Single Integrated Operational Plan

This article is about nuclear warfare planning. For psy-ops, see Psychological warfare.

The Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) was the United States' general plan for nuclear war from 1961 to 2003. The SIOP gave the President of the United States a range of targeting options, and described launch procedures and target sets against which nuclear weapons would be launched.[1]: 395  The plan integrated the capabilities of the nuclear triad of strategic bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), and sea-based submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). The SIOP was a highly classified document, and was one of the most secret and sensitive issues in U.S. national security policy.[2]

Montage of submerged submarine launch to the reentry of the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles of a Trident missile

The first SIOP, titled SIOP-62, was finished on 14 December 1960 and implemented on 1 July 1961 (the start of fiscal year 1962).[3]: 296  The SIOP was updated annually until February 2003, when it was replaced by Operations Plan (OPLAN) 8044.[4] Since July 2012, the US nuclear war plan has been OPLAN 8010-12, Strategic Deterrence and Force Employment.[5]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Freedman_2003 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Burr 2004
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kaplan_1983 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Kristensen 2004
  5. ^ Kristensen, Hans M. (4 April 2013). "US Nuclear War Plan Updated Amidst Nuclear Policy Review". Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved 26 June 2017.