Trash the $140.9 Billion Sentinel ICBM Program Now!

[Celerity]

https://washingtonspectator.org/trash-the-140-billion-sentinel-icbm-program-now/



The Air Force has recently acknowledged that the Minuteman III ICBM decommissioning will likely not terminate until 2050 and possibly beyond. This protracted delay is due to multiple cost-overruns and scheduling setbacks in the development of the Sentinel ICBM program, the updated nuclear missile system intended to replace the Minuteman. The Sentinel deployment is now projected to cost $140.9 billion (up 81% from its initial 2020 estimate) and has triggered a painstaking Congressionally-mandated review.

Maj. Gen. Stacy Jo Huser, commander of the 20th Air Force, stated on January 28 that the final Minuteman III decommissioning has now been put off until at least 2050. In her briefing charts, Gen. Huser cited the imperative to “ensure the MMIII [Minuteman III] can deter aggression and execute nuclear strike on order until 2052.” This admission means that the US will rely on at least some of the 400 silo-based Minuteman III ICBMs for deterrence past the next six Presidential elections.

Consequently, there exists critical breathing space for the US to negotiate strategic arms reduction agreements that would call a halt to the absurdly expensive and strategically outdated Sentinel program. There is a precedent. The Peacekeeper (MX) ICBM, carrying at least 11 re-entry vehicles each, was touted by the Pentagon as essential to US nuclear deterrence strategy. Yet, as part of US-Soviet arms reduction agreements, the last Peacekeeper was deactivated in 2005.

Neither President Trump nor Russian President Vladimir Putin has advocated abrogating the 2011 New START Treaty that placed limits on strategic weapons systems, including the Minuteman. In fact, President Trump observed on January 23 that “tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about …. So, we want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible.”

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