Sentinels
By 
I have thoughts on the Air Force’s new ICBM…
The Sentinel is a next-generation ICBM designed to replace the 450 existing Minuteman missiles that constitute the ground-based element of America’s nuclear deterrent. A solid-fueled, silo-housed missile, the Sentinel is initially expected to carry a single 300+ kiloton (KT) warhead but will be flexible enough to adapt to a variety of payload possibilities. The Sentinel is expected to serve for some fifty years and cost (over its entire life cycle) some $270 billion.
Why buy an ICBM at this point? The Minuteman missile is some fifty years old and has served as the core of the ground-based deterrent since the 1970s. Since the development of accurate submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) ICBMs have been justified largely as “missile sponges,” targets for soaking up vast numbers of enemy missiles and thus sparing more critical targets from destruction. As just one of three legs of the US deterrent, they are not strictly necessary for the destruction of Russia or China.
I’d really rather we give up on building ICBMs. Strangely enough, a big chunk of the Air Force seems to feel the same way.
Some other links:
- On building the F-35.
- Most of you have probably seen that Ukraine lost an F-16, an event which resulted in the firing of the Ukrainian Air Force chief…
- Realists have been in the policy wilderness for so long that they’re remarkably easy to con…
- UN cybercrime treaty leaves much to be desired…
- Soviet sabotage doctrine lives on in both Russia and Ukraine…
- Bonkers story about how Navy chiefs jerry-rigged a streaming setup on an LCS…