Re: sub-launched nuclear armed cruise missiles
So we would need to:-
1) Design and build new cruise missiles.
2) Design and build new nuclear warheads for the cruise missiles.
This is somehow going to be a quick and cheap option...?
It would be a whole lot cheaper than buying and maintaining a replacement for Trident. Given the overkill principles that necessarily underlie ballistic defences, the same thing can be applied to a cruise system - that you don't have to hit any precise target, you simply have to have the ability to make a material fraction of the aggressor country's territory unliveable. That's rather hard to defend against.
Detente and deterrence are powerful and (so far) effective concepts, but they don't have to rely on high cost state, state of the art ballistic systems and MRVs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
