Last August, the Pentagon awarded contracts to begin designing new components for proposed weapons systems. A new ICBM and a new cruise missile will play the same role in our nuclear arsenal as the missiles they are replacing. They are expected to be operational in the late 2020s.
Contracts were awarded to Boeing and Northup Grumman for work on a new intercontinental ballistic missile called the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. This new missile is intended to replace the Minuteman III missiles that are currently in place in missile silos in Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota.
During the next three years, the two contractors will construct about twenty different prototypes for components for the new missiles. The ICBMs will have to operate in what the military refers to an anti-access, area denial environment. This means that the enemy has air defenses that can shoot down aircraft that do not have a stealth design or electronically jam systems on board U.S. aircraft including missiles. Such environments are worse that what the old Minuteman missiles would have faced when they were deployed. They will also be flying in much more congested air space than the Minutemen would have flown through. The Air Force will evaluate and compare the work and, with the approval of Congress and the Pentagon, select one of the two companies to build more than four hundred of the new ICBM missiles.
Lockheed Martin and Raytheon received contracts to develop prototype components for the new nuclear cruise missile called the Long-Range Standoff weapon. The new cruise missiles will be launched from the B-52 bomber. They will also have to operate in an anti-access, area denial environment with advanced air defense systems to contend with. As with the new ICBM, the Air Force will evaluate the work and then pick one of the two companies to build about a thousand of the new cruise missiles pending approval by Congress and the Pentagon.
There is a concern in Congress that there may not be enough funds available to build all the weapons projects that are part of the one trillion two hundred million upgrade plan for the U.S. nuclear forces over the next thirty years. The new ICBMs could cost up to eighty five billion dollars. The new cruise missiles estimated cost is around ten billion dollars. The Trump administration is evaluating the size and type of nuclear weapons that should be added to the U.S. nuclear arsenal in a Nuclear Posture Review which is expected to be finished by early next year at the soonest.
Even though both the ICBM and cruise missile programs have begun, some military planners are not satisfied with the current time table. General David Goldfein, chief of the U.S. Air Force, said that he was not comfortable with the schedule. He said, “The new cruise missiles will be launched from the B-52 bomber. It will have to operate in what the military refers to an anti-access, area denial environment. The question I’ll continue to have is: How to I move it left. How do we get this capability earlier. Because if you can actually get it faster, you can get it cheaper sometimes.” Goldfein asked if there was a way that the two projects could be speeded up. Major General Shaun Morris, the commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, said, “We’re looking at that.”
