With the recent news that the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program is expected to experience a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which means program costs are expected to increase by at least 15 percent, many in the arms control community are calling for termination of the program and the elimination of the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad. Such a decision would be a mistake. Let me explain.
With the Minuteman III ICBM fleet now 50 years old and 35 years beyond its planned service life, there is no option but to build a new ICBM. Although Northrup Grumman, the prime contractor on the Sentinel program, made a good faith effort to estimate the cost of building a new missile and retrofitting Minuteman III launch control centers and launch facilities with the new hardware required for the new missile, no company has engaged in this kind of activity in five decades.
Thus, in many respects, any estimate of costs can be no more than a ballpark estimate at best. Think about it. Have you ever tried to do a home improvement project for the very first time and it went exactly as you planned—without a hitch? Of course not. What about those home improvement shows where the contractor always finds something hidden behind the drywall that sends the remodel cost way up? Doing something once every 50 years with a workforce that has zero experience with such a project is a recipe for cost overruns.
This is the choice the nation made and must live with. It is hypocritical of arms control advocates to charge that Sentinel’s cost overruns mean the program should be cancelled. If they applied that same logic to all government programs, we would also kill Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and student loans. In fact, we would kill just about every federal program ever funded. Almost all estimates of government programs are wrong—and wildly wrong.
Instead, we must deal with a reality that leaves the United States little choice but to move forward because the strategic environment is rapidly deteriorating, and no amount of optimism and idealism will change that fact. It is time reality overrides aspirations.
The facts are simple. Russia already has a superior arsenal to the United States and maintains a capacity to produce about 1,000 new nuclear weapons every year. And with Russia no longer bound by the New START treaty, Vladimir Putin can double or triple the size of his nuclear arsenal before the end of the decade. He already maintains at least a 10-to-1 advantage in theater nuclear weapons.
China’s nuclear breakout also caught the United States on its heals. The DF-41 ICBM, for example, carries multiple reentry vehicles and is expected to fill the 300 new ICBM silos discovered in 2021. DF-41s filling those new silos could alone exceed the size of the entire American nuclear arsenal.
That says nothing of the new submarine-launched ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, and tactical nuclear weapons China is deploying. To deter such capabilities America requires a secure and reliable nuclear deterrent, which must include the Sentinel.
Why Does America Still Need ICBMs?
The fact that the basics of the ICBM mission have not changed much since they were first fielded may explain why some believe they are outdated. Before we commit to killing Sentinel and retiring the Minuteman, it is important to consider some of their benefits.
First, ICBMs provide an excellent deterrent to nuclear attack on the homeland. The 400 Minuteman III silos spread across the American West are invulnerable to all but a massive nuclear missile attack. Thus, their existence sets a high threshold for attacking the United States, either conventionally or with nuclear weapons. Without ICBMs, our strategic nuclear targets shrink from over 500 to about a dozen, which could all be destroyed with conventional strikes. Only ICBM silos require a nuclear strike.
Second, ICBMs cost less than the other two legs of the nuclear triad—even with cost overruns. While Sentinel will cost an estimated $130–150 billion over the next two to three decades, it is likely to prove operationally cost-effective over the long term. Remember, ICBMs are used every single day to deter the Russians and the Chinese. Our adversaries understand the power of an ICBM, which is why their nuclear forces are primarily composed of ICBMs.
Third, building a Sentinel provides the US an opportunity to consider deploying ICBMs in new and creative ways. With the United States government depending on the private sector for its space launch capability, the Sentinel also has some non-traditional missions that a common launch vehicle might provide. These include:
- The ability to deploy time critical space assets like sensors, navigation, or communications satellites in response to a contingency; and
- Closer to traditional missions are ballistic missile defense, anti-satellite kill vehicles, and conventional prompt global strike.
The benefit of such a system would be the ability to replace the top of a missile with a different payload to carry out a niche mission. At the same time, nuclear deterrence is preserved by those ICBMs still on alert.
Nuclear deterrence works by creating the fear of a massive retaliatory response. It achieves a psychological effect in the mind of an adversary. Non-traditional missions can support deterrence by taking away an adversary’s belief in his potential success in achieving some advantage.
A prompt global strike capability, for example, would also fill a niche role, if needed, allowing the US to strike targets quickly without escalating to nuclear use. Sentinel makes that possible. Given its cost, only a small number of such weapons would be feasible, and all while complicating adversary strategy.
These are just some additional uses for Sentinel, but they do not change the fundamental reason for building a new ICBM—Minuteman III is 50 years old and well past its service life. Yes, there are cost overruns, but can we really expect any less when we build something once every half-century?
Conclusion
In short, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would love for the United States to cancel the Sentinel program. We should not give them what they want.
Adam Lowther, PhD, is the Vice President of research and co-founder of the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The view’s expressed are the authors own.
I like your article, Adam. Of course, no article is perfect as one can deduct from some of the comments. You can’t address everything in an article that is referring to cost overrun and the Nunn-McCurdy breach. The bottom-line is the Sentinel program must continue! Bob
Expecting logic from the illogical, no matter how clearly the situation is explained, is simply not a great sign of intelligence. Yes, the Minuteman is more than fifty years old and needs to be replaced … and it’s going to cost a ton of money.
However, for those unalterably opposed to nuclear weapons, they don’t care.
Why are they do out dated in the first place. This more important than climate change. We wasted a lot of money in twenty years in Afghanistan. We should have just pulverized areas of Taliban strength. This program should be on continuous upgrade.
I agree with your assertion that the US needs ICBMs, and Minuteman III is long overdue for an upgrade. One aspect of our ICBM force you failed to mention is its time-urgent, hard-target kill capability; i.e., because of its readiness to launch and its accuracy, our ICBM force can immediately (30 minutes or less) threaten Russian and Chinese “hardened” (buried) missile silos. This capability does NOT reside in the bomber or SLBM forces (note that while SLBMs may have the accuracy for a high probability of kill [PK] on Russian/Chinese missile silos, there are certain submarine patrol area issues that are counter to providing a time urgent, counter-silo threat at all times, depending on where an SLBM sub may be at a given time in that patrol area). Without this time urgent hard target kill capability, we end up with a dangerous asymmetry of strategic nuclear capabilities: Russian ICBMs can threaten to kill our silos but we can’t hold theirs at risk around the clock. We faced this asymmetry in the eighties until we deployed Peacekeeper ICBMs in Minuteman silos, thereby correcting the hard target kill asymmetry between US Minuteman III ICBMs and Soviet SS-18 and SS-19 ICBMs. I am sure that Putin would be ecstatic if the US were to forgo this time urgent capability in the future by not upgrading its ICBM force. Moreover, the TRIAD is a time-proven strategic deterrent, as each leg provides unique and backup capabilities in the event of an attempted simultaneous Russian or Chinese attack on US strategic forces.
Finally, I am not overly enthusiastic about your third rationale for Sentinel: i.e., its ability to be used for a niche mission (satellite launch, etc.). I have a hard time believing it would be cost effective to configure an ICBM for another mission AND launch it from an operational silo (launch our of Vandenberg or Cape Canaveral would make more sense, and in the time it would take to reconfigure an operational missile, it could be done just as effectively from one of the silos at Vandenberg, or pad-launched from Canaveral). Moreover, launching an ICBM – even on a non-nuclear mission – would create some “high pucker factor” on Russian and/or Chinese missile warning systems – a risk I doubt would be worth any perceived payoff from taking out a target with a conventionally armed ICBM.
Everything you say is valid, but I would have liked to hear you address the issue of the “nuclear sponge.”
Another article that fails to describe the fundamental problem facing the US, not enough time to modernize its nuclear forces. Back in 2016 when President Obama first initiated Nuclear Modernization (NM) it was behind schedule from the start, because the nation delayed, procrastinated and kick the can down the road until they ran out of road. All the generals and admirals involved in NM agree that NM must be completed with no margin for error or delay. I take that to mean all the existing legacy nuclear forces have an expiration date. So, those that say we need less nuclear forces or those that say we need more all miss point of the current reality, there’s not enough time to complete NM. Which means the number of exsiting US nuclear forces will probably shrink before the replacements come online. Which means deterrence will become questionable and uncertain we are in deep trouble