For most of us, the current lockdown is jarring and tedious. But, for our nuclear ballistic missile submarine crews, isolation is something to revel in. The more isolated these crews are, the more successful their patrols will be judged. They are very happy to avoid contact with the world.
Spread across 14 Ohio-class submarines, these crews are the linchpin of America’s nuclear deterrent force. Four or five of the submarines are on “hard-alert” patrol at any one time, ready to strike the command and control hubs of America’s two most likely nuclear adversaries, Beijing and Moscow.
But, to deter those targets effectively, America’s ballistic missile submarines must do two things: stay hidden and remain within the ideal range of their targets.
That means getting into a patrol sector and consistently avoiding detection. And, considering that these patrols tend to last more than two months, this is no easy task. It takes a lot of skill, and the stakes are high. Where our failure to avoid vulnerable family members might now lead to a personal coronavirus tragedy, a failure to remain hidden from the enemy would undermine the nation’s existential defense strategy.
After all, the linchpin of America’s sea-based nuclear deterrent strategy is not our submarines per se but the confidence of our adversaries that those submarines can destroy them with a speed and lethality exceeding their ability to destroy us.
Put simply, that means the Navy must conduct regular patrols that are hidden from Chinese and Russian aircraft, satellites, and submarines trying to find them. Considering the interest in depressed ballistic trajectories that would shorten the time from missile launch to warhead impact, these patrol sectors are likely outside the first island chain in the Western Pacific Ocean (China/North Korea targeting), beyond Ireland in the North Atlantic Ocean (Russia), and sometimes also in the Indian Ocean (Pakistan, guarding against the contingency that the military loses control of its nuclear forces).
Fortunately, our crews are very good at staying hidden, even when the prospective enemy is working hard to track them. And now, armed with a greater means to deter Russia across the range of nuclear conflict, they remain a critical ingredient in the preservation of peace. Also fortunate is the fact that the Navy and its allies’ attack submarines are far better at tracking Chinese and Russian ballistic submarines than theirs are at tracking ours. That means those nations cannot confidently rely on their sea-based deterrent forces to be able to launch their missiles in the event of a war.
So, yes, isolation is jarring for most of us. But not for the SSBN crews. They love isolation and couldn’t operate without it.
