U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said on Thursday that the Northrop Grumman LGM-35A Sentinel future intercontinental ballistic missile has consumed the most of his time than any program thus far in his two and a half weeks on the job.
Meink said this as the Air Force restructures the program after a Nunn-McCurdy cost breach announced in January last year.
Legislators have pointed to conflicting signals from the White House and the Air Force on nuclear deterrence, including $1.2 billion that the Air Force has shifted in fiscal 2025 funds from Sentinel–the majority to classified programs.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said at the start of a Thursday committee hearing on the Department of the Air Force budget that “the Air Force has taken $1.2 billion out of Sentinel funds and used them instead to meet other priorities in fiscal 2025.”
“I want to be very clear,” Rogers said. “The Sentinel program is vital to modernizing our triad and ensuring nuclear deterrence. Senior Air Force leaders have made frequent statements agreeing that the service must prioritize nuclear deterrence. It’s time to start walking the walk.”
Top defense officials have kept up the decades-long drumbeat of the need for a nuclear triad, but President Trump said in February he planned to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin that would focus on reducing their conventional and nuclear arsenals, as the U.S. has “no need” to build new nuclear weapons.
On the air leg of the triad, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin said that he is to meet with Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, next Tuesday–in part to review a production rate increase for the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bomber to permit the Air Force to go beyond the 100 B-21s planned, possibly up to 145.
While the White House is not to release the full federal government fiscal 2026 budget request until late this month, the fiscal 2026 Air Force request looks to be slightly above the fiscal 2025 budget, while the Space Force request is about $26.3 billion–$3.2 billion below last year’s ask, according to figures in a May 30 White House Office of Management and Budget appendix–about $15.5 billion for Space Force research and development, $3.4 billion in procurement, $5.9 billion for operations and maintenance, and $1.5 billion for personnel.
Of presidential transition year budgets dating back to 1977, the fiscal 2026 budget is the tardiest. The runner up in the late category is Biden’s fiscal 2022 submission on May 28, 2021.
During Thursday’s hearing, Rep. Seth Moulton (R-Mass.) referenced a Congressional Budget Office report last month that said it could cost $542 billion over 20 years for the deployment and operation of 2,000 space based interceptors for Trump’s planned Golden Dome.
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily first published this story.