The US Department of Defense, historically criticized for overspending and a lack of financial accountability, announced it was launching a review of efforts to replace aging Minuteman nuclear missile infrastructure after a “critical” cost overrun. The Air Force made the announcement Thursday.
A spokesperson for the air service branch informed Congress the so-called “Sentinel” upgrade program “has exceeded its initial cost projections” by at least 37% percent, triggering a necessary notification of lawmakers under the 1982 Nunn-McCurdy Act. The law was intended to respond to recurrent cost overruns at the Pentagon, requiring the military to cancel projects entirely if they exceed original spending estimates by 50% or more.
The US’ ground-based nuclear missile system has seen some upgrades over the years, with the Minuteman III representing the latest iteration of the technology, but the silos used to house the missiles are decades old.
“It's been over 70 years since we did the ground piece of this,” said Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics. “We didn't estimate it well.”
The program’s cost is now estimated to be over $131 billion but it was warned the price tag could balloon further as the US Secretary of Defense conducts a required review in coming months.
The missile silos and adjoining command infrastructure are said to date back to the 1950s. Their upgrade is being handled by the weapons contractor Northrop Grumman.
The US’s ground-based Minuteman nuclear missiles represent one prong of the country’s so-called “nuclear triad” which boasts the capability to launch nukes from air, sea, and land.
The United States signed nuclear arms reduction agreements with the Soviet Union in the waning days of the Cold War, but many of those treaties have been allowed to lapse as relations have deteriorated between Russia and the West. Observers worry about the prospect of armed confrontation in the wake of Western funding of a proxy conflict against Russia in the Donbass region. Recently the UK’s secretary of defense predicted Western powers would find themselves at war with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran within five years.
The United States devotes more money to military spending than the next 10 countries combined, although many observers question the effectiveness of the country’s largely privatized arms manufacturing industry. Meanwhile drone warfare has allowed smaller countries and even non-state groups to expand their capabilities cheaply.
Late last year it was announced the Pentagon had failed its sixth independent audit in a row, a process initiated by US lawmakers amidst concern over the agency’s financial accountability. In 2007 a story emerged about $9 billion dollars that had gone missing in Iraq in the form of palettes of shrink wrapped $100 bills.