Special Interests are Pushing a Dangerous New Nuclear Missile

The Pentagon is in the midst of an enormously expensive program aimed at building a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines, at a cost of at least $2 trillion over the next three decades. The plan is both dangerous and unnecessary.

Of particular concern is the effort to build a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), known as the Sentinel. Former secretary of defense William Perry has called ICBMs “some of the most dangerous weapons we have,” because a president would only have a matter of minutes to decide whether to launch them on warning of an attack, greatly increasing the risk of an accidental nuclear war based on a false alarm. Given this risk, the wisest policy would be to cancel the Sentinel, and to remove existing ICBMs from the U.S. arsenal.

Last month the Pentagon missed a major opportunity to make Americans safer when it announced the results of a review of the Sentinel program under the Nunn-McCurdy Act, a provision designed to curb runaway cost overruns in major weapons programs. The review was triggered by the fact that the estimated costs for the Sentinel have grown by an astonishing 81% in the past two years. It will now cost over $140 billion to develop and build the Sentinel system — a total of $214 million per missile.

Under the Nunn-McCurdy review, the Pentagon had the option of canceling, delaying, or restructuring the Sentinel program. Instead, the department doubled down, committing to spend whatever it costs to complete it even if it means cutting back on other projects.