The United States should eliminate one leg of the nuclear triad, namely its ICBMs, former defense secretary William Perry told reporters Thursday.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I think it should happen,” said Perry, who was defense secretary from 1994 to 1997 during the Clinton administration.

The Air Force test launches a Minuteman III ICBM in September 2010. Photo: Air Force.
The Air Force test launches a Minuteman III ICBM in September 2010. Photo: Air Force.

Tensions with Russia are propelling the United States to the brink of a nuclear arms race with Moscow on par with the Cold War era, a prospect that promises to be expensive, he said. During the next couple decades, the U.S. military plans to recapitalize its nuclear force, which includes the modernization of ICBMs and procurement of new ballistic missile submarines and bombers that can carry nuclear weapons.

But investing in all three is unnecessary, Perry argued. The nation’s nuclear-capable submarines and strategic bombers provide enough deterrence, and ICBMs can play a destabilizing role because they are more susceptible to be launched after a false alarm, he said.

In 1979, when Perry was undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, he was awoken by a 3 a.m. call from NORAD. A computer had shown 200 ICBMs on the way from the Soviet Union to the United States. Obviously, it was a false alarm, but the incident could have triggered a nuclear strike because U.S. leaders conceivably could have scrambled to launch U.S. ICBMs before they were destroyed by a Russian attack, he said.

“That’s not true with to the same extent with the bombers, and it’s not true it all with submarine forces,” said Perry, alluding to the fact that those forces would still be on the table for a counterattack even if the U.S. ICBMs were wiped out. “For that reason, I consider the ICBMs an attractive nuisance.”

ICBMs can help deter an attack, he allowed, but ballistic-capable submarine forces and bombers can provide enough deterrence without posing the same risks.

“Why in the Cold War did we build tens of thousands of [ICBMs]? It never had to do with simply maintaining deterrence, it had to do with keeping up with the Joneses,” he said, adding that the Defense Department has not broken its Cold War mentality of maintaining parity with Russia.

In an October Washington Post op-ed, Perry wrote that the Obama administration should cancel its plans to build a new nuclear-capable cruise missile.

The former defense secretary supports modernizing its submarine fleet as well as purchasing the new Long Range Strike Bomber, but procuring the latter is likely to be a problem if the Air Force allows the schedule to slip too far.

“If you can keep the schedule, then you can probably keep the cost. What causes the cost overruns are one year and two year and three year or four year [schedule] overruns where more than asked for than is reasonable by the government … or more is promised than can be delivered by the contractor,” he said. “Our system invites both kinds of errors.”

And, ultimately, Perry holds little hope that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will be able to remake the Pentagon’s acquisition process to be more efficient, he said. Carter has a wealth of experience in that area, having once held the position of the Defense Department’s top weapons buyer.

“That’s the good news,” he said. “The bad news is so did I, and I did not succeed.”

During his tenure as defense secretary, Perry found some success in his push for the adoption of commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) items, but that is one area where Carter might be able to do even more, Perry said.

He also cautioned officials from stripping away too many regulations, most of which exist to prevent fraud and abuse. “We take that for granted now,” he said. “You check other systems in the world, and they’d riddled with corruption, where billions of dollars are siphoned off defense to individual’s pockets.”