There are 400 nuclear missile silos in the central United States that constitute the land-based component of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. The Minuteman III missiles in the silos are roughly 50 years old. Although they have been repeatedly upgraded over the years, the Air Force decided a replacement should be developed. The new missile under development, the Sentinel, has turned into a classic case of a mismanaged weapons program.
Minuteman missile in silo – time to retire?
The initial concept of the Sentinel missile program was to directly replace the Minuteman III missiles in the existing launch silos. By reusing the silos, the project was made cost competitive with the alternative of another life extension for Minuteman or a switch to a mobile missile concept. Although at the start Boeing and Northrup Grumman competed for the contract, Boeing withdrew in 2019 and Northrop became the sole bidder. Projected costs began to climb sharply after this point and in January, 2024, the Air Force notified Congress that the Sentinel program’s costs had exceeded baseline projections by more than 25%, constituting a critical Nunn-McCurdy cost limit breach. This breach mandated a formal review and certification process to determine whether the program should continue.
In July of 2024, the Department of Defense completed its Nunn-McCurdy review. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment certified that the Sentinel program met the necessary criteria to proceed. However, he rescinded the program’s Milestone B approval and directed a restructuring to address cost overruns and management issues. It remains to be seen whether Northrup Grumman will make substantial changes to curtail the cost of the program.
Digging for Dollars
The most remarkable development in the course of the runaway cost estimates for the Sentinel missile is the recent decision to build new silos instead of reusing the existing ones. In May 2025, the U.S. Air Force announced that the Sentinel ICBM program would require the construction of entirely new missile silos, adding billions to the cost of the project. This decision was made after assessments revealed that the aging Minuteman III silos, some approaching 100 years old by the end of Sentinel’s expected service life, could not be adequately adapted for the new missiles. Factors such as structural degradation and the need for extensive modernization were the basis of the determination that building new silos was more practical and cost-effective than retrofitting the old ones.
Minuteman silo complex – too hard to fix?
Asserting that “structural degradation” has occurred in reinforced concrete structures designed to survive a near-miss by a nuclear weapon is puzzling to say the least. Moreover, the notion that modern fiber optic linked control infrastructure could not be retrofitted in structures accommodating far bulkier analog cabling and old electronic systems is highly questionable. In addition, there is a fundamental concern regarding silo construction: modern nuclear missiles are accurate enough to destroy even the most robustly constructed silo. The accuracy of ICBMs is now within 30-50 meters of a target. There is no feasible silo design that can survive a near hit (within 100-200 meters) by a modern earth-penetrating nuclear warhead. This makes attempts to improve on the hardening of existing silos pointless. The survivability of missile silos is now largely a myth sustained by institutional inertia and defense contracting incentives.
Minuteman missile site locations
The Mischievous Magic of Nuclear Deterrence
Perhaps the greatest boon conferred on the defense industry by the nuclear era is the elusive concept of deterrence. Like Schrodinger’s cat, it exists concurrently in two contradictory states. It is always absolutely vital, yet perennially insufficient. Its advocates maintain that it is working faultlessly because we have been spared nuclear attack, while simultaneously maintaining that we are in imminent danger of losing deterrence unless we spend large sums to preserve it. The magical property of deterrence is that there is no measurable connection between money spent on deterrence and the corresponding amount of deterrence secured. This is because deterrence exists in the minds of potential attackers, whose psychology is unknown and unknowable. Yet deterrence is deemed so important that it functions as a major justification for any new nuclear weapons program. The deterrence argument has become a fountain of riches for the makers of strategic nuclear weapons.
Magical thinking about deterrence is abundantly displayed in the dubious design decisions of the Sentinel missile program. Originally intended as a simple replacement for the ageing Minuteman III land based missiles, Sentinel has turned into a runaway weapons program, with projected costs greatly exceeding initial estimates. Sentinel program advocates invoke the magic of deterrence as justification for every costly feature added to the missile. They argue that a bigger payload, longer range, and more survivable silos will all add to deterrence, so why should we quibble over another hundred billion dollars?
Development Risk vs. Development Grift
There is a legitimate argument for accepting risk in weapons development if the goal is a quantum leap in capability. The development of stealthy combat aircraft provided a measurable military advantage over potential adversaries, and thus cost and schedule overruns of these programs could be defended to some degree. However, the Sentinel program, like several other mismanaged U.S. weapons programs, does not deliver a significant new capability but provides dubious “improvements” at enormous expense. Defense contractors, military leaders, and politicians all have incentives to overstate the value of such programs and understate their costs, knowing that once started the momentum of a big weapons project is hard to stop. This problem does not end with the development of the weapon. The grift that keeps on giving is the lifecycle cost, the cost of supporting a weapon system during its operational lifetime. This cost is also chronically underestimated, and the main beneficiary is again the defense contractor. There is reason to believe that Sentinel will follow this pattern and have lifecycle costs exceeding current estimates of $250-$300 billion.
Conclusion
The Sentinel missile program is yet another mismanaged U.S. weapons program exhibiting the chronic flaws of a procurement system distorted by perverse vendor incentives and failed governmental oversight. The Secretary of Defense should immediately order changes to the Sentinel missile program to utilize the current Minuteman launch infrastructure, with minimal required modifications of existing facilities. Since no silos can survive attack by modern ICBMs, building new silos would greatly inflate the cost of the program while adding little operational capability. The willingness of the current Defense Secretary to make these changes will be a test of the Trump administration’s seriousness in eliminating waste in government operations. If the Defense Department does not act to contain the cost of this program, Congress should make continued funding contingent on implementing a sound design approach based on an independent review by experts outside the influence of the Pentagon and the contractor. Northrup Grumman should heed some common sense advice: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Instead of maintaining nuclear weapons, which are not very useful, resources should be allocated toward developing supersonic missiles like the Oreshnik.
One can’t help but think that this all will be moot when the madmen running the world’s nuclear powers pull the triggers on their arsenals. I read somewhere many years ago that the likeliest survivors will be roaches and rodents.
Maybe we should revive the underappreciated MX-W program, where mobile ICBMs would be concealed in Wiinnebagos, provided to trustworthy citizens. Really, it makes about as much sense, eh?
Ever feel like you’re living in a Kafka story?
Actually, I vaguely remember a serious proposal made in the 1980s for a new organization of the nuclear deterrent based on ICBMs launched from vehicles (the kind of mamooth transporters the Russians have for their TOPOL missiles). Those vehicles would be parked in underground bases scattered all over the USA, and would randomly move from one such base to another. Since many vehicles would always be on the move all over the USA, it would be impossible for an enemy (i.e. the USSR) to disable all launchers. Attacking the “garages” would also be pointless, as very often they would be empty, the launchers being driven to-and-fro.
The scheme was ultimately shelved because of the maintenance requirements for a large fleet of launchers always on the move, the impracticality of having those large, heavy vehicles driving over the normal road network if not on dedicated tracks, and the sheer cost to set up the required infrastructure at scale.
Why would ICBMs have to be mobile or for that matter have bomb proof silos? These missiles would have been launched long before being hit. Even if the enemy had stealth missiles, they would still have to hit all targets simultaneously for a surprise attack to work.
It has all to do with a second strike, i.e. the capability to launch a retaliatory volley after being hit by an enemy who relied upon a first strike to achieve victory.
For static missiles, the silos have to be bomb-proof to sustain a first attack and being able to retaliate afterwards. The number of incoming ICBM (especially MIRV ones) is expected to significantly exceed the number of silos, or silo locations.
Mobile launchers achieve survivability by escaping a first strike that is targeted at fixed missile locations. They are not bomb-proof, but they survive because the enemy cannot win a whack-a-mole contest against transporters moving around unpredictably.
In summary, this is all part of the theory of deterrence.
Which begs for the questions, “Do the Russkies have third strike capability? Isn’t there a third missile gap we should be worrying about????”
This ‘deterrence logic’ leads nowhere. Thank you for making it so plain, Haig.
Deterrence is a faith-based way of thinking. No one can prove a negative. So while one can point to innumerable instances when deterrence failed, one would be hard pressed to prove a case when it succeeded. Its a case of “did you prevent the war that didn’t happen today, or were you just lucky.” In more than a few cases, attempts at deterrence led to war. Moving the U.S. battle fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbour to “deter” the Japanese is one such case. Yamamoto saw them as coming within reach. Arguably, NATO expansion eastward to “deter” Russia is another.
Minor correction: the battle force was actually based in San Pedro with CRUDES and SUB forces at San Diego.
As far as moving the fleet to PH, it is interesting question as otherwise would there have been the same PR campaign about the “ABCD” powers? If the IJN couldn’t argue that the fleet was an implied threat what would the impact have been in Japan’s move to Indochina and the Dutch/Brit colonial holdings?
This in part smells just like the same rotten syndrome that played out in my kids’ school budget about 8-10 years ago.
Accurately it was diagnosed that the school and town did not have sufficient athletic fields to support school and community activities and allow these fields to remain robust during periods of heavy rain – there was no time for them to recover.
So what happened… well the local athletic booster club (kind of like Washington lobbyists) came up with a bunch of cash to hire an outside consulting company to do a field review and make a series of recommendations to the district. What could possibly be wrong with asking experts what our real options are? Personally, this is a solid logic decision, assuming you can actually evaluate and hire NON-Biased experts.
Well the experts concluded that the district need to improve drainage on several fields, but even that wasn’t going to be enough and that they needed 3 brand new artificial turf fields which would require replacement of the turf every 10 years at about $100k per replacement plus disposal/landfill costs..
Well being that we lived in a wealth community this was just taken as what we needed. Nobody seriously questioned anything. NOT EVEN the fact that those consultants happened to be a subsidiary of a company that manufactured, sold and installed artificial turf fields.
Reads like a pretty good pitch for a Netflix sitcom with lots of scope for hilarious sub-plots about day to day life in the MIC&C, with generals groping for post-retirement Board seats, politicians with hands outstretched and lots of laughs from military contractors brainstorming new ways to hypothesize unforeseen forms of obsolescence requiring additional government handouts.
Well, in the real world instead what you get is this:
Hollywood Goes to NATO: Telling the Story of the Alliance
July 12, 2024
47 min.
https://www.csis.org/events/hollywood-goes-nato-telling-story-alliance
p.s. I fully agree with the idea you just pitched. But find a single producer doing that. It would be a death sentence figuratively. Netflix´s “SPACE FORCE” is about as critical as you can be. While it had some merit characterwise on the political level it’s more than benign…
p.p.s. Considering the increasing level of war crimes perpetrated and supported and enabled by the West the complete lack of features and series addressing this is deeply shocking. NEver ever did we have so much material out there to use. Not a single person is touching.
The more crimes (domestic and abroad) are committed that could be turned into movies the less those movies are actually made. Money as such cannot be the cause. There is a reason why conspiracy stories are among the best sellers in motion picutre history. Obviously your average ticker-buyer is much more smarter than the culture & arts staff of the NEW YORKER.
edit: Sorry the many typos. Am in a hurry.
The best analogy/joke about deterrence I ever encountered was that relying on deterrence was like being a turkey: everything is roses and sunshine, but sooner or later Thanksgiving is going to roll around.
Naked Capitalism has had articles and links since the Pakistan and India flare up. For me, deterrence is the total destruction of life as we know it. This is another good article on continued looting of the wealth of the USA that accumulated over 200 years. The elites have seceded from the Union.