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.
Given that a new ICBM will make the world a more dangerous place, why is the Sentinel program still going forward? The short answer is that there’s money to be made. Northrop Grumman and its fellow contractors on the program are determined to reap the profits from the Sentinel, and they are using all their power and influence to make sure that happens.
The companies are joined in this effort by members of Congress whose states and districts benefit from spending on the Sentinel. The most active faction is the Senate ICBM Coalition, made up of Senators from Montana, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming — states that house ICBM bases or major ICBM manufacturing facilities.
Congressional advocates of the Sentinel program have been backed up by the clout of the major ICBM contractors, who have donated $87 million to Congressional candidates in the past four election cycles while employing 275 lobbyists, most of whom came from influential positions in government before joining the arms industry. The argument of last resort for the Sentinel is that it creates well paying jobs in key communities, but this claim is hugely exaggerated. Northrop Grumman itself claims that the program will create 10,000 jobs in the development phase, a tiny fraction of the national work force of 167 million people.
Given all of the challenges we face as a nation, from conflicts abroad to unmet needs at home, we simply cannot continue to let special interest lobbying determine the size, shape, and cost of our nuclear arsenal. It’s long past time to cancel the Sentinel and retire existing ICBMs. Not only will it make America and the world a safer place, it will free up tens of billions of dollars to address other urgent national needs.