"The projected cost of replacing the aging nuclear missiles buried in silos across the Great Plains has soared by more than a third to $107 billion, the Pentagon said, a development that comes as China pushes ahead with an expansion of its arsenal.
The problems at one of its priority programs put more pressure on the Pentagon's funding for other programs as it wrestles with the prospect of cuts over the next several years unless Congress can agree on a broader budget deal.
The Pentagon cited poor budget forecasting, supply-chain challenges and pandemic-driven inflation for a 37% increase in costs for the highly classified Air Force program, known as Sentinel.
The surge has triggered an automatic review by the Defense Department and Congress, either of which could terminate the program.
The Pentagon had already planned to spend an estimated $756 billion over the next 10 years to maintain and upgrade its nuclear forces, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Russia and China's expansions of their own nuclear arsenals have lent urgency to these long-delayed improvements.
That spending includes replacing the Cold War-era Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles with Sentinel, launching a fleet of new missile-carrying Columbia-class submarines, and upgrading nuclear warheads and the communications systems tying them to the president, who has ultimate authority on their use.
Separately, in the third element of the so-called nuclear triad, bombers, the Pentagon has begun building the B-21 -- a futuristic flying-wing plane intended to fly thousands of miles to strike targets deep behind enemy lines.
The Pentagon's fresh analysis, announced Thursday, revealed that upgrading the 450-missile Minuteman silos, which have dotted four states across the Great Plains since the 1960s, was more complex than anticipated, challenging efforts to make them operational by 2029.
Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said that the new missiles themselves were progressing on schedule, with most of the problems emerging in rebuilding the silos and communication systems.
He said the Air Force would look at the program's management structure and bring in additional expertise.
"Cost estimating tools were not fully up to the task," he said.
Among other issues, lead contractor Northrop Grumman won't be able to reuse as much of the existing silo and communications infrastructure as planned, the Air Force said, and the program has required hundreds of real-estate deals to maintain access to the land for the underground silos and the communications systems.
Congress was briefed last month after Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Sentinel was "struggling," leading to unease about the transparency of the program among some members.
"The department must ensure that Sentinel is ready in time to replace the current ICBMs before they reach the end of their lives," said Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
The new Columbia-class submarines that will carry nuclear missiles also face delays. Pentagon officials have said there is little margin for error in completing the programs on time to replace equipment that is far past its intended lifespan and to deter China's fast-growing nuclear arsenal.
The Pentagon says China possesses about 500 nuclear warheads and is on pace to double that by 2030.
Critics have long argued that U.S. nuclear deterrence is well served by submarines and bombers, rendering a multibillion-dollar investment in underground nuclear missiles unnecessary." [1]
1. U.S. News: Soaring Costs Plague Nuclear-Missile Rehab. Cameron, Doug. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 19 Jan 2024: A.2.
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