Second, our improved submarine-based missiles and our advanced bombers provide more flexible and survivable offensive forces.

American officials said the adoption of this formula would compel the United States to cut back too much on its force of submarine-based ballistic missiles.

These days, when the United States and China take confidence-building measures, they deal in capers, not submarine-based missiles.

More important is the fallacy that submarine-based missiles are stabilizing, second-strike weapons.

It also builds the Stealth fighter-bomber and the submarine-based Trident missile, used to launch nuclear weapons.

In 1992, production was discontinued of submarine-based missiles using the W88 trigger, leading to the layoff of 4,500 employees at the plant.

NATO's submarine-based missiles were seen as its most potent weapon and the hardest to defend against.

But this figure counts just strategic offensive forces - bombers, land and submarine-based ballistic missiles.

Boiled down, the message was that the last of the guidance systems had been removed from the Russians" submarine-based ballistic missiles.

But Washington would maintain more than 1,700 warheads - also mounted in clusters - on submarine-based missiles, far more than Russia has.