Jenn Rowell

jrowell@greatfallstribune.com

The Air Force released a request for proposals Friday to replace the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile weapon system.

According to the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, up to two contracts are expected in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017, which begins Oct. 1.

The ground-based strategic deterrent is the follow-on to the 450 LGM-30 Minuteman III missiles currently used by the Air Force, including the 150 operated and maintained by the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base.

The launch systems, and command and control physical infrastructure in use today first became operational with the Minuteman I system in the 1960s.

Some components and subsystems have been upgraded since, including the transition to the Minuteman III configuration in the 1970s, most of the fundamental infrastructure is original and has supported more than 50 years of continuous operation, according to AFNWC.

The flight systems in use now were fielded in the late 1990s and early 2000s with an intended 20-year lifespan. The Minuteman III system is expected to operate through 2030.

“The current Minuteman III system will face increased operational and sustainment challenges until it can be replaced,” according to the release.

“The Minuteman III will have a difficult time surviving in the active anti-access, area denial environment that we will be dealing with in the 2030 and beyond time period,” Gen. Robin Rand, the commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, told the House Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee in March.

The new ground based strategic deterrence system will meet existing requirements and have adaptability and flexibility to address changing technology and threats through 2075, according to the Air Force.

The new system is expected to be deployed beginning in the late 2020s, according to the AFNWC.

“This request for proposals is the next step to ensuring the nation’s ICBM leg of the nuclear triad remains safe, secure and effective,” said Maj. Gen. Scott Jansson, the commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and Air Force program executive officer for strategic systems.

In January, Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, visited Malmstrom and said developing the requirements for the GBSD, as well as other components of the nuclear enterprise, is a lengthy process.

“When you look at something as sophisticated as what we have to deliver,” it takes time and a deliberate process, he said.

The cost of nuclear modernization is high and some lawmakers and arms reduction groups have advocated for reducing the triad to two legs.

Haney said in January that it’s always instructive to review how to best posture U.S. nuclear forces, but the triad allows each leg to leverage the other providing an effective deterrent.

“So the adversary would have to think twice about the multi-dimensional response,” he said.

Haney visited Malmstrom again in March and said nuclear modernization is important, even as the U.S. works toward lower limits under the New START agreement with Russia.

“This isn’t about the Cold War; the Cold War is over,” Haney said. “It’s about maintaining 21st century deterrence.”

Under New START, a nuclear arms-reduction treaty with Russia, those empty silos counted as nondeployed missile launchers. New START, which was ratified in 2011, limits the U.S. and Russia to 800 nondeployed launchers.

The deactivated silos have to be eliminated by February 2018.

New START also limits deployed launchers to 700 across ICBM fields, submarines and bomber aircraft.

The Pentagon announced in April 2014 that it would retain all 450 ICBM silos operated by the Air Force, including the 150 at Malmstrom.

The Air Force will remove missiles from 50 silos but keep them in a warm status, meaning they can be rearmed at any time.

The White House is reportedly considering a five year extension of New START, but no decision has been released.

Earlier in July, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., joined 12 other senators in penning a letter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter asking for assurances that the Defense Department would continue steps to modernize the ICBM force with the GBSD, among other nuclear modernization programs.

“We must reconstitute our intercontinental ballistic missile force before the existing system degrades and becomes obsolete,” the senators wrote. “In addition, the warheads carried on each of these delivery systems must be refurbished so that their deterrent capability remains unquestioned.”

The Senate approved the White House’s nuclear modernization request in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act and the senators expressed concern that the administration was considering steps to change course on nuclear issues.

The senators also asked Carter for assurances that DOD would “preserve a robust program of nuclear modernization across the next five year defense plan; and continue to articulate the value of strategic deterrence and the need for nuclear modernization in light of a wide array of strategic challenges facing the United States.”