US Senate Cuts Funding For A Conventional Trident Missile

Photo: (Sep. 22) - A U.S. Trident 2 D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile takes off in a 1987 flight test. A Senate panel last week eliminated funding for a Pentagon study about the implications of placing conventional armaments on some D-5 missiles (U.S. Defense Department photo).

Senate Panel Again Cuts Funds for Conventional Trident Missile -- Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee last week zeroed funding for Conventional Trident Modification, a proposed Defense Department program to allow a small number of the Navy's D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles to carry a non-nuclear payload (see GSN, May 21, 2009).

For the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, the Obama administration had requested $10 million for a "global strike study" to determine "what surety, safety and ambiguity issues may exist" if nuclear weapon-carrying submarines "were outloaded with both conventional and nuclear payloads," according to a Navy budget document submitted to Capitol Hill in February.

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My Comment: This is a classic case of one side wanting a conventional weapon system that can strike an enemy target in the shortest time possible, and the other side concerned that such a weapon system could be interpreted as a nuclear attack if it should be used. For the moment the Trident missile option is dead, but with many now expecting major changes in Congress in the November elections .... anything after November will become possible.