Exclusive: An inside look at America’s aging ballistic missile arsenal

By Oren Liebermann, CNN

Minot, North Dakota (CNN) — The unassuming site with the innocuous name Oscar-6 barely protrudes from the expansive landscape only a few miles away from the Canadian border. Were it not for the barbed wire fence, the nondescript patch of land could be mistaken for an abandoned construction site a 45-minute drive from the nearest town.

Underneath the blast door stands one of the most powerful weapons in the US inventory, a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. Sitting atop the towering missile is its polished silver nuclear warhead, capable of hitting virtually any spot in the world, with booster rockets that can propel the missile to 15,000 miles per hour.

This missile silo, like the other 149 dotting the North Dakota countryside, are hard-wired to a series of facilities spaced outside Minot Air Force Base, where small teams of airmen stay on alert around the clock, always ready in case the unthinkable order comes to launch one of America’s weapons of mass destruction.

The US has approximately 400 Minuteman III missiles, according to the Air Force, spread across several bases. They must be kept always at the ready so that they are hopefully never used.

“The potential destructive power of these weapons is so vast,” said Col. James Schlabach, commander of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base. “The public at large needs us to be sharpened and on our game with this in all aspects of it.”

ICBMs make up one part of the nuclear triad, the means by which the US could launch a nuclear attack. But unlike the other two parts of the triad – strategic bombers and ballistic missile submarines – the ICBM launch facilities are fixed positions. So are the missile alert facilities that control 10 launch facilities, or silos, each.

Deep under each missile alert facility is a tiny capsule with barely enough room to stretch. The capsule is sealed behind a massive vault door that remains closed almost around the clock. Inside, two US service members are in charge of 10 missiles, monitoring them at all times in case of an issue with the strategic weapon or its silo housing.

“When we open those big doors and we step in, it’s like another world,” 2nd Lt. Evelyn McCoy told CNN. “When we sit down at those consoles, it’s easy to remember that there are billions of dollars worth of assets at our fingertips, and that doesn’t come lightly on me at all.”

At Minot Air Force Base, the two airmen will spend 24 hours in the capsule, sharing one bed, one bathroom, a fridge and a microwave.

The long hours in the capsule can be tedious, with little connection to the outside world. On the surface, teams of security forces protect the missile alert facility and the surrounding silos, while a small group of chefs prepares three meals a day for the entire team. A second team of two airmen waits for their 24-hour shift in the underground control capsule.

“We train how we fight and we take it very seriously,” said Lt. Joseph Cambio. “Maintenance comes out every day helping fixing our weapons system. We have the security forces guarding it. We have people back at base supporting training. We have [medical] groups supporting us, making sure we can go out here. It takes the entire wing to get this mission done.”

The young officers who sit inside the capsule are often less than half the age of the missiles weapons they control.

The Minuteman III ICBM was first deployed in 1970, less than a decade after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Production of the long-range missile came to an end in 1978. The newest missiles in the US inventory are nearly 50 years old, going through numerous modernization and improvement programs to keep the strategic weapon operating.

The Air Force intends to replace the aging Minuteman III with the Sentinel missile, which it bills as “the most cost-effective option” for maintaining this leg of the nuclear triad. But in July, the Air Force acknowledged the program would cost at least $140.9 billion, making it already 81% over budget years before a single missile had even been delivered.

The soaring cost of the program triggered a violation of the Nunn-McCurdy statute, which terminates a program unless the Pentagon determines it’s critical to national security and there is no other option.

“We are fully aware of the costs, but we are also aware of the risks of not modernizing our nuclear forces and not addressing the very real threats we confront,” said Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante in determining the program would continue.

Advocates of the Sentinel program point to Russia and China, who are racing to modernize their own strategic weapons. Last year, the commander of US Strategic Command told Congress that China has more land-based ballistic missile launchers than the US.

Russia has been carrying out military exercises involving its tactical nuclear weapons, as President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons since invading Ukraine.

But America’s two most powerful adversaries are not the only nuclear threats.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has continued to test his own ballistic missiles, as concerns remain about the potential for another nuclear test from Pyongyang. And Secretary of State Antony Blinken said recently that Iran’s breakout time to a nuclear weapon could be as little as one or two weeks.

Schlabach, the commander of the missile wing, said the Cold War’s bipolar world was less complicated than the numerous threats today. That complexity, Schlabach argued, drives the need for modernizing the ballistic missile fleet.

“That provides a stability, whether it’s a major state actor, like the former Soviet Union,” Schlabach said, “or whether it’s a smaller nation that may decide today is the day that they wanna try something.”

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