- The Sentinel program, which is the first major upgrade to the ground-based component of the nuclear triad in over 60 years and replaces the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, is currently 81% over budget, with costs now estimated at nearly $141 billion
- The program triggered a Nunn-McCurdy breach due to exceeding its baseline cost by 25% or more, requiring certification from the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, William A. LaPlante, that the program is essential to national security and meets other established criteria to continue.
- LaPlante cited increasing threats from Chinese and Russian nuclear arsenals as the reason behind higher-than-expected nuclear spending.
The land-based leg of the nuclear triad, which includes land-based missiles, submarines, and strategic bombers, is currently 81% over budget, with the Sentinel program now estimated to cost nearly $141 billion. The Northrop Grumman Sentinel program marks the first major upgrade to the ground-based component of the nuclear triad in over 60 years, replacing the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.
In January, the Air Force notified Congress that the Sentinel Nuclear Weapons program had exceeded its baseline cost, triggering what is known as a Nunn-McCurdy breach. The Nunn-McCurdy Amendment, enacted in 1983 as part of the 1982 Defense Authorization Act, aims to curtail cost growth in U.S. weapons procurement programs. A breach occurs when a program’s acquisition unit cost increases by 25% or more over the program’s current acquisition baseline.
When a breach occurs, the program must be terminated unless the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, William A. LaPlante, can certify to Congress that the program meets a set of established criteria to continue. These criteria include the program being essential to national security, having no alternatives, creating new and reasonable estimates of acquisition costs, being more cost-effective, being a higher priority than other programs that would need to be cut to fund it, and having a management structure capable of meeting budgetary goals.
The Sentinel Nuclear Weapons program has been deemed vital to the national security of the United States by LaPlante. “We fully appreciate the magnitude of the costs, but we also understand the risks of not modernizing our nuclear forces and not addressing the very real threats we confront,” LaPlante said. He cited increasing threats from China and Russia as the catalyst for overspending on nuclear weapons.
The majority of cost growth is in Sentinel’s command-and-launch segment, which includes extensive communications and control infrastructure that allows missile launch officers to connect to the silo-based missiles and fire them if ordered.
The program will be restructured, with some planned modernization of the launch facilities being scaled back. An ambitious plan to replace a whole network of underground cabling known as Hicks cables may be revised in favor of more affordable alternatives.
“The increased costs will eventually be offset by cuts to other programs,” said General Jim Slife, Air Force Chief of Staff. Most of the cost increases to the Sentinel program will occur outside the next five fiscal years of budget planning, so no immediate difficult choices on program budget cuts will need to be made.