01-08-2025
Trump's nuclear submarine statement doesn't actually change anything
US President Donald Trump says he has moved two 'Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions ' in response to threats from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of the dictator Vladimir Putin.
It's an almost completely meaningless gesture, however. The United States has 14 Ohio class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines: at least two of them will already have been ready to strike Russia before the current war of words between Medvedev and Trump began. Each boat carries up to 24 Trident II missiles, each of which generally carries four warheads – each one powerful enough to rip the guts out of a city.
For many decades now, every second of every day, around the clock, every day of every year, there have been US (and French, and British) submarines ready and in position to destroy Russia. There was no need to move any of them to achieve that.
Indeed, there would be good reasons not to do so, at least in the case of the subs already in place. A deterrent submarine on patrol is trying extremely hard not to be found: that's the whole point of putting ballistic missiles on submarines – doing so means they are all but impossible to locate, and so all but impossible to knock out in a pre-emptive strike.
A patrolling deterrent boat, therefore, moves through the water very slowly and stealthily. Changing location significantly would probably involve speeding up and becoming easier to find, which would not be a particularly good idea. The President might, of course, have ordered additional boats onto station: but the ones already on duty would be plenty. And of course, as commander-in-chief, Mr Trump could perfectly well claim to 'have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned' simply in the normal course of business.
Words matter, especially in the context of nuclear armageddon. Mr Trump's intention is no doubt to signify that he is not cowed by Medvedev's bluster. But as a practical matter, the action he says he has taken doesn't change anything very much.
