Two Republican Senators, both senior members of influential defense committees, on Friday published an op-ed airing concerns that U.S. nuclear modernization is lagging behind its adversaries, particularly the LGM-35 Sentinel.
Senators Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) the top Republican on the SASC Strategic Forces Subcommittee, published their grievances in a joint opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.
The move was spurred by a Pentagon announcement last week that the Sentinel program’s modernization cost has grown to over $107 billion, a 37 percent increase over prior estimates. The Pentagon cited greater-than-expected construction needs, supply-chain challenges, labor shortages, and inflation as the main drivers for the cost increase.
On Jan. 18, the Pentagon notified Congress that Sentinel breached its Nunn-McCurdy cost threshold, which is not unusual for such complex defense modernization programs. Sentinel, which will replace the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, is scheduled to enter service in mid-2029, but high-ranking officials up to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall have admitted under oath that it is unlikely to reach initial operating capability by that date.
“Sentinel would be the largest U.S. government civil works project since the completion of the interstate highway system in the 1990s,” the Senators wrote. “Drawing on initiatives from more than 50 government agencies and across 45 states, it is the most complex acquisition program the Air Force has ever undertaken.”
“Attempting anything on such a scale is fraught with risk, so the Air Force’s announcement that Sentinel is suffering cost overruns and potential delays isn’t surprising,” they said. “For a decade, defense experts have cautioned about the logistical, technical and resourcing challenges facing the necessary replacement for the Minuteman III.”
In parallel with the Air Force development of the missile itself – built by Northrop Grumman – the National Nuclear Security Administration is working to adapt Minuteman III warheads for use on Sentinel while it develops a bespoke weapon for the new missile. The first Sentinels to be deployed will carry the W87-0 warhead. Later missiles will have a W87-1.
W87-0 will be a version of the Minuteman missile’s III W87 adapted for flight on Sentinel missiles. W87-1 will be a newly manufactured copy of Minuteman’s other warhead, the W78, but with a fresh plutonium pit cast at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The lab estimates it will start making pits around 2030.
The lawmakers were sharply critical of the Biden administration’s economic policies and “anemic military support,” which they claim have forced Sentinel and modernization efforts “to overcome staggering inflation and a lack of crucial technology suppliers, skilled labor and raw materials.”
The Senators vowed to use their committees’ congressional oversight authority to “maximize taxpayer investment in the Sentinel program” by expanding training for skilled workers, applying the Defense Production Act to “broaden construction commodity availability and stabilize inflation.”
