Get A Leg Up/Give Up A Leg
Sep 23, 2011
Many years ago, during a debate on whether to build new bombers to carry nuclear weapons, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, former Representative Charlie Bennett of Florida, made a pointed declaration:
THE TRIAD IS NOT THE TRINITY!
By that wise pronouncement, Bennett was saying that the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons policy adopted early in the Cold War to spread the United States’ nuclear force among three legs or components was not the gospel, but rather a policy that no longer served its purpose.
The United States nuclear force is composed of three components that are described as synergistic:
--> On land, with intercontinental ballistic missiles--> At sea, with nuclear-powered submarines
--> In the air, with long-range nuclear bombers