By Peter Huessy, Senior Fellow, NIDS

The US land-based ICBM force is going through a transition from the current MMIII to the new Sentinel. The challenge to get this right is multifold and involves a complex operational requirement where two different systems have for some time to be on alert simultaneously even as one goes out of service and the other stands up. The scope of this has never had to be done before for any element of the US nuclear deterrent.

The new Sentinel missile has met all its flight test parameters to date. The original plan was to place Sentinel into the Minuteman silos as the old MMIII missiles were taken out. But each of the 400 Minuteman silos potentially placed different geological, environmental and technical challenges before the United States Air Force. On top of the mixed missile force having different operating and NC3 protocols.

Thus, it was decided to build new silos adjacent to or near the currently used real estate, also allowing unused missile fields in Montana and Wyoming to be available for new silos that would give the USAF some additional operational flexibility. The transition now will be more cost effective, efficient and simpler.

Some members of Congress and their allies in the nuclear abolition community think we can forgo Sentinel and just keep Minuteman. In that case, the MMIII silos and missiles currently being used would be 130 years old if kept in the force as long as Sentinel is planned to be deployed. That obviously makes no sense and cannot be done technically.

Continually relying solely on MMIII translates into a zero ICBM force down the road. And a force soon to be retired provides no diplomatic leverage in possibly securing a new arms deal. And without land based ICBMs, the US could deploy as of circa 2042 a maximum missile force of 1536 warheads, which is what a 12 submarine, 16 missile per sub, and 8 warheads per missile force would give you.

And that force would be barely above the current 1550 New START warhead force level, leaving the US with a zero hedge buildup capability, just when we are facing a two peer nuclear challenge from Russia and China. Only after 2042 could we build additional Columbia class submarines (which we should definitely do in any case). Building Sentinel gives the US a deployment option of 800-1200 warheads over today’s nuclear force and saves the military at least $270 billion if we had to substitute sea-based warheads for those aboard Minuteman in the near-term and Sentinel through 2080.

Alternatively, Sentinel makes great sense. The new missiles and silos will last until 2080 which translates into an annual RDT&E and Procurement cost of roughly $2.9 billion which is only some .3% of the currently planned FY2026 defense budget. And a new digital technology system could also probably save from 25%-33% of the current annual operational costs of the Minuteman III, which translates over the lifetime of the force a savings of upwards of $16 billion in today’s dollars.

The JROC process or joint requirements work confirmed the land-based ICBM force remains critical to US deterrent requirements. The land-based ICBM force is upwards of 99% on alert, which implies without land-based ICBMs the United States would need to acquire a much larger submarine force as a substitute as the submarine force is 33%-50% less on alert than that of our land based ICBMs.

New silos will also allow the USAF to pace the construction at whatever is most optimum without having to be paced by the extent to which MMIII silos can be refurbished to make them available for the new Sentinel. Including speeding up the military construction process to build the new infrastructure at more than one of the three ICBM bases. This added flexibility allows the USAF to take into account new wind farms, snow melt patterns and other encroachments where the new silos could be located.

The full fidelity for the costs of the Sentinel system savings available compared to the previous program of record will be better known as the program goes forward. And the assumption that costs will only increase can be discarded. Over the lifetime of the current ICBM force the program costs varied considerably. The original build of 1000 silos/missiles occurred over 5 years, 1962-7. Boeing built the ICBM land based force expeditiously and very quickly. And then starting in 1970, with the simple addition of two warheads for each of 500 Minuteman missiles, the land based ICBM force of Minuteman missile warheads doubled during the SALT sanctioned buildup and at a relatively small cost.

However, with the emerging change in the USSR/US correlation of power and the projected opening of a window of strategic vulnerability, the cost of the land based ICBM force increased as the new MX or Peacekeeper missile was proposed with initial R&D funding in the 1973 budget for a deployment date of October 1986.

To get the Peacekeeper deployed, the Reagan administration pulled a neat trifecta. The Scowcroft Commission of 1983---coupled that same year with the liberation of Grenada, the Evil Empire speech and proposed SDI, must have had the Kremlin folks reaching for the liters of vodka quite regularly.

While we deployed the first tranche of Peacekeeper missiles in silos, the second lot was approved by Congress if placed in a rail mobile configuration. The Reagan era strategic modernization program was across the board and persuaded Moscow the US meant business. With better diplomatic, economic and military leverage, the US got the INF, CFE, START I and II nuclear and conventional treaties. And for the first time in history, communist territory was freed when Grenada was liberated. In 1990, Solidarity won in Poland with the victory of Lech Walesa just as the year before in 1989 Vaclav Havel won in Czechoslovakia. The FMLN and Sandinistas were defeated in 1991-2, all combined to fracture the USSR.

START II eliminated multiwarhead land based missiles and thus the United States both took down Peacekeeper and assumed the new 3500 warhead ceiling would go into effect and reduced its nuclear force accordingly. Minuteman costs were minimal including the REACT improvements, which later in the 1990s were joined by the Propulsion and Guidance Replacement Programs that have kept MMIII viable “through 2030” which was the Congressional requirement authored by Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND).

Minuteman may remain in the force until 2045-50, giving added flexibility to the pace of Sentinel deployment. But the cost of land based ICBMs remains over time very reasonable, the STRATCOM assessment of the need for such ICBMs has been completed, and a new schedule and program outline is now moving in the right direction.

The United States has to keep what we have and add new technology improvements, thus improving and sustaining its nuclear deterrent simultaneously. That is the only way to meet the new challenges of what General Tom Bussiere, the commander of the USAF Global Strike Command says, is a more dangerous world than he has seen in his multi-decade service to the United States.