![]() The core supporters in Congress are the Senate’s “ICBM Coalition”-six Senators from three low-population states: Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming, which host the three missile-base launch-control crews and maintenance workers, plus two Senators from Utah where the missiles are serviced. This has led supporters of the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program to grasp for reasons why replacing the land-based ICBMs is equally important and urgent. The ballistic-missile submarines, which carry about half of US deployed strategic warheads, are the most survivable leg of the US nuclear forces the strategic bombers and air-launched cruise missiles are used for conventional wars as well as nuclear deterrence the vulnerabilities of the nuclear command and control system to both physical and hacker attacks have been of widespread concern for decades and nuclear warheads do need to be refurbished periodically. The other modernization programs are less controversial than the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, however. These include new ballistic-missile submarines, new strategic bombers and their air-launched cruise missiles, a new nuclear command and control system, and new and life-extended nuclear warheads. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the four others will cost an average of about $250 billion each, including operations over 30 years. The new administration and a significant fraction of Congress may therefore be open to reconsidering the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program.įurthermore, the ICBM replacement is only one of five programs underway to “modernize” the US strategic deterrent. It also is considered by many to be bloated, more than double the combined military budgets of China and Russia-and more than triple, if major US allies are added to the balance. It accounts for more than half of federal “discretionary” spending-spending that is the subject of the annual budget process. The defense budget is an obvious place to look. ![]() The huge US federal budget deficit, the need to mitigate the economic distress of many US workers, businesses, and state and local governments in the wake of the cononavirus epidemic, and other budgetary priorities-including climate change mitigation and infrastructure modernization-will inevitably stimulate a search for offsetting savings in forthcoming federal budgets. This piece lays out those arguments in detail and points out that, if Congress is unable to make a decision on eliminating US ICBMs in the next few years, the life of the Minuteman IIIs could be extended to 2060 at a much lower cost than the new ICBM, which is designed to last until 2080.īudgetary constraints. There are strong arguments to be made against the new ICBMs, however, on the basis of their cost, their vulnerability, and the contribution of their launch-on-warning posture to the danger of accidental nuclear war. ![]() 32) to the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 that called for a new study to examine the possibility of the alternative of extending the life of the Minuteman III again, as has already been done once in the 2000s. The resulting potent lobbying coalition was able to block a proposed amendent (No. Yellow circles show the locations of the 150 Minuteman III silos and 15 launch-control centers associated with Malstrom Air Force Base, Montana. “Aerojet Rocketdyne, Bechtel, Clark Construction, Collins Aerospace, General Dynamics, HDT Global, Honeywell, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, 元Harris, Lockheed Martin, Textron Systems, as well as hundreds of small and medium-sized companies from across the defense, engineering, and construction industries.”įigure 1. Its press release states that the work will be carried out in Utah, Alabama, Colorado, Nebraska, California, Arizona, Maryand, and “at our nationwide team locations across the country.” The “team” of subcontractors includes: Northrup Grumman has spread the work over many states and congressional districts. The Air Force estimates the project’s capital cost will run to over $100 billion, while the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total cost, including 30 years of operations, will be $150 billion. In September 2020, the Air Force awarded a $13.3 billion sole-source contract to Northrup Grumman for the weapon system design. The missiles were originally deployed during the 1970s.ĭuring the Obama administration, the Defense Department launched the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program to replace these ICBMs with an equal number of new missiles, plus spare and test missiles, for a total of 642. The United States has 400 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) suspended in reinforced concrete underground missile silos, plus an additional 50 empty silos, spaced about 10 kilometers apart near Air Force bases in Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming (Figure 1).
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