Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
9/26/2014
U.S. Strategic Command Vice Commander Lt. Gen. James Kowalski confirmed late this week that a new “hybrid” mobile-option intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that would allow nuclear forces to respond to potential nuclear attacks with a greater degree of certainty than the 40-year-old Minuteman 3 ICBM is expected to debut in 2030. Speaking Sept. 25 at the Capitol Hill Club, Kowalski’s statements backed up summer news reports that the physical structure of the Minuteman 3’s replacement would allow for a mobile capability option. An analysis of alternatives (AoA) completed this summer for the ground-based strategic deterrent (GBSD) produced the replacement concept. Kowalski’s description of the future GBSD represented the most detailed on-the-record official description of the Minuteman 3 replacement by an Administration official.
Kowalski said the GBSD concept would provide greater flexibility than the Minuteman 3 currently has. Development should start by the end of the first half of Fiscal Year 2016 for a hopeful 2030 debut, officials have said. “I think what we want to be able to do is develop a system that would give us an option later on to go back and revisit what is the right basing mode, and do we need to move this missile to another basing mode? Can we do that?” he said. “And how do we do that? Certainly with the system we have today, you can’t do that. So if we need to replace the system, we should probably build into it the flexibility to do some other things in the future that the current Minuteman can’t.”
Current Silos Would be Retained, But Improved
Under the plan for the future GBSD, the current set of Minuteman 3 ICBMs would be replaced and the nation’s 450 hardened dispersed silos and 45 launch control centers would be retained. Kowalski said the spread and quantity of the silos “presents any adversary with an insurmountable problem. We really don’t have the fear today that we had in the Cold War of a bolt-out-of-the-blue first strike; one reason is because of that robust force out there. That, in turn, requires an adversary to commit most of their… arsenal, and that would leave them very vulnerable to our submarines and bomber forces.”
But Kowalski also cited the need for improved infrastructure of launch facilities. “While the concrete, I think, in the launch facilities and the launch control centers are pretty sound, the equipment in there is not and clearly needs to be replaced. That’s been identified,” he said. “The communications systems need to be upgraded. The computers—all of that needs to be rethought, and especially if we want to build in the flexibility in the future, we need to do this from the ground up,” he said. Kowalski added, “We can keep the Minuteman 3 viable out until 2030, but past that, it becomes very problematic. And as you’ve seen in some of the reporting up to this point, we have a lot of aggressive young committed people that we put into pretty old facilities. It’s not just the human element, but it reflects on our commitment to their mission when we don’t make the investments that are clearly necessary.”
