Russia has an underwater nuclear drone that can carry a 100-megaton nuclear warhead, according to a newly leaked report.
A draft of the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review noted that the weapon is part of Russia’s expanded nuclear arsenal.
“Russia is also developing at least two new intercontinental range systems, a hypersonic glide vehicle and a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo.”
A Defense Department spokesperson declined to comment until the final version of the report is released in February.
The Beacon, citing Russian television, said that the drone has a range of 6,200 miles, a top speed around 56 knots, and the capability to dive to 3,280 feet below sea level.
In the Pentagon’s review, officials say the United States needs to develop similar weapons to expand its nuclear arsenal and “enhance deterrence by denying potential adversaries any mistaken confidence that limited nuclear employment can provide a useful advantage over the United States and its allies.”
Continuing, the officials said, “For example, Russia’s belief that limited nuclear first use, potentially including low-yield weapons, can provide such an advantage is based, in part, on Moscow’s perception that its greater number and variety of non-strategic nuclear systems provide a coercive advantage in crises and at lower levels of conflict. Correcting this mistaken Russian perception is a strategic imperative.”
“If all you have is high-yield weapons to answer a low-yield attack, it’s still a nuclear attack. Answering that with a conventional weapon is likely not going to have the kind of deterrent value as saying, ‘Even if you use a low-yield weapon, we have options to respond,'” he said. “If the only options we have are to go with high-yield weapons that create a level of indiscriminate killing that the President can’t accept, then we haven’t presented him with an option with an option to respond to a nuclear attack in kind.”
“I want modernization and I want total rehabilitation,” he said in the Oval Office. “It’s got to be in tip-top shape.”