Defense/ Awesome calculations

The Pentagon is embarking on an ambitious new plan to develop and build a next generation nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. But experts question if the U.S. military really needs to spend billions of dollars on a new missile when the service’s current Minuteman III could easily be refurbished and used for decades to come.

Moreover, there are serious questions about whether the U.S. even needs a land-based ICBM—especially when the Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the American taxpayer is on the hook for at least $348 billion over the ten years to pay for its range of air-, sea-, and land-based nuclear weapons.

A number of experts—including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel—have written that land-based ICBMs are only really useful against single foe: Russia. But there are other nuclear adversaries on the horizon, including China, North Korea, and even Iran. Against them, Hagel and others have written, such weapons would be largely ineffective because they would have to overfly Russian airspace.

 $348 Billion in Nukes Ain’t Enough. The Air Force Wants New ICBMs, Too.