year delay in development of a new generation of submarines to replace those now equipped with Trident nuclear missiles.