By John LaForge
At Vandenberg Space Force Base in California September 14, the Pentagon trotted out for the cameras the first full-scale model of the planned Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). While little more than a photo op, General Dale White, the Director of Pentagon’s Critical Major Weapon Systems in Arlington, Virginia, called the demonstration a “milestone.”
Sentinel is the missile the Air Force plans to put into 400 newly built underground silos spread around F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. The missile is intended to replace today’s 400 Minuteman III ICBMs. Stars and Stripes reports that the Air Force has said the massive project of replacing the current missiles “is expected to take well into the later part of the century,” or around 50 years. Air Force contractors intend to build new underground missile silos, new underground launch control centers (where personnel try to stay awake while maintaining launch readiness), and replace hundreds of miles of buried cables that connect the weapons to their controllers.
In July 2024, the Pentagon’s estimated total costs for the Sentinel program (not including warheads) was $141 billion in constant 2020 dollars, which was 81% (or $63 billion) above the program’s first estimate of $78 billion. The estimated life cycle cost of the Sentinel program was estimated then to be $260 billion, but is undoubtedly higher today.
Meanwhile, according to the ICBM Act, sponsored by Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass), the National Nuclear Security Administration which builds U.S. H-bombs, is developing a new replacement ICBM warhead for the Sentinel, the W87–1, and is expanding plutonium production for the warhead’s cores, costing at least $14 billion and $18 billion, respectively.
Gen. James Cartwright, former Vice-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, wrote, with former Secretary of Defense William Perry, “[T]he greatest danger is not a Russian bolt but a U.S. blunder — that we might accidentally stumble into nuclear war. As we make decisions about which weapons to buy, we should use this simple rule: If a nuclear weapon increases the risk of accidental war and is not needed to deter an intentional attack, we should not build it…. Certain nuclear weapons, such as … the [intercontinental ballistic missile], carry higher risks of accidental war that, fortunately, we no longer need to bear. We are safer without these expensive weapons, and it would be foolish to replace them.” (Washington Post, Nov. 16, 2017)
⸺ Stars and Stripes, Sept. 14, 2026; the Congressional “ICBM Act”
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