Getty Images and Unsplash+.
The Pentagon is preparing to replace all of today’s 400 long-range, land-based nuclear-armed missiles with a new missile dubbed “Sentinel.” In the face of widespread expert criticism of the expensive replacement, the new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are being built by Northrup Grumman to replace 400 Minuteman III missiles now in underground launch silos spread across 40,000 square miles of Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and North Dakota.* Popular Mechanics reported that the program, “will involve a total overhaul of the entire ICBM system, including new missiles, new launch control buildings, and the logistical and communications infrastructure.”[1] The Air Force admits that thousands of miles of new fiber-optic cabling, connecting launch centers to the missiles, is also planned.
On October 13, 2024, the New York Times published a lengthy investigative piece titled, “The $1.7 Trillion Makeover.” The 30-year-long rebuild of the entire U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal and its production infrastructure means, that “On the factory floor, it’s plain to see that the dream of nuclear disarmament, once shared by Republican and Democratic presidents alike, is dead.” Nowhere was there a mention of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear weapons, ratified by 73 countries, which keeps the dream very much alive.
This spring, the projected cost of just the Sentinel/ICBM segment of the colossal makeover grew to $214,000,000 per missile, 81% over the Pentagon’s 2020 projection. The skyrocketing cost triggered the federal Nunn-McCurdy Act, which terminates a program unless the Pentagon determines it to be “essential” to national security. On July 8, Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense from Raytheon Corporation, issued the last-minute certification. Taxpayers for Common Sense lambasted the Pentagon’s review, saying it was based on “antiquated” Cold War hokum about a supposed “need” for three types of nuclear attack systems — land-, bomber-, and sea-based. [2]
The fantastically costly program, estimated to run to $264 billion [3], has been declared unnecessary, redundant, and dangerous by hundreds of military and civilian authorities. In dozens of news articles, position papers, declarations, editorials, commentaries, and sign-on letters, scientists, Ivy League authors, think tanks, military officials, U.S. senators, and even former cabinet secretaries have called for immediate cancellation of Sentinel and the permanent elimination of ICBMs.
Written appeals for the abandonment of land-based missiles, issued over the last 15 years, have come from no less than Secretary of Defense William Perry [4], Secretary of Defense James Mattis [5], former head of the Strategic Command Gen. George L. Butler [6], former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former commander of U.S. nuclear forces Gen. James Cartwright [7], Senator and later Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel [8]; and former Secretary of the Navy and personal advisor to President Ronald Reagan Paul Nitze. [9]
In a July 8, 2024 letter to President Biden, some 716 scientists, including ten Nobel laureates and 23 members of the National Academies called for the program to be cancelled. The scientists recommend eliminating the land-based missiles entirely, calling them “expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary.” [10] It was the second time in three years that a large group of scientists urged the White House to eliminate ICBMS. On Dec. 17, 2021, more than 700 scientists and engineers urged Biden to “cancel the program to replace existing ICBMs and … “[w]e also urge you to consider eliminating silo-based ICBMs.” [11]
One such scientist, Robert Goldston, professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, put the enormous cost in perspective. Writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2020, Prof. Goldston wrote, “ICBMs would be too expensive even if they were free. … They have overwhelmingly negative value and therefore should be eliminated.” [12] Sébastien Philippe, Sharon K. Weine, and Frank N. von Hippel, all with Princeton University’s Program on Science & Global Security, wrote for Defense One last June that “termination” of Sentinel “would make the country much safer while saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.” [13]
On December 1, 2023, Scientific American declared in an editorial that, “Plans to modernize nuclear weapons are dangerous and unnecessary: The U.S. should back away from updating its obsolescent nuclear weapons, in particular silo-launched missiles that needlessly risk catastrophe.” The editors even asked: “Who today benefits from disinterring the arms race?” and answered, “Only defense-industry shareholders and military contractors near silos in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.” [14]
The point echoes one made in 2021 by the Federation of American Scientists in “Siloed Thinking: A closer look at the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent,” [15] a report that argued the Sentinel program, “is being driven by intense industry lobbying and politicians from states that will benefit most from it economically, rather than a clear assessment of the purpose of the new ICBM.” In March this year, Northrop Grumman said, “more than 10,000 people are employed on Sentinel across the country,” according to The Hill. [16]
According to Responsible Statecraft for July 31, 2024, “Northrop Grumman and its subsidiaries contributed $1.2 million to members of the Senate ICBM Coalition between 2012 and 2020 and over $15 million to members of the Senate and House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittees and the Senate and House Appropriations subcommittees on defense.” [17]
Scandals in the Missile Force Forgotten, Ignored
Among the scores of critiques of the Sentinel and calls for its cancellation, Nukewatch hasn’t seen a single reference to the scandals that have rocked the ICBM system, embarrassments that Nukewatch chronicled in our revised edition of Nuclear Heartland (2015). High-profile fraud and corruption among personnel of the missile system have resulted in hundreds of demotions, firings, courts martial, and forced retirements. Scores of Air Force enlistees and several command officers among the 9,600-person Minuteman missile system have been punished or relieved of duty for distributing illegal drugs, ignoring safety and security rules, failing proficiency exercises, sleeping at the controls, and cheating on exams, as well as “burnout,” sexual assaults, and spousal abuse. Some of the more well-reported crimes and misdemeanors included the following:
– In 2006, top-secret fuses made for Minuteman III missile warheads were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan from Hill Air Force Base in Utah.
– In 2008, three of four on-duty launch control officers at Minot AFB were discharged from the service after falling asleep at the controls that contained launch codes for ten missiles.
– In 2010, a computer glitch knocked fifty Minuteman III missiles offline at F.E. Warren AFB “for longer than an hour.” Five different Launch Control Centers lost all contact with the ten missiles they each control.
– An Air Force study obtained by the Associated Press (AP) in 2013 found that court-martial rates in the Minuteman missile fields in 2011 and 2012 were more than twice as high as in the overall Air Force. By June 2015, there were four active courts-martial underway at Minot Air Force Base for drug use, rape, assault, sexual assault on an unconscious person, and larceny.
– In 2013, seventeen missile launch crew members were fired from Minot AFB along with Lt. Col Randy Olson, after the finding of a long list of safety potential security code violations and protection errors.
– In 2013, Col. David Lynch the commander of Malmstrom AFB was forced into retirement following a failed safety and security inspection of the 341 st missile wing.
– In 2013, Brig Gen. Michael Carey was demoted from Maj. Gen. and removed from his position as head of the 20th Air Force at Strategic Command for drunken carousing, solicitation and sexual harassment while on a presidential junket in Moscow.
– Missileers based in Minot, North Dakota and Malmstrom, Montana were given possible career-ending reprimands in 2013 for leaving open launch control center blast doors in violation of strict protocols.
– In 2014, two Malmstorm AFB missile launch crew administrators were accused of running a narcotics distribution system involving missile launch crews across six air bases. Messages they sent to 11 others concerned ecstasy and amphetamines.
– In 2014, nearly the entire chain of command, nine Colonels and Lt. Colonels, were relieved of duty at Malmstrom AFB over their failure to detect widespread cheating on proficiency exams by launch control officers. Earlier, 92 Malmstrom missileers were suspended, decertified and barred from launch control duty for cheating on the tests.
– In 2018, the Associated Press obtained transcripts of seven courts martial proceedings showing that service members entrusted with guarding the ICBMs bought, distributed and used the hallucinogen LSD and other mind-altering illegal drugs. Fourteen airmen were disciplined, and six were convicted of LSD use or distribution or both. [18]
Missile field duty like launch center staffing and guard duty involves numbing tedium, plagued with long hours of isolation and boredom and haunted by high-level discussions about eliminating the missiles. The work is understood by those assigned to it as a career cul-de-sac, always overshadowed for promotions and commendations by colleagues in war zones in the Middle East, Ukraine, the South China Sea and elsewhere. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists put it this way in 2015: “Given the significant number of ‘expert’ studies that have appeared over the past five years suggesting that the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad should be deactivated, it is no wonder that morale has been a persistent challenge in the missile force….” [19]
The new Sentinel version of the same old dead-ended, world-ending ICBM suicide mission will not improve the mental health or ethical standards of our land-based missile teams. Only the system’s elimination can do that. ###
* Nukewatch has published, in 1988 and 2015, two editions of Nuclear Heartland, a guide to the history, locations, intended use, and recurring scandals of these archaic nuclear weapons.
Endnotes
[1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a27875/new-long-range-nuclear-missile/; “What We Know About the U.S.’s New Nuclear Missile: The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent will replace the venerable Minuteman III ICBM, but does the Air Force even need it?”, Popular Mechanics, Aug. 23, 2017
[2] Taxpayers for Common Sense, July 11, 2024
[3] “Siloed Thinking: A Closer Look at the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent,” Federation of American Scientists, March 2021, https://man.fas.org/eprint/siloed-thinking.pdf: “Instead of reducing the ICBM force, however, the Air Force is pursuing a $264 billion replacement program –– the [Sentinel] –– that will keep ICBMs in the United States’ nuclear arsenal until 2075.”
[4] “Former Sec. Def. Perry: US on ‘Brink’ of New Nuclear Arms Race,” DefenseNews.com, Dec. 3, 2015; “Former Pentagon chief Perry: nuclear dangers are growing,” AP, Dec. 29, 2015; William Perry “Why It’s Safe to Scrap America’s ICBMs,” New York Times, Sept. 30, 2016
[5] Scientific American reported Dec. 1, 2023, “In 2015, two years before General James Mattis was confirmed as U.S. secretary of defense, he suggested to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military consider removing land-based missiles altogether.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/inside-the-1-5-trillion-nuclear-weapons-program-youve-never-heard-of/
[6] Frank Gaffney, “One-Time Hawk Now Defends Disarmament,” Kansas City Star, March 22, 1998
[7] Robert Gard & Greg Terryn, “American Nuclear Strategy: The Case for a Minimal-Deterrence Policy,” TheNationalInterest.com, Dec. 1, 2014; Thom Shanker, “Former Commander of US Nuclear Forces Calls for Large Cut in Warheads, New York Times, May 15, 2012
[8] Josh Harkinson, “Death Wears Bunny Slippers,” Mother Jones, Nov./Dec/ 2014
[9] “A Threat Mostly to Ourselves” Paul H. Nitze, New York Times, Opinion, Oct. 28, 1999
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/28/opinion/a-threat-mostly-to-ourselves.html
[10] Union of Concerned Scientists, “More Than 700 Scientists Call on Biden, Congress to Scrap Plans for New Land-Based Nuclear Missiles, July 8, 2024, https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/scientists-call-cancel-new-nuclear-missiles
[11] The Jersey Tomato Press, 17 Dec. 2021 https://thejerseytomatopress.com/stories/over-700-scientists-engineers-send-letter-to-president-biden,22915
[12] Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan. 3, 2020, https://thebulletin.org/2020/01/new-us-icbms-too-expensive-even-if-free?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter01062020&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NewICBMs_01032020
[13] “It’s not too late to cancel the Pentagon’s next ICBM,” Sébastien Philippe, Sharon K. Weiner and Frank N. von Hippel, DefenseOne.com, June 14, 2024, https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/06/its-not-too-late-cancel-pentagons-next-icbm/397380/
[14] Editors, Scientific American, “The U.S.’s Plans to Modernize Nuclear Weapons Are Dangerous and Unnecessary,” the 1 Dec. 2023, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-u-s-s-plans-to-modernize-nuclear-weapons-are-dangerous-and-unnecessary/
[15] Ibid note #3
[16] Brad Dress, “Skyrocketing cost of US nuclear missile program spurs reckoning,” The Hill, March 5, 2024
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4506250-sentinel-icbm-air-force-skyrocketing-cost/
[17] Mackenzie Knight, “Firing nuclear missiles from the pork barrel: Money and political influence play an outsized role in US military force posture, like the $141 billion Sentinel,” Responsible Statecraft, July 31, 2024, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-war-2669281116/
[18] “Security troops on U.S. nuclear missile base took LSD, records show”, the Associated Press, NBC NEWS, May 24, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/security-troops-u-s-nuclear-missile-base-took-lsd-records-n877056
[19] Adam Lowther, “A Year Later: Responding to Problems in the ICBM Force,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 2015, http://thebulletin.org/year-later-responding-problems-icbm-force7984.
