Former government officials suggested Mondayy the Donald Trump administration could reach for either the retired W84 warhead or the workhorse W80 if it wants a nuclear-tipped missile after walking away from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Trump announced Saturday — and reaffirmed Monday — his administration would cease complying with the 1987 accord, which forbids the United States and Russia from testing or deploying ground-based missiles — whether conventional or nuclear — with flight ranges between 500 kilometers and 5,500 kilometers.
While Trump signaled the U.S. would start developing missiles that could operate in the treaty-prohibited range, he did not say Washington would proceed straight to a nuclear option. The Pentagon is already studying a conventionally armed INF-range missile under a directive Congress wrote into the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act.
If Trump does proceed to a nuclear option, one potential warhead is the 1980s-vintage W84 that once tipped ground-launched cruise missiles prohibited by the INF, former George W. Bush National Security Council arms control hand Frank Miller said Monday in a conference call hosted by the Washington-based Atlantic Council. Another option is the W80, a slightly older weapon used on current air-launched cruise missiles and planned for use on future such missiles, Miller said.
If either weapon were repurposed for a new INF-range missile, “there’d be a degree of, at a minimum, refurbishment, etc. that would be required” by the Department of Energy, said Jim Miller, undersecretary of defense for policy in the Barack Obama administration from 2012 to 2014, said on the call. The Millers are not related.
Trump said national security adviser John Bolton would deliver details of the U.S. plans to abandon the treaty in a private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bolton arrived in Moscow on Monday, state-controlled Russian information services said.
The Kremlin — which U.S. politicians and policymakers agree has violated the INF by testing and developing a prohibited-range missile over the past 10 years or so — said it would continue to abide by the treaty.
