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Executive Order Could Force Cancellation of Sentinel Missile

An April 9 Executive Order from the White House puts the $200 billion+ long-range, land-based missile system dubbed “Sentinel” at risk of cancellation because the program is so far over budget.

The presidential EO directs the Secretary of Defense to complete a “comprehensive review” of all major military acquisition programs. Secretary Pete Hegseth has 90 days, or until early July, to finish the detailed review.

The massive Sentinel project is supposed to replace all 400 Minuteman III intercontinental missiles — along with 40 underground launch control centers and hundreds of miles of buried cables that connect them all to three major Air Force bases — which are now scattered across parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, and North Dakota.

The EO declares that “any program more than 15 percent behind schedule …, 15 percent over cost …, unable to meet any key performance parameters, or unaligned with the Secretary of Defense’s mission priorities, will be considered for potential cancellation.”

A Government Accountability Office review found that the Sentinel’s Air Force contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. was “struggling with staffing shortfalls, supply chain problems and clearance processing delays,” according to the newsletter Defense One. One major cost-savings under consideration is the reuse of much of the underground cable systems connecting the silos, according to Montana’s The Missoulian.

The source DefenseNews.org reported May 6, 2025, that while the Air Force had hoped to reuse existing Minuteman missile silos for the Sentinel, it “has concluded it will have to dig new silos.” The system’s cost instantly ballooned again.

In January 2024, the program blew past the 15% threshold set by the EO, inflating the proposed $77 billion program to $141 billion, or 81% over initial projections. Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said then that the overruns were due to construction costs and inflation.

After disclosure of the, shall we say, skyrocketing cost overruns, the Air Force fired the head of the program, Col. Charles Clegg.

This past February, the Air Force halted work on parts of the program which will only cause further delays and price hikes. Northrop’s CEO Warden said on January 30 that the Air Force had “paused work on some small infrastructure efforts in the command and launch segment.” Specifically, the service directed Warden “to suspend the design, testing, and construction work” on Sentinel’s “Command and Launch Segment” which was then going on at test facilities in California and Utah.

Mackenzie Knight, a senior research associate for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists blamed Northrop Grumman for underestimating the costs in order to win Congressional support, telling Defense One online, “At best it comes down to mismanagement and incompetence, and at worst, an intentional effort to downplay the complexities and challenges … to make it appear like it would be the cheaper, easier option.” — Nukewatch staff

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U.S. Nuclear Weapons Programs Slated for 53% Budget Increase

Department of Energy budget figures have been released with the Trumpian headline, “Unleashing a Golden Era of Energy Dominance and Energy Innovation and Protecting the Nation.” However, 65% of the DOE’s proposed $46 billion budget is earmarked for its nuclear weapons section known as the National Nuclear Security Administration. In turn, more than 80% of the NNSA’s proposed fiscal year 2026 funding is for nuclear weapons research and production programs, with a 25% funding increase over FY 2025. In addition, the Trump administration is adding another $4.8 billion from so-called “reconciliation” funding, bringing the NNSA’s “total weapons activities” to just under $30 billion. Taken together, the nuclear weapons budget is 53% above FY 2025. To help pay for this extravaganza, nuclear nonproliferation and cleanup programs are being cut by 5%, cyber-security and emergency response by 25%, and energy efficiency and renewable energy programs by 74%.

— Nuclear Watch New Mexico; and New York Times, June 3, 2025

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Three Declarations of Genocide and the U.S. Responses

Protester at the 2025 Superbowl halftime show displaying stitched together Sudanese and Palestinian flags, linking the genocides ongoing in both countries — the U.S. has recognized the genocide in Sudan as such, but refuses to name the U.S.-armed genocide in Gaza. Photo: newsbreak.com

Three recent reports by respected international humanitarian organizations have generated global approbation and negative reactions by both the Israeli and U.S. governments.
– Amnesty International

Amnesty International (AI) issued its 296-page report (“You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza”) on December 4. Israel immediately called it “a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies.” The U.S. State Department echoed the Israeli government in disagreeing with the report. Spokesperson Vedant Patel declared: “We have said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded.” He gave no reasons for that opinion.

Reviewing the nine-month period from October 7, 2023, AI concluded that Israel committed prohibited acts under Articles II (a), (b), and (c) of the Genocide Convention of 1948, specifically the killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part.

After describing the Genocide Convention’s definition of genocide, AI examined both the specified prohibited actions and the requirement of intent. The report concluded that both benchmarks were met. In his December 7 Counterpunch article (“The Worst of International Crimes”), Jeffrey St. Clair quoted portions of the report that detailed the destruction of life and infrastructure, successive evacuations of residents, and the denial of food and humanitarian assistance. The International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant expressed international condemnation of the same war crimes cited in the AI report.

Human Rights Watch

Not to be outdone, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued its 179-page report (“Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Deprives Palestinians in Gaza of Water”) on December 19. It focused not on bombs and bullets, but rather on the deprivation of water for the inhabitants of Gaza.

The HRW report cited Israel’s: “Extensive damage and destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure, including the apparently deliberate, systematic razing of the solar panels powering four of Gaza’s six wastewater treatment plants by Israeli ground forces, as well as Israeli soldiers filming themselves demolishing a key water reservoir.” Based on such findings, Human Rights Watch blamed Israel for causing the deaths of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by systematically restricting and targeting Gaza’s water supply. According to HRW, such actions amounted to “acts of genocide.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry denounced the report, accusing HRW of “once more spreading its blood libels in order to promote its anti-Israel propaganda.” It claimed that Israel has worked to facilitate the flow of water and humanitarian aid into Gaza throughout the war. The State Department spokesman said that the U.S. “disagreed with” HRW’s accusation that Israel was carrying out “acts of genocide” by damaging water infrastructure.

Doctors Without Borders

A third report (33 pages) published by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on December 19 is entitled “Gaza: Life in a Death Trap.” It centers on the systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and the repeated forced evacuations of residents. In the words of the report, “MSF has witnessed 14 months of repeated attacks on civilians, the dismantling of essential civilian infrastructure including healthcare facilities, and a systematic denial of humanitarian assistance, seemingly underpinning Israel’s campaign to unravel the very fabric of society in Gaza….The consequences of these impediments are made even more harmful due to the uniqueness of a war being waged on a besieged area from which nobody can escape.”

According to MSF Secretary General Christopher Lockyear, “What our medical teams have witnessed on the ground throughout this conflict is consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organizations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza.”

In response, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman accused MSF of “lying and misleading the public.” The U.S. response likewise denounced the report. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said with respect to MSF: “Even within their report, they make pretty clear that they don’t have the legal authority to determine intentionality.”

Why has the U.S. government repeatedly denied allegations of Israeli genocide in Gaza? In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attack, when he pledged to “stand with” its U.S. ally, Biden may have been driven by his decades-long admiration of Israel. The Israeli Defense Force’s scorched Earth bomb and missile attacks on Gaza have continued unabated throughout the Gaza Strip, and Israel has severely limited the provision of water, food, medicines, and other humanitarian aid. Now the death toll (not counting those buried under the rubble) has risen to more than 45,000. Yet Biden repeatedly refused to stop arming the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). His massive transfers of U.S.-made lethal weapons enabled Netanyahu, now an indicted war criminal facing ICC arrest warrants, to intensify his relentless bombardments of Gazan civilians.

If and when the war in Gaza is deemed a genocide by the International Court of Justice, Biden and his Secretaries of State and Defense could be (and, in my view should be) liable for complicity under the Genocide Convention of 1948. Americans should understand that Biden’s legacy is not all domestic triumph. It is even more a shameful foreign policy legacy of destruction and death.

— L. Michael Hager is cofounder and former Director General of the International Development Law Organization in Rome.

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Raytheon Pushes Doomsday Clock Closer to Midnight

Elizabeth Murray and John Heid of the Pacific Life Community were arrested on March 5, 2025 when they crossed onto the property of Tucson, Arizona’s Raytheon weapons factory to share their Ash Wednesday message for a nuclear-free future with workers. John Heid stated, “While there are many pressing issues in these times, the doomsday clock keeps ticking. The nuclear weapons industry quietly metastasizes before our very eyes. If we don’t pay attention and resist, nukes will have the last word. The very last.” Photo: Nuclear Resister

Opinion by Jack Cohen-Joppa

TUCSON, Ariz — In Tom Lehrer’s classic Cold War ditty, “So Long Mom,” a nuclear bomber pilot sings, “I’ll look for you when the war is over, an hour and a half from now.”

It’s darkly funny, because even though we don’t talk much about it, we all know it’s true. Planned or imagined, nuclear war scenarios rarely last longer.

But how much time have we got before then? How near is that threat of omnicide today?

The Doomsday Clock is a visual metaphor created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists back in 1947 to illustrate how close we are to global calamity from nuclear weapons and other looming threats to civilization as we know it. Originally set at seven minutes to midnight, in 2023 it advanced to 90 seconds to midnight, largely due to nuclear threats from the war in Ukraine.

Now, with wars still raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, escalating climate chaos, and increasing biological and artificial intelligence threats, the clock has been pushed to just 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s been in history.

And Raytheon Corp. keeps pushing us closer.

In April 2020 — Raytheon, with more than 12,000 local employees and the bulk of its research, development, and production based in Tucson — was awarded a sole-source contract to produce about 1,000 new nuclear-armed, air-launched cruise missiles. Known by the bland acronym LRSO (Long Range Stand-Off), the missile is arguably both redundant and destabilizing in a time of disappearing nuclear diplomacy.

Not only that, but because of its work on both the LRSO and Tomahawk cruise missiles, Raytheon is now seen as the leading contender to produce even more nuclear weapons in the form of new sea-launched nuclear cruise missiles. This further escalation would represent a huge setback to hard-won nuclear arms control progress, when nuclear-armed Tomahawks were removed from submarines over 30 years ago.

Why aren’t we talking about it? Despite near-universal condemnation of nuclear weapons by leaders of the world’s religions, we could use more local political and religious leaders speaking out against this blasphemous enterprise in our backyard. It’s not as if it’s a military secret. The industry press has recently carried reports of LRSO flight tests, budget allocations, production schedules, and more. Yet local media have not kept up.

Raytheon also has nothing to say. Usually, southern Arizona’s largest employer and exporter is mighty boastful of the panoply of products in their military portfolio. Their website is filled with fulsome bragging and lurid photos of deadly hardware. But the baddest boy of the bunch is missing in action. The nuclear-armed LRSO only pops up in a handful of financial reports. Raytheon’s original press release heralding the multibillion-dollar contract was posted on its website and quoted by the Tucson media in April 2020. But now it’s gone, simply deleted from its media archive.

Perhaps management has realized that there is nothing to be gained by crowing about their only product that, if used as intended, would be the instrument of multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity (incomprehensible death and devastation, disproportionate civilian casualties, lasting contamination of land and water, etc.). Raytheon’s “products” are certainly nothing I’m proud of as a Tucsonan.

This is the same Raytheon/RTX that last November was fined nearly $1 billion for defrauding the government (i.e., the taxpayer) and paying multiple bribes to promote business with the government of Qatar.

Experts debate whether the LRSO is intended for a nuclear surprise attack, or just another layer of“deterrence.” But if it isn’t meant to be used first, that just makes it fit into plans for a full-scale nuclear war. All ninety minutes of it. Shouldn’t we all pay more attention, and demand that our elected leaders resist this insanity?

— Jack Cohen-Joppa is a husband and father and a Tucson resident since 1986. He is co-coordinator since 1980 of the Nuclear Resister, www.nuclearresister.org. This piece was written for the Arizona Daily Star January 31.

Raytheon was awarded a $2 billion contract to build 1,000 redundant and destabilizing new nuclear-armed, air-launched cruise missiles. Cost estimates have since risen to $13 million per missile according to Military News. Photo: airandspaceforces.com

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Boondoggle Boost to Military Budget Busting

By Nukewatch Staff

The right-wing Washington Times reports: in 2023, the U.S. spent $916 billion, or 3.4% of its gross domestic product (GDP), on military expenditures, while China spent $296 billion, or 1.7% of its GDP, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers, R-Ala., has said military spending is at its lowest level as a percentage of GDP since the end of World War II and his goal is to get it back above 4%. Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who wants to see a $1 trillion military budget, wants spending to jump to 5% of GDP. He and Senate Committee Budget Chair Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, have discussed a goal of including an additional $200 billion in new military funding in the reconciliation legislation. — Military.com, Feb. 21; Washington Times, Jan. 16, 2025

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