Cue the Terminator theme song...

One way to keep costs down is to do away with the need for a manned bomber, something the Air Force has been reluctant to do. "Nobody has showed many anything that's required a person in that airplane - nobody," Cartwright says. "I'm waiting for that argument and I haven't found it yet.

As a Marine -- albeit one who commanded the nuke-centric U.S. Strategic Command before taking his current Pentagon post -- Cartwright doesn't subscribe the dogma and doctrine of the old-timers' atomic club. "People come to me and say: `If this is one of the legs of the triad, you can't have it unmanned,'" he says. "I say: `Gee, I don't remember the last time I manned an ICBM or [sub-launched] SLBM or a cruise missile.' I'm not sure I understand that logic."

Excerpted from Time Battleland blog