Physicist David Wright, former co-director of the UCS Global Security Program, in his report Rethinking Land-Based Nuclear Missiles, writes that submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) are as accurate, if not more, than land-based missiles, and are "virtually undetectable," making the ICBMs not only obsolete but also sitting ducks in the five states that house ICBMs. Wright concludes that the vulnerability of ICBMs has prompted the Air Force to keep them on high alert, which is dangerous and could trigger a nuclear war. According to William Hartung, author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex, a president would have only minutes to decide whether to launch ICBMs in a crisis so that the missiles would not be destroyed in a first strike.
