When word came down that the new Sentinel missiles being developed to replace the Minuteman III missiles at F.E. Warren Air Force Base are 81% over budget, that wasn’t a huge surprise to Tucker Fagan.
The Cheyenne resident is the former base commander for F.E. Warren and is among those closely following new developments with the nation’s aging intercontinental ballistic missile system.
“When I heard that, hey, they believe they’re now going to have to re-plumb all the underground cabling, I was like, ‘Oh my God, what is that going to cost?’” he told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday.
That’s on top of the Sentinel program also getting a new launch facility at the base, which the Minuteman III system did not have.
“I think the closest missile is probably somewhere around Pine Bluffs,” Fagan said. “So then you say, ‘OK, if there’s going to be a launch capability from the base proper, which has never been done before, then you have to plumb a line — no, there will be redundant lines.
“There will be multiple redundant lines coming to that control center.”
That’s in addition to going back to re-plumb each existing line that’s already in place.
“I don’t know if they’re going to leave the existing line there, but I imagine they’re going to say, ‘OK, here are the existing lines and we have contracts with these farmer-ranchers that we go through their land,’” Fagan said. “And we’re probably going to redo those and use the existing cableways, I’d guess.
“But yeah, think about that. You have to build a whole new cable. You have to get it out there, get it in the ground, hook it up and test it. So, an 81% cost increase — I’d love to see what the cost increase was just for new cabling. That’s got to be a major portion.”
In fact, Department of Defense officials on Monday highlighted the ground-based segment of the Sentinel program as the main factor that busted the budget.
“The knowledge of the ground-based segment of this program was insufficient in hindsight to have a high-quality estimate,” Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions and Sustainment Dr. William A. LaPlante said. “The knowledge we have today is much better than we had even four years ago.”
What Is The Nunn-McCurdy Act?
The Nunn-McCurdy Act, passed in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan, requires the Department of Defense to report to Congress whenever a major acquisition program is going to exceed cost estimates by either 25% over a current baseline estimate, or 50% over the original baseline estimate.
Any program that’s 30% over cost triggers a review by the secretary of defense, who must either cancel it or determine that it is necessary for national defense and that there is no reasonable, cheaper alternative.
In the case of the Sentinel missile upgrade, multiple studies have already been done analyzing that very thing, Fagan said.
“Three, four years ago now, there was a study that showed it would be more expensive to go back and re-plumb the existing system than to buy a new one,” Fagan said. “And these people don’t just make these decisions off the top of their head, they study, study and study it.”
LaPlante said that while his comprehensive review of the Sentinel program found that a “reasonably modified Sentinel program” is still essential to national security, that doesn’t mean “business as usual.”
“The program will be restructured to address the root causes of the breach and ensure an appropriate management structure is in place to control costs,” he said.
Acquisition costs for the Sentinel missile program are now estimated at $140.9 billion, an increase of 81% over the previous estimate in 2020.
“There are reasons for this cost growth, but there are also no excuses,” LaPlante said. “We fully appreciate the magnitude of the cost, but we also understand the risks of not modernizing our nuclear forces and of not addressing the very real threats we confront.”
Given that the program was not actually ready to proceed in 2020, he’s requiring the project to go back to that point in time and prepare an amended proposal, taking into account all of the new information.
“Preserving the schedule will be a key consideration during this restructuring,” he said. “But a delay of several years is currently estimated.”
Multitasking
The delay for restructuring the funding framework does not necessarily extend to current expenditures on the ground to prepare for the Sentinel missile’s construction, Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce CEO/President Dale Steenbergen told Cowboy State Daily.
“There’s been quite a bit moving in the congressional budgets for (the project),” he said. “So, we just needed to see it get a positive review coming out of the (Nunn-McCurdy) process.”
Steenbergen added he’s “pretty pumped” now that the project has been certified as necessary to national security.
“There’s not going to be a big delay,” he said. “Even the press release said 18 to 24 months. We didn’t expect the project to start before then. Originally, we had thought maybe the 2025 timeframe, but 2027 was always kind of the year we were looking for a lot of activity to get started.”
With a project of this size, Steenbergen said there are multiple layers happening at the same time, and quite a bit of money is already being spent on some of those layers.
“If you look in the congressional budget, you’d see there’s a big chunk of money for F.E. Warren for the coming year to prepare for the Sentinel,” he said. “And I see this as a good thing because they’re going to get more involved in that prep work and being ready to do the project.”
Delays are common with government projects, Steenbergen added.
“I mean, we always expect delays in a military project, right?” he said. “It takes a while to get organized, and very few of them finish when we think they will.”
Fagan, for his part, said he never had any doubt that the missile replacement program would continue, even after the Nunn-Mcurdy thresholds were reached.
“This is important to the world that we deter the Chinese and the Russians,” he said. “And we’re going to keep the Minuteman alive until we can do a total switch over.”
Economic Impact Is Huge For Cheyenne, Wyoming
Replacing the Minuteman III missiles will have huge economic impact for the region, Steenbergen has previously told Cowboy State Daily.
The project was projected to bring around $2.6 billion in construction money to the area just for the F.E. Warren Air Force Base’s part of the project.
Steenbergen has been told he can expect between 3,000 to 5,000 people on site at peak construction. Many of those will likely be housed at a man camp in Nebraska, but these workers will include lots of highly trained specialists like engineers, chemists and physicists.
So many highly trained, creative minds is something Steenbergen has seen have a ripple effect on the area for years to come after other missile programs.
“Just from a flat economic perspective, I mean this is going to bring billions to the economy and it’s going to offer us opportunities to leverage technology and keep our kids at home over the years,” he said. “Even before this ever started, though, the military is more than 30% of our economy — somewhere between 30 and 35% — so when we start thinking about the future, it’s hard to imagine our economy without that in it.”
But the underlying importance of the missile program goes well beyond Cheyenne and Wyoming, Steenbergen added.
“It’s tragic that we have to have this, right?” he said. “I mean, we have to have it because the world is a dangerous place and full of dangerous people and entities. It’d be lovely to spend this money on something else, but it is incumbent on us to defend this nation and make sure that free enterprise and democracy continue for our kids and grandkids.”
Having such a mission close to home is a source of pride, Steenbergen said.
“Now that this (Nunn-McCurdy) step is over, the real work begins,” he said. “We have to figure out how to be a good place to live, work and do business for all the contractors that are coming here.”
That includes leveraging opportunities for small businesses to be involved.
“We’re really viewing it holistically and, as every military project, how we manage what’s going on in the community will determine what our trajectory is coming out the other side and how much benefit our people receive,” he said. “Our goal is to maximize that benefit for everyone involved.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
