Todd Harrison
Airman 1st Class Vincent Rymar, 341st Missile Maintenance Squadron missile management team cage man trainee, lowers himself into a trainer missile silo March 5, 2025, at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. Becoming a certified MMT technician takes six months of continuous training both in the classroom and in the missile training silo. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Mary Bowers)
In his first message to airmen, new Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said it plainly: “At our core, we fly and fix aircraft. It is the heart of who we are and what we do.” He’s right — and yet, for decades, the land-based leg of America’s nuclear triad has sat within a military service fundamentally mismatched to the mission.
Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) ended up in the Air Force in the early days of the space age when missile and rocket technology were deeply intertwined. The architects who championed ICBMs — figures like Gen. Bernard Schriever — have long since passed. What remains is an ICBM force sliding into disrepair and a troubled modernization program that is 81 percent over budget and risks undermining the credibility of America’s nuclear deterrent.
With the ICBM enterprise at a crossroads, Congress and the administration should move this critical mission to the Army, where it logically belongs today.
The moment is right for decisive change: The Sentinel program is already being restructured, and new missiles, silos, and support facilities will begin to take shape in the coming years. The question is whether we use this opportunity to fix a long simmering structural mismatch, or whether we pour new systems and even more funding into an outdated structure that continues down the failed path of the past 30 years.
There are three fundamental reasons why the Air Force is no longer a fit for the ICBM mission, and why the Army is.
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