Trump touts strategic missile submarine power

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

President Trump on Tuesday talked about his reasons for dispatching two U.S. strategic missile submarines to locations near Russia following veiled nuclear threats from Moscow.

Mr. Trump said in remarks to a large gathering of senior generals and admirals that U.S. submarine power and stealth capabilities are 25 years ahead of Russian and Chinese missile submarines.

“We were a little bit threatened by Russia recently,” he said.

Mr. Trump said a Russian official he described as a “stupid person” working for Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned “the word ’nuclear,’” prompting the order to move “a submarine or two … over to the coast of Russia, just to be careful.”

“Because we can’t let people throw around that word. I call it the ’N-word.’ There are two N-words and you can’t use either of them,” he said, referring to nuclear weapons and a racial slur.

U.S. nuclear missile submarines are “the most lethal weapon ever made” based on their stealth and undetectability, Mr. Trump said.

“We’re 25 years ahead of Russia and China in submarines. Russia is actually second in submarines. China is third but they’re coming up. They’re way lower in nuclear [warheads] too but in five years they will be equal. They’re coming up,” he said.

The president made a rare announcement about the submarine deployment Aug. 1 on social media in response to statements from Dmitri Medvedev, a former president and now a senior security adviser to Mr. Putin.

Mr. Medvedev said days before that each of Mr. Trump’s demands seeking an end to the war in Ukraine were “a threat and a step towards war” between Russia and the U.S.

One of the boomers, as missile submarines are called, is “just lurking,” Mr. Trump said.

The president boasted that U.S. nuclear weapons are better and newer than those of Russia, which began deploying two new Borei-class nuclear missile submarines two years ago.

The United States’ Ohio-class subs are close to the end of their operational lives and are being replaced with 16 new Columbia-class missile submarines. The first Columbia submarine was slated for deployment in 2031. However, construction is delayed, according to the Navy, despite making submarine modernization a high priority.

Unlike U.S. missile submarines, Russian submarines are easily tracked. “We can detect them easily. We go right to the spot,” Mr. Trump said. “But we have genius apparatus that doesn’t allow detection at all by anybody, above water or below water. It’s incredible. We’re way ahead of everybody on this.”

The president said the Pentagon is investing tens of billions to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons.

The 14 Ohio-class boomers contain more warheads than the other two legs of the strategic triad, ground-based missiles and nuclear-capable bombers. Their Trident D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles include 981 warheads on 220 launchers.

Trump, Hegseth put senior generals and admirals on notice

One key takeaway from the mass meeting in Quantico, Virginia, of several hundred generals and admirals is that both Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump are ready to fire any and all military leaders not aligned with their America-first, peace-through-strength agenda.

The gathering Tuesday is part of an administration plan to clean out the senior military ranks of those who support programs and policies of racial and feminist preferences for promotions, gender ideology and climate change restrictions on the military.

Aside from concerns about declining physical fitness and appearance, Mr. Hegseth said the administration from Day 1 sought to remove what he termed “the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage.”

“No more identity months, [diversity, equity, inclusion] offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusions,” he said. “I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that s—-.”

Mr. Hegseth then declared: “If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign. We would thank you for your service.”

So far there have been no reported resignations.

The administration since January has fired several key military leaders, including Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman chief of naval operations; Gen. Timothy Haugh, commander of Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency; and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.

Mr. Trump, who spoke after Mr. Hegseth, began his remarks by noting the silence of the assembled senior officers, prompting some mirth.

“Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. You’re not allowed to do that,” he said bluntly. He then urged the officers to loosen up and have a good time. The commander-in-chief told the officers they could applaud if they wanted or do anything they wanted.

“And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course there goes your rank; there goes your future.”

The defense secretary said changing the name from the Defense Department to the War Department — still awaiting congressional approval — reflects the need for a military prepared for conflict.

“This is a moment of urgency, mounting urgency,” he said. “Enemies gather, threats grow. There is no time for games. We must be prepared. If we’re going to prevent and avoid war, we must prepare now.”

“Either we’re ready to win, or we are not,” Mr. Hegseth said.

The urgency requires more troops, more munitions, more drones, more submarines, more of the new B-21 strategic bombers and greater integration of artificial intelligence.

Cyber warfare capabilities need to be advanced along with boosted counter-drone and space power.

“America is the strongest, but we need to get stronger and quickly. The time is now, and the cause is urgent,” Mr. Hegseth said.

“The War Department is tackling and prioritizing all of these things,” he said.

Additional major addresses come next month when Mr. Hegseth promised to showcase what he said is the urgent need to speed innovation and enact generational acquisition reforms.

“Likewise, the nature of the threats we face in our hemisphere and in deterring China is another speech for another day coming soon,” he said.

Energy Department silent on warhead pit production

The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration is not saying whether the Los Alamos National Laboratory has met a legal requirement to produce “war reserve” plutonium pits needed to keep the U.S. nuclear warhead arsenal ready for deterrence or conflict.

Plutonium pits are the core of thermonuclear weapons.

Thousands of current warhead pits are old and many need to be replaced. Los Alamos National Laboratory is currently the sole production facility for full-scale pit production. A second plant is being built in Georgia at the NNSA Savannah River complex.

Under a 2014 defense authorization law, NNSA, which runs Los Alamos, was required to produce at least 10 “war reserve” plutonium pits in fiscal 2024; at least 20 in fiscal 2025 and at least 30 in fiscal 2026, which began Wednesday.

Asked if the legal requirement was met, an NNSA spokesman declined to specify, citing classification reasons. “Los Alamos National Laboratory is establishing the capability to manufacture at least 30 pits per year,” the spokesman said.

Greg Mello, director of the nongovernment watchdog group Los Alamos Study Group, said both the Energy Department and the Los Alamos lab have been breaking pit promises since the 1990s.

Los Alamos produced one war reserve pit from October 2023 to October 2025 and since then there have been no further announcements on war reserve pit production.

In August, Energy Deputy Secretary James Danly ordered Energy Department and NNSA officials to launch a special study on plutonium pit production, suggesting there are problems.

Mr. Mello said the pit production is running six to eight years behind schedule and won’t reach the 30 per year level until 2030 or 2031.

“We have been told that in order to meet production deadlines despite delays, NNSA may use some recertified pits for its W87-1 [warhead] program, which had been touted as the first warhead NNSA would make since the Cold War with all-new parts,” the study group said in a release.

The new W87-1 is slated for deployment on the new Sentinel silo-based long-range nuclear missiles.

Mr. Mello told Inside the Ring the war reserve pit program “needs accountability.”

“$13 billion has been spent at Los Alamos National Laboratory so far, plus $5 billion at the Savannah River Site,” he said. “Where are the pits?”

Los Alamos and NNSA told Congress 10 pits would be made last year and 20 pits this year.

“And LANL has produced — how many? We don’t know. We know they made one last year.”

The pit production problems at this point do not affect the warhead stockpile. But LANL should have something to show for the billions spent so far, Mr. Mello said.

• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.