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Perhaps the Phillippines should use a gladius to defend themselves against the Chinese?

Yes, land based iCBMs are still necessary. You can't necessarily prevent someone from getting a superior ASW tech and if they did and could knock out our SSBN fleet then we'd be scrod without an ground based force. And the ground based force costs a tiny fraction to build and maintain than the SSBN force.

I do not know what the bomber force is supposed to do in the event of defcon 1. Loiter until the ICBMs have done their job and then, when the Chinese or Russian air defenses have been sufficiently vaporized, do follow up recon strike or strike missions?

Haw!

You've hit the ceiling on + so I can't add to the pile.

I think cutting two legs out of the nuclear triad could be dangerous.

Imagine if the Chinese could figure out a way to neutralize those submarines?
And "neutralizing" them doesn't have to mean sinking them.
Suppose the Chinese could figure out a way to jam communications between the nuclear launch HQ (wherever that might be) and the (boomer) submarines.
The US leadership could be unable to get the launch order to the US nuclear subs.

Having a triad (multiple sources from which to launch a nuclear strike) reduces the possibility of such a jamming occurrence.

And regarding an interdiction of air or land based ballistic missiles, remember that a launch by someone against those sites does not result in an instantaneous impact on them. A launch would still involve a certain amount of time (10 minutes, 20 minutes) from the time the missiles in China (or Russia) are launched to the time that they would reach their destination. That still gives leadership sufficient time to order a counter strike.

(Also, I presume that the communication method used to notify US boomer subs would NOT be the same as for notifying ground based missiles or air launched missiles. Those could/would (at least for ground based missiles) involve some sort of landline communications.)

I always know when my humor has been fully appreciated...

There are essentially two ways of contacting a boomer at sea:

1) VLF (very low frequency) electromagnetic communications to shallow-submerged subs. The wavelengths are so long it is time consuming to send a message so what they do is send a very brief coded message telling the sub to send up an aerial briefly to receive new orders

2) The subs pops up an aerial while otherwise submerged to receive flash radio messages. This is all passive, of course, so they don't emit any EM radiation to do this. There is a risk the sub's aerial may be detected by nearby enemy radar.

Since they have very sensitive passive sonar there may also be secret ways to send messages by very powerful underwater speakers. A sub leaving port after a war has started would probably have default attack orders.

Let's keep our eyes on the important stuff...

North Korea dismantling missile site

It will take at least 10 years for me to get convinced ...

They are probably scraping a worn out site ... or else moving it somewhere else ...

(I am cynical due to known patterns ... over past 68years ... of number of truthful actions on part of NK versus number of untruthful actions ... )

=
I will admit there is a certain "shock and awe" value to the report however.

Agreed. Hopeful but jaded here.

It is almost impossible to have everything done by November 2020 but Trump could argue he needs another term to finish it.

Meanwhile, in 2018 there are ZERO near approaches or harassment of USN vessels or A/C by the Iranians.....and when Hussein was Prezzy there were about 40+ a year.

Coincidence?

*************Geopolitical War Game, somewhere in the Pentagon**********

Referee: The Iranians are being very aggressive in Yemen, firing long range missiles at Riyadh and naval vessels in the Red Sea. They are establishing bases in Syria and supporting Hamas in Gaza and they are taking Americans hostage under false pretenses and have active espionage operations in the US and most European capitals. They have violated the NPT and have secretly installed thousands of high seed centrifuges in hardened bunkers. Here are you options:

A) Apologize and send them a C-17 with giant pallets of cash is the largest notes possible, Euros, Swiss francs and dollars. Oh, and don't tell the American people or the Congress this.

B) Tweet an all-caps warning not to threaten the US again