by Kris Osborn, Warrior President

Heavier, faster, more lethal, cyber hardened and more reliable are just a few of the attributes woven into the US Air Force’s new Sentinel ICBM, a revamped weapons modernization effort slated to deliver an operational missile in the early 2030s. 

The Sentinel ICBM weapon is expected to deliver a new generation of paradigm-changing technologies capable of more precisely hitting a wider scope of targets with diverse nuclear payloads across longer ranges with greater precision. Perhaps of greatest significance, the Sentinel is being built to be more “reliable” and “resilient,” meaning it will be much more likely to survive countermeasures and missile defenses and successfully continue on its trajectory to an intended target. 

“The Sentinel has a longer range and can carry more weight,” Maj. Gen. Colin Connor, Director of ICBM Modernization, US Air Force Global Strike Command, told Warrior in a special interview. 

While the Sentinel program has been ongoing and did not “stop” due to recent design alterations, planning adjustments and budgetary challenges, the effort is progressing with great success and has expanded in scope beyond building missiles to incorporate the building of new Silos and command and control infrastructure, Connor told Warrior. 

“One of the things we've learned as we've gone through this is the original plan was to use the Miniman III Silos. One of the design changes is we're not going to use the Miniman III Silos. We're going to build new Silos. There are a variety of reasons, but the biggest one I give you is, those Silos were drilled in the 1960s. If we used them for the lifespan of Sentinel, they'd be 110 years old,” Connor explained. “We will operate a system on infrastructure that supports it because, with the Sentinel program, it is not just the missile. We're actually replacing the launch silos, the command and control facilities and the command and control lines.I mean, heck, we still use copper lines to communicate in the Minuteman system. It's time for an upgrade, right? We're going to use modern technology.”

Connor’s thinking on nuclear deterrence aligns closely within the strategic deterrence conceptual framework explored by famous scholars since the dawn of the nuclear era.  The foundation of nuclear deterrence rests upon a paradox, meaning it introduces the promise of massive, catastrophic death and destruction …. for the sole purpose of “keeping the peace.”  This concept, and the fundamental juxtaposition or irony it involves, was famously articulated during the dawn of the Nuclear Era by Yale Scholar Bernard Brodie. Brodie makes the clear, unambiguous point that, unlike the prevailing approach throughout human history, weapons in the nuclear realm will be built and deployed for the specific purpose of “NOT” being used. A weapon … to not be used .. may seem like a contradiction in terms, yet the premise is the conceptual foundation of strategic deterrence. 

“Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other useful purpose,” Bernard Brodie, The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order, 1946. 

Beyond Brodie? Using Nuclear Weapons

Connor’s discussion with Warrior also entertained the tenets central to Brodie’s later work which made the clear point that nuclear weapons were actually “used” to deter and keep peace without having to explode, in part through the assurance of a second-strike retaliatory capability. 

Brodie's later work talks about the importance of "retaliatory" assurance as a key mechanism with which to avoid war, something which likely influenced the Pentagon's creation of the undersea leg of the nuclear triad.

 “It’s critical that within the triad, we have to have that retaliatory capability or second strike capability….something which scholars have noted over time,”  Connor said. 

However, what about the possibility of nuclear weapons being developed for the specific purpose of “being used?” This is a reality Pentagon planners continue to be cognizant of, as is a very “realistic” possibility in today’s threat environment. 

“The nuclear triad, and the part that I specifically focus on, which is the land based leg of that, the intercontinental ballistic missile leg,  is used every day to deter our adversary. It's a foundation of our national security,” Connor explained. 

New Generation of ICBM Technology

Details of these technological advances are of course not available for security reasons, yet the arrival of the Sentinel is a much anticipated, high-priority Pentagon and Air Force effort intended to ensure strategic deterrence in a far more dangerous global nuclear threat environment.

The Air Force plans to deploy as many as 450 new Sentinels dispersed across Wyoming, Montana and other parts of the Western US, yet the transition from existing Minuteman III ICBMs to Sentinels will be a progressive incremental process, according to Senior US Air Force Weapons developers. The concept is to strike an optimal balance to ensure continued ICBM deterrence capability by both successfully modernizing and extending the1960s-era  Minuteman III ICBMs and shepherding the new, high-tech Sentinel into operational status in coming years. 

Connor emphasized that, despite some delays and challenges with Sentinel, there will be no “missile gap” or period during which the US is without a viable, credible ICBM deterrent, in large measure due to years of successful sustainment and modernization of the Minuteman IIIs. 

“There'll be no missile gap. We can ill afford to have a missile gap. Our nation has said this is what the triad needs. It's great American ingenuity that keeps Minuteman very viable. And as a viable weapon system, we have great airmen from across this nation that volunteer to serve that keep the Minuteman III under 20th Air Force operational day to day. Minuteman is an engineering marvel. Absolutely. No doubt about it. A couple times a year, three, four times a year, you'll see us launch a Minuteman missile out of Vandenberg Space Force Base out in California That right there shows the American ingenuity and the modernization that we've done over the last 50 years for that weapon system…. to maintain its operational readiness” Connor said.  “Minuteman is well past its lifespan and it's time to replace it with a new system….. so we're certainly not going to have Minuteman three limp along. We're going to keep it fully operational. 

“We're going to field the fully operational system. For a while, you will actually have a mixed fleet, which is going to be different, so there will be no missile gap,” Connor told Warrior. 

The incremental dismantling of Minuteman IIIs, Connor said, will provide critical sustainment parts to maintain and preserve functional Minuteman IIIs as long as may be necessary until sufficient numbers of new Sentinel ICBMs are operational. 

Earlier this year, the U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman Corporation completed a full-scale qualification static fire test of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile stage-one solid rocket motor March 6, at Northrop Grumman's facility in Promontory, Utah, according to an Air Force essay. 

Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven - Center for Military Modernization and Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.