The Pentagon's top policy official tells The Associated Press that the United States for the first time has deployed the newest addition to its nuclear arsenal — a submarine-launched weapon that the Trump administration says will make nuclear war less likely.
Congressional critics call the weapon a dangerous and unnecessary addition.
The deployment fulfills a Pentagon promise announced two years ago this month to produce and field a so-called “low yield” warhead atop a Trident ballistic missile carried aboard strategic submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific.
The stated purpose of adding this weapon is to counter Russia's nuclear war-fighting strategy.