Rethinking the American Land Based Portion of the Nuclear Triad? or not?

The United States Air Force needs to replace the Minuteman III ICBM fleet at the three nuclear missile bases in Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota. Critics decry the cost of a proposed replacement, thought to be in the range of several hundred billion dollars. Their main argument against replacing ICBMs is not the cost of replacing the Minuteman III. The critics say we just don’t need them. They are, they say, a “Cold War relic.”

The fact that nuclear peer Russia and near-peer China are modernizing their ICBM forces is often lost on those critics. While the reasons why are debatable, Russia’s recent aggression on a variety of fronts has left many Russia apologists dumbfounded. Russia isn’t just modernizing its ICBMs. At a frequency unprecedented since the Cold War, Russian nuclear-capable bombers are penetrating the American Air Defense Identification Zone’s (ADIZ) in both the continental United States and around Guam. Russia, unlike the US, is investing heavily to modernize their nuclear triad — delivery vehicles and weapons. The Russians seem intent on relying on their nuclear force to counter American conventional military superiority.

China likewise is improving its nuclear forces. The DF-41— a multiple reentry vehicle ICBM — was recently tested successfully. They are also working on improving their nuclear submarine capability, placing new submarine-launched ballistic missiles on Jin class nuclear submarines. To deter such capabilities America requires a secure and reliable nuclear deterrent for decades to come.

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