Funding for a nuclear warhead carried by an in-development sea-launched cruise missile was written out of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s fiscal year 2024 budget request, reflecting the Biden administration’s desire to cancel the weapon.
The NNSA received $20 million in 2023 to continue development of a lower-yield sea-launched cruise missile variant of the W80-4 warhead. Congress funded the program even though the Biden administration asked to cancel it as part of the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review.
The agency now will run the play again this year as part of the 2024 budget deliberations.
That review found the missile, and its warhead, “no longer necessary” because the W76-2 low-yield, sea-launched ballistic missile was deterrent enough against a potential adversary’s limited use of lower-yield nuclear weapons.
The Biden Administration said in October 2022, during debate over the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act that a naval nuclear-tipped cruise missile “would divert resources and focus from higher [U.S. nuclear] modernization priorities.”
Still, Congress authorized continued research and development of the munition in the 2023 NDAA.
