Amid rising nuclear tensions with China, the US Navy is advancing its most consequential theater nuclear weapon in decades: the sea-launched, low-yield cruise missile.
In a statement delivered this month before the US House Armed Services Committee (HASC), Vice Admiral Johnny Wolfe mentioned that the US Navy is set to make a milestone decision in Fiscal Year 2026 on the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, Nuclear (SLCM-N), aiming for delivery by 2034.
According to Wolfe’s statement, the decision marks a pivotal step in developing a survivable, flexible nuclear strike option to address regional deterrence gaps, particularly amid growing adversarial capabilities.
In his statement, he states that the SLCM-N program has already established a dedicated office and is conducting extensive technical, engineering and integration assessments across missile, fire control, warhead and submarine systems.
However, the statement notes key challenges, such as adapting a nuclear warhead to a conventionally designed cruise missile and ensuring compatibility with Virginia-class submarines, while maintaining nuclear surety and minimizing operational disruptions.
Despite those challenges, the statement says infrastructure development at Strategic Weapons Facilities is underway to support storage and handling without affecting existing Trident programs.
It stresses that continued funding and rapid workforce scaling are deemed critical to meeting the 2034 initial operational capability goal.
The statement notes that the milestone decision in FY26 will formally initiate acquisition and solidify program execution strategy, setting the stage for one of the US Navy’s most consequential nuclear modernization efforts in decades amid rising strategic competition and the need for credible deployable deterrent options in the region.
Contextualizing the impetus behind the revamped SLCM-N program, the US Department of Defense (DOD) 2024 China Military Power Report (CMPR) states that China possesses 600 operational nuclear warheads and will have over 1,000 by 2030.
The report also says China is building a nuclear triad alongside developing advanced delivery systems such as fractional orbital bombardment systems (FOBS) and low-yield warheads for regional deterrence and proportionate response.
The report points out that despite China’s no-first-use (NFU) policy, its actions indicate otherwise, saying that it might resort to nuclear weapons use if conventional attacks threaten its nuclear infrastructure or the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) regime survival, particularly in a Taiwan contingency.
It adds that the integration of conventional and nuclear capabilities, coupled with blurred thresholds for use, could complicate crisis management and escalation control.
In line with those developments, the 2023 US Strategic Posture Report states that additional US theater nuclear capabilities are needed in Europe and the Indo-Pacific to deter Russia and China, respectively. It notes that such capabilities should be deployable, survivable and offer variable yield options.
It also adds that the US president must have a range of militarily effective nuclear response options to deter or counter limited nuclear use in theater conflicts, highlighting concerns that US deterrence lacks credibility in limited nuclear escalation scenarios where strategic weapons appear disproportionate.
Delving into the SLCM-N’s capabilities, John Harvey and Rob Soofer mention in a November 2022 Atlantic Council report that it addresses a US capability gap in response to the threat of limited nuclear employment.
It also states that China has more options at the regional level, while US nuclear capabilities are not necessarily prompt, may lack survivability and may be vulnerable to adversary defenses.
Highlighting the vulnerability of the US air-based nuclear arsenal in the Pacific, Thomas Shugart III and Timothy Walton mention in a January 2025 Hudson Institute report that in a US-China war over Taiwan, most US aircraft losses would happen on the ground, as most US air bases in the Pacific lack substantial hardening against China’s long-range strike capabilities, making them vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike.
Regarding the US sea-based nuclear arsenal, Thomas Mahnken and Bryan Clark highlight in a June 2020 article for The Strategist that if an alert nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) cannot launch its missiles, fails to communicate with commanders ashore or gets destroyed, all of its missiles become unavailable simultaneously.
Mahnken and Clark stress that if only one SSBN is on patrol, its loss could mean the loss of an entire leg of a nuclear triad.
In contrast to those vulnerabilities, a February 2025 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report states that deploying the SLCM-N aboard surface vessels or nuclear attack submarines (SSN) provides greater availability and regional presence, while being forward-deployed, survivable against pre-emptive attack and capable of penetrating air and missile defenses.
Despite the SLCM-N’s advantages, David Kearn argues in a January 2025 article for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that the weapon is redundant, considering the US already has other low-yield nuclear options such as the Long-Range Standoff Missile (LRSO), the B61-12 gravity bomb and a low-yield variant of the Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).
Kearn adds that the high costs of the SLCM-N program – price-tagged at US$10 billion, but likely even more than that – could draw away funds, infrastructure and workforce from other programs, such as upgrading the Trident II D-5 SLBM and the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPM) hypersonic weapon, at a critical time.
He points out that the US industrial base is already struggling to produce conventional and nuclear munitions, with US nuclear infrastructure belatedly starting to reverse decades of neglect and underinvestment.
Given the arguments for and against the SLCM-N, particularly in the context of a possible US-China war over Taiwan, there is clear incentive to keep such a conflict below the nuclear threshold.
In a November 2024 RAND report, Edward Geist and other writers mention that to avoid nuclear escalation in a Taiwan conflict scenario, the US must pursue a strategy rooted in restraint, calibrated force employment and real-time adaptability.
Geist and others stress that objectives must be limited to denying a Chinese invasion, not threatening regime survival or China’s nuclear deterrent, both of which could provoke a first strike.
They point out that long-range strikes, while operationally essential, must be designed with escalation sensitivity, eschewing ambiguous tactics that could be misread as nuclear preemption.
Crucially, Geist and others emphasize that the US must anticipate Chinese misperceptions, recognizing that red lines are fluid and often opaque, highlighting that intelligence updates, clear signaling, and robust crisis communication channels are essential to prevent miscalculation or accidental escalation.
They also call for strategic humility – acknowledging that even minor tactical decisions may cascade into catastrophic outcomes, stressing that victory without nuclear disaster hinges not on raw power but on disciplined, perception-sensitive warfighting.
