A Nuclear Dyad? Arms Control Groups Call For an End to ICBMs

January 16, 2024
By Kris Osborn

Throughout the course of human history, weapons have been thought of as instruments of death and destruction … But what if a weapon had the opposite effect of actually saving, preserving and assuring life by preventing conflict?

This contradiction is the foundation of the Pentagon nuclear deterrence land-air-and-undersea triad, yet some arms control groups are again questioning whether all three air-sea-and-land legs are necessary. The argument now again being presented by several arms control groups, supported at times by some members of Congress, is simply that the US can ensure nuclear retaliation and deterrence without land-based ICBMs. The question, which has lingered for years, is now gaining attention due to concerns that the Pentagon’s new Sentinel ICBM might experience slight delays. The Pentagon has for years been clear that replacing the 1960s-era Minuteman III ICBMs is crucial to US national security, and Northrop Grumman developers continue to make breakthrough progress with construction, testing and preparations for the Sentinel, a next-generation ICBM expected to arrive by the end of the decade.

The Pentagon’s aging Minuteman III, a 1960s-era weapon, has been approaching obsolescence for many years now and ..despite literally decades of upgrades, a recent study from the RAND Corporation finds that the 1960s & 1970s-era Minuteman III ICBM simply cannot effectively counter new missile defense technologies being developed by great-power adversaries.

The Sentinel ICBMs are slated to replace the 400 Minuteman III ICBMs currently in service for more than 50 years in Air Force missile fields at F.E. Warren Air Force Base (AFB), Wyoming; Malmstrom AFB, Montana; and Minot AFB, North Dakota, a report from the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center says.

Minuteman III is Obsolete

Although U.S. defense officials emphasize that the Minuteman III is able to fulfill its mission, the system is anticipated to have “increasing difficulty penetrating future adversary defenses,”according to the 2018 NPR (Nuclear Posture Review), the RAND report, “Modernizing the U.S. Nuclear Triad: The Rationale for a New Intercontinental Ballistic Missile | RAND” says.

“Senior military officials have made clear that a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. ICBM force is needed to increase targeting flexibility; to mitigate improvements in adversary missile defenses; and to strengthen defenses against cyberattacks that could undermine the system’s responsiveness and degrade communication in a crisis,” the Rand study says.

As of last year, Northrop Grumman and Air Force developers have been clear that the Sentinel program has been achieving developmental success and that they do not expect a nuclear missile readiness "gap" between the deterioration of the Minuteman III and arrival of the Sentinel. Northrop developers also explained in 2022 that the weapon was slated for additional testing and a special "cybersecurity" technology effort was underway to ensure the Sentinel was "hardened" and protected against new generations of likely cyberattacks.

The Rand report further specifies that the Sentinel is being built with new missile guidance systems, launch facilities, command centers and "modifications to ensure alignment with enterprise-wide improvements on NC3 systems (command and control)."

A Nuclear "Dyad" & No ICBMs?

Nevertheless, a joint statement from the Arms Control Association and Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction argued that developmental challenges or delays with the Air Force’s emerging Sentinel ICBM program again raise questions about whether it is necessary to have a land-based “leg” of the nuclear triad with ICBMs.

“The program (Sentinel ICBM) already faces significant overruns that may trigger a Congressional review. This provides an opportunity to think about alternatives to the current Sentinel program and ending six decades of reliance on land-based ICBMs,” the statement reads.

While there have been recent reports of possible delays, the Pentagon's Sentinel ICBM program has been quite successful in a number of key respects. Overall, the weapon is years ahead of schedule due to successful digital engineering techniques which enabled weapons developers to evaluate multiple designs and decide upon a method of approach before spending years building multiple prototypes. Cutting edge computer simulation technologies are now able to precisely replicate key performance parameters associated with weapons designs.

The emerging US Navy Columbia-class submarines and B-21 Raider stealth bombers can together ensure that any adversary that launches a nuclear attack upon the United States would be totally destroyed in a massive retaliatory nuclear counterstrike. This promise of annihilation presented by the US’ land-air-sea nuclear triad forms the conceptual and literal foundation of strategic deterrence. Columbia-class submarines, armed with 16 Trident II D5 nuclear missiles, would certainly be well-positioned to destroy any adversary that launches a first-strike nuclear attack on the US, as they quietly lurk in the dark, hidden corners of the ocean in strategic position to successfully strike any enemy that launches a nuclear attack. In the air, the existence of the current B-2, B-52 and F-35, coupled with the soon-to-arrive stealthy B-21, guarantee that a potential enemy is held at risk of stealthy nuclear attack from the air.

In recent years, nuclear disarmament advocates and arms control groups, supported at times by members of Congress, have argued that it simply is not necessary for the US to operate ICBMs, given that it operates aircraft and submarines capable of delivering nuclear weapons if needed.

The arms control groups’ statements also make reference to new research findings citing previously unknown horrors and implications associated with the prospect of nuclear war.

“A new study based on state-of-the-art nuclear war modeling suggests the scale of the human and environmental impact of this policy may be larger than previously known,” the statement from the Arms Control Association and Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction reads.

Advocates for the Sentinel program, and the need for an ICBM-land-based leg of the nuclear triad are likely to agree with the sentiment of this statement, as the reason for ICBMs is, quite simply, to keep the peace and ensure they are never used. The prospect of global catastrophe and devastation is exactly what nuclear weapons are built to prevent.

Bernard Brodie: Weapons Built to Prevent War

Nuclear deterrence rests almost entirely upon a paradox, meaning the promise of absolute destruction becomes an instrument of peace. Certainly the horrors of nuclear war are exactly what the existence of nuclear weapons are intended to avoid. This paradox, or apparent contradiction, was well articulated by a famous 1940s-era Yale philosopher called Bernard Brodie. Brodie argued that nuclear weapons, unlike weapons typically produced throughout human history, are built for the specific purpose of “not” being used. Throughout the course of civilization, weapons have been created to “use” against or “kill” an enemy, yet Brodie maintains this is not the purpose of nuclear weapons. Thus the contradiction becomes clear … engineer an ultimate weapon of death and destruction, for the specific purpose of never using it and “saving lives.” Sure enough, since the dawn of the nuclear era, casualties in war are a fraction of what they were before nuclear weapons existed.

Brodies 1946 Essay, called “Implications for Military Policy,” and Essay in The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and the World Order were published by Yale Universities’ Institute of International Studies.

Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.