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Congress to Limit Conventional Trident Options By Elaine M. Grossman WASHINGTON — A U.S. Defense Department proposal to field a non-nuclear version of the Trident submarine-launched missile as early as next year has hit roadblocks in all four key congressional committees, forcing the Pentagon to focus increasingly on alternatives (see GSN, Sept. 18). Under the $503 million “Conventional Trident Modification” effort, defense officials have sought to install 96 non-nuclear warheads on 24 D-5 missiles throughout the submarine fleet. The remaining missiles aboard the boats would be nuclear-armed. If deployed, the conventional D-5s might be used for a mission the Pentagon terms “prompt global strike.” They would be capable of striking a small number of urgent targets — such as terrorists on the move or a rogue missile being readied for launch — anywhere around the world, according to defense officials. As it stands, only nuclear-armed missiles are available in the response times involved, which call for a weapon to reach its target within 60 minutes of a launch order, Pentagon leaders have said. Lawmakers in both the Senate and House have raised concerns that a major nuclear power like For fiscal 2008, the Senate committees overseeing defense authorization and appropriations delivered harsher blows to the conventional Trident effort than their House counterparts: — The Senate Appropriations Committee zeroed the $175 million the White House requested in fiscal 2008 funds for Trident missile modification. The panel moved $125 million into a new multiservice account for all prompt global strike efforts, dictating that the Pentagon use the funds “for engineering and development of alternatives to the conventional Trident missile program.” — House appropriators earlier carried out a similar move, shifting all funds out of the conventional Trident account and investing $100 million in the multiservice account. However, the House bill would allow some of the pooled funds to be used for developing the conventional Trident, at the defense secretary’s discretion. The panel also directed the Pentagon to submit a report to Congress on Trident modification initiatives, due Jan. 31, 2008. — The Senate Armed Services Committee, which shares defense policy oversight responsibilities with its House counterpart, also shifted prompt global strike monies from across the military into a central fund. The panel stated in June that no funds from the new account should be used for the Conventional Trident Modification “or other similar capability that could raise any nuclear ambiguity issues.” — The House Armed Services Committee cut $33 million of the $49 million the Pentagon requested for conventional Trident missile procurement in the coming year. However, the panel fully supported the Bush administration request of $126.4 million for research and development of the modified Navy weapon. This is also the only committee of the four that did not set up a new, multiservice account for prompt global strike funding (see GSN, May 12). House and Senate lawmakers are expected to meet in conference over the coming weeks to resolve the differences between their respective bills and produce compromise authorization and appropriations legislation. The conference bills would then be sent to the White House for the president’s signature. Until then, it remains uncertain whether the Pentagon will be prevented from allocating any 2008 funds on conventional Trident, as the Senate would prefer, or if instead the House will prevail with its more lenient spending allowance for the program. Defense leaders have warned that potential alternatives to the Trident missile would take longer to develop and field, leaving them without an adequate tool for rapid global attacks for years to come. The most prominent alternatives sound somewhat futuristic. They might include an Air Force concept for a Conventional Strike Missile that features a Common Aero Vehicle riding atop a long-range missile into space. The weapon would glide back into the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds to destroy its target. Air Force officials have said the weapon could be ready to field as early as 2013. The Army is developing its own alternative called Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, which would enter space aboard a two-stage rocket, separate and glide hypersonically to target, according to defense officials. If funded, initial deployments of this weapon could begin as early as 2009, its backers have said. For its part, the Navy is examining the possibility of a new, intermediate-range missile that might be launched from submarines. The Pentagon has used some fiscal 2007 funds to begin conceptual studies of the so-called Submarine-Launched Global Strike Missile, defense officials have said. It might be carried by four U.S. Navy Ohio-class submarines undergoing conversion from their nuclear weapons-carrying role to use solely in conventional missions. Some critics suggest the Pentagon would do better to develop new conventional weapons for the prompt-strike mission than to modify existing nuclear-tipped missiles, as the latter potentially opens the door to confusion over which warhead the missile is carrying. “The recent mistaken transport of six nuclear-armed cruise missiles onboard an American B-52 bomber may raise more questions among lawmakers about other possible accidents that could result from blurring the line between nuclear and non-nuclear technologies,” Travis Sharp, a policy analyst at the Council for a Livable World in Sharp was referring to a late-August incident in which a military aircraft mistakenly transported six nuclear-armed Advanced Cruise Missiles on a roughly 3 1/2 hour mission from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La. The air crew apparently was unaware that the missiles were armed with nuclear warheads and the error was only discovered hours after the B-52 arrived (see GSN, Sept. 7).
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