The result of these upgrades is stunning. During the last years of the Cold War, a U.S. SLBM warhead had roughly a 12 percent chance of destroying a hardened Russian ICBM silo. Of the two types of U.S. submarine-launched warheads currently deployed, one has about a 90 percent likelihood of destroying such a silo and the other has a 98 percent chance. Despite such progress, the United States continues to improve the lethality of its SLBMs. These steps are unnecessary for deterrence and strongly suggest a desire for nuclear primacy. Only such a goal would justify additional upgrades to U.S. counterforce capabilities.

The Russians have 3500 nuclear warheads, but the number of silo emplacements is in the hundreds. That number is well within the range of possible destruction by submarine launched MIRV vehicles, without relying either on land-based ICBM's or cruise missiles.

(I only posted on European Tribune out of admiration for Jerome, and the rest of it is just a sad joke.)