President Joe Biden’s plans to cease development of a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile and to cancel a refresh for the B83 megaton-capable gravity bomb won’t make it through Congress, a key Republican House member predicted this week.
“The president’s budget’s talking about getting rid of the sea-launched cruise missile and some of the B83 gravity bombs, which we aren’t going to do, by the way, but just talking about it is not helpful when you’re trying to deter aggression,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), said during a webcast one-on-one with the conservative D.C.-based Hudson Institute think tank.
The Biden administration had yet to publish its nuclear posture review as of Monday, but so far, it is known to deviate from the Donald Trump administration’s posture review in a few ways.
First, the White House has proposed canceling the low-yield sea launched nuclear-tipped cruise missile, or SLCM-N. According to the Navy’s 2023 budget request, the weapon’s costs were escalating and the missile would not be available as soon as needed.
Second, the Biden posture review will freeze a pair of planned life extensions for B83 that would have kept the weapon in warm storage pending the availability of a replacement weapon with similar earth-penetrating capabilities — the B61-12, which according to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) fiscal year 2023 budget request was to enter full-scale production by June.
The NNSA for fiscal year 2023 sought no money for either the cruise missile’s warhead, a variant of the W80-4 being developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the air-launched Long Range Standoff Weapon, or for a pair of B83 alterations, ALT 753 and ALT 353.
