Sinking Ship: US Undersea Nuclear Deterrent's Plunging Credibility

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Nye points out those ASBMs are useless against SSNs that can evade them by diving. He also emphasizes that SSNs are self-sufficient for months, which may be critical if US supply chains in the Pacific are threatened.

Further, in a 2024 American Affairs article , Jerry Hendrix suggests that SSNs may be considered the“first response force” during a Taiwan conflict due to those advantages. However, Hendrix points out that the post-Cold War peace dividend eroded the US submarine industrial base, resulting in the US not having enough submarines when most needed.

The situation is not much better for the US SSBN fleet, as it too suffers from a weak US submarine industrial base. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) says that as of August 2024, 14 Ohio-class SSBNs form the foundation of the US sea-based nuclear deterrent.

According to NTI, each Ohio-class SSBN has 20 missile launch tubes armed with the Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). The report also says the US Navy is replacing these older missiles with the Trident II D5LE, which has an upgraded guidance system for improved accuracy.

The report mentions that assuming the US Navy has 12 operational Ohio-class SSBNs with 20 launch tubes each and four warheads per missile, they have 960 warheads. However, it mentions that only 8-10 Ohio-class SSBNs are typically deployed at one time due to regular minor repairs, so the number of active warheads in the field may be closer to 720.

The US Navy's plan to retire Ohio-class SSBNs at approximately one per year starting in 2027 raises concerns about the credibility and survivability of the US undersea nuclear deterrent since they carry 54% of the US deployed nuclear arsenal .

Emphasizing the importance of the US SSBN fleet, Geoff Wilson and other writers mention in a February 2025 Stimson Center article that SSBNs are the cornerstone of the US“finite deterrence” doctrine, with SSBN stealth and survivability disincentivizing a first strike that would eliminate all other nuclear forces, creating strategic stability at lower cost.

Wilson and others argue that the US SSBN fleet can maintain deterrence against multiple targets at a lower cost than intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), which are less critical for deterrence than other delivery options such as bombers.

However, a smaller US SSBN fleet could undermine the credibility of the US undersea nuclear arsenal. In a June 2020 article for The Strategist, Thomas Mahnken and Bryan Clark argue that while the US sea-based nuclear arsenal is the most survivable leg of its nuclear triad, it is also the most brittle.

Mahnken and Clark argue that if an SSBN can't launch its missiles, communicate with commanders or is destroyed, all its missiles will be lost. They also highlight that losing only one SSBN on patrol could eliminate an entire leg of the nuclear triad.

Further, they point out that the lethality of the US undersea nuclear deterrent has prompted near-peer adversaries like China and Russia to enhance their anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities to target US SSBNs.

Emphasizing the potential fragility of the US undersea nuclear arsenal, they project that during the 2030s, it is probable that only one Columbia-class SSBN will be operational at any given time in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, supported by one or two vessels at sea as backup.

Despite those fragility concerns, Owen Cote Jr mentions in a January 2019 article in the peer-reviewed Bulletin of Atomic Scientists journal that SSBNs remain the most credible deterrent for the US due to their unmatched survivability and stealth.