WASHINGTON (AP) — The new Sentinel nuclear warhead program is 81% over budget and is now estimated to cost nearly $141 billion, but the Pentagon is moving forward with the program, saying that given the threats from China and Russia it does not have a choice.
The Northrop Grumman Sentinel program is the first major upgrade to the ground-based component of the nuclear triad in more than 60 years and will replace the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.
It involves not only building a new missile but the modernization of 450 silos across five states, their launch control centers, three nuclear missile bases and several other testing facilities.
The expansiveness of the program previously raised questions from government watchdogs as to whether the Pentagon could manage it all.
Military budget officials on Monday said when they set the program’s estimated costs their full knowledge of the modernization needed “was insufficient in hindsight to have a high-quality cost estimate,” Bill LaPlante, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, told reporters on a call.
The high cost overrun triggered what is known as a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which occurs if the cost of developing a new program increases by 25% or more. By statute, the under secretary of defense for acquisition then must **undertake a rigorous review of the program to determine if it should continue; otherwise the program must be terminated. **
Eh, given how old the crap is, I’m not sure I agree. Cancel an aircraft carrier or some F-35s if necessary, but I do want a strong nuclear deterrent for whatever the future may bring, not shit that might become vulnerable to a new countermeasure.
Not a “good enough” deterrent, but a strong one.
That said, we probably could pare the stockpile back. But modernization and updates are important. These missiles are older than we are, unless you’re some hip Lemmy grandpa or something.
I guess, but the U.S. also supposedly has 3708 warheads, with another 1336 “retired” warheads which are supposedly just sitting around waiting to be disarmed, which sounds like code to me for “we can still use these if we feel like it.”
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nuclear-weapons-who-has-what-glance
Maybe if we’re going to start updating our nukes, we can actually start dismantling the old ones?
If I remember right, we were dismantling a lot of them during the Obama administration, but they’re actually rather expensive to dismantle, since we were trying to recycle the plutonium for use in energy production. Go figure. It was also dependent on treaties Obama negotiated with Putin where we were both shrinking our arsenals.
People tend to forget, but nuclear reduction was a major goal of Obama’s, and he actually made some progress.
Goddamm homie just read the damn article. We are only making 1 bomb but updating 450 silos. That’s prolly where much of the unexpected costs is. Not like we’re testing these silos regularly and what good is any nukes if the silos themselves get jammed or fuck up anywhere.