The U.S. Defense Department is leaving open the possibility of developing a conventional long-range missile for deployment on submarines, despite stern congressional warnings against fielding anything that might be mistaken for a nuclear weapon during launch.
A commercial satellite image appears to have captured China's new nuclear ballistic missile submarine. The new class, known as the Jin-class or Type 094, is expected to replace the unsuccessful Xia-class (Type 092) of a single boat built in the early 1980s.
India has begun to develop a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarine to give the nation a sea-based platform for its strategic nuclear deterrent, according to a former head of the Indian navy.
Admiral William J. Fallon, the chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific, urged closer military ties with China after an uncomfortably close encounter between U.S. warships and a Chinese submarine in the Pacific last month.
A new Pentagon report to Congress carries a strong warning that China's rapidly expanding and improving submarine fleet poses a mounting military threat to the United States.
North Korea appears closer to deploying a new mobile ballistic missile that is a worrisome increase in that nation's military capacity, but American government officials stress that the weapon can not reach the continental United States.
North Korea has customised a dozen scrapped Russian submarines to launch ballistic weapons of mass destruction, giving them the capability to strike the US mainland with a nuclear warhead.
Russia faces grave environmental and terrorist threats unless donors accelerate a slow trickle of international aid for dismantling its rusting nuclear submarines, a senior official said.
The U.S. Navy's Trident submarine fleet is finding a new life as a nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine, or SSGN. They could be used for stealthy strike operations, surfacing only to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles or a squadron of Navy SEALs.
Israel has modified American-supplied cruise missiles to carry nuclear warheads on submarines, giving the Middle East's only nuclear power the ability to launch atomic weapons from land, air and beneath the sea, according to senior Bush administration and Israeli officials.