US Navy Takes Steps Towards Nuclear Armed Cruise Missiles

The US Navy’s Strategic Systems Program office (SSP), which is responsible for all of the Navy’s long range strike systems, both conventional and nuclear, announced this week that it intended to negotiate a contract with General Dynamics Missions Systems for engineering and technical services supporting fire control systems for the nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) program, reported the Defence Blog. The SLCM-N was originally conceived during the first Trump administration as part of its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review to provide an additional nuclear “option” to the president. It survived numerous attempts by the Biden Administration to kill it and now is moving towards full scale engineering development.