The Air Force’s second highest ranking official, Under Secretary Melissa Dalton, visited Malmstrom Air Force Base and Great Falls this week.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall has recused himself from decision making on Sentinel, citing his previous work with Northrop Grumman, the contractor selected to develop the service’s replacement for the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile weapon system.

That makes Dalton the military’s top official on Sentinel, which is projected to replace the 1970s-era Minuteman III and operate through at least 2075.

Dalton met with Great Falls area civic leaders during her trip and airmen at Malmstrom Air Force Base this week after a stop at Minot AFB in North Dakota.

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She sat down with The Electric for a chat on Sentinel and Malmstrom’s role in nuclear deterrence at Holman Aviation on Aug. 28, arriving on a helicopter assigned to missile field security, with one of the new Grey Wolf helicopters in the group, as well as the current UH-1N Hueys.

One of her areas of focus as under secretary is nuclear modernization, including the current Minuteman system in place at Malmstrom and the other two ICBM bases, and the transition from that system to modernized systems, particularly Sentinel.

Dalton said she and her team met with the airmen who are performing the ICBM mission to “understand the challenges they are navigating in terms of fielding and supporting what is a capable and viable system. If hopefully, in the unlikely event that something were to happen, we’re ready to go tonight. But it is a capability that has been in service for decades and so ensuring that we can continue to maintain it as we plan for the new ICBM, Sentinel, to come online is primary focus for us right now.”

DOD certifies Sentinel program to continue despite cost overruns

The Sentinel system was delayed this year when the Air Force notified Congress in January that the Sentinel program exceeded its baseline cost projections, causing a critical breach under the federal Nunn-McCurdy Act, which occurs if the program or average unit procurement cost increases by 25 percent of more over the baseline.

The total program acquisition cost for a “reasonably modified Sentinel program” are now estimated at $140.9 billion, an increase of 81 percent compared to the program’s Milestone B decision in September 2020 when the Air Force awarded a $13.3 billion GBSD engineering and manufacturing development contract to Northrop Grumman.

In July, the U.S. Defense Department released the Nunn-McCurdy review of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program.

Under federal law, the program must be terminated unless the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment certifies to Congress that the program meets the criteria to continue.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense conducted a review of the Sentinel program to determine what factors led to the cost growth and whether to certify the continuation of the program, according to DOD.

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William LaPlante, under secretary for acquisition and sustainment, lef the review and certified the Sentinel program met the statutory criteria to continue, which included, according to DOD:

• continuation of the Sentinel program is essential to national security;
• there are no alternatives to the program which will provide acceptable capability to meet the joint requirements at less cost;
• the new estimates of the program acquisition unit cost or procurement unit cost have been determined by the director of cost assessment and program evaluation to be reasonable;
• the program is a higher priority than programs whose funding must be reduced to accommodate the growth in cost of the program; and
• the management structure for the program is adequate to manage and control program acquisition unit cost or procurement unit cost.

LaPlante certified the Sentinel program but rescinded its Milestone B approval, which is the point an acquisition program is authorized to enter the engineering and manufacturing development phase, according to DOD.

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LaPlante also directed the Air Force to restructure the Sentinel program to address the root causes of the breach and ensure an appropriate management structure is in place to control costs in the future.

In June, Sentinel Systems Director Col. Charles Clegg was removed because he “did not follow organizational procedures,” Defense One reported, but his removal wasn’t directly related to the Nunn-McCurdy review.

The review determined that the majority of the cost growth is in Sentinel’s command and launch segment, including “launch facilities, launch centers, and the process, duration, staffing, and facilities to execute the conversion from Minuteman III to Sentinel,” according to DOD.

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“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,” LaPlante said in a release. “There are reasons for the cost growth, but there are no excuses. We are already working to address the root causes, and more importantly, we believe we are on the right path to defend our nation while protecting the sacred responsibility the American taxpayer has entrusted us with. Sentinel is a truly historic program to modernize the land leg of the triad, and its scale, scope, and complexity are something we haven’t attempted as a nation in 60 years. Having completed a comprehensive and objective assessment of the program, it is clear that the Sentinel program remains essential to U.S. national security and is the best option to meet the needs of our warfighters.”

DOD now estimates a delay of several years for the Sentinel conversion.

A key piece of sustaining the Minuteman mission and planning for Sentinel, she said, hinges on missile base communities like Great Falls.

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Dalton told The Electric on Aug. 28 that they’re “laser focused on getting the program right.”

She said that means “ensuring hat we’ve got rock solid requirements and how we are restructuring the program to ensure that we are prepared to meet the threats and challenges that that we see in the security environment. For the first time in our nation’s history, we face the prospect of two near peer nuclear competitors, so as we are designing Sentinel, ensuring that it is able to meet the moment, not just today when it comes online, but also out to the 2070s, is a goal that we are striving for. Right now, we are focused on reviewing those requirements, restructuring the program to ensure that we’re keeping with the challenges we have before us, so as we get a better sense of where those pieces are going to come together, we’ll be able to more definitively define the timeline. But again, we are committed to transparency here, in the state of Montana and in Great Falls to ensure that the public and the civic leaders that we want to partner with have clarity on where we’re headed.”

Dalton said she can’t forecast a specific timeline for the Sentinel project at Malmstrom, but as soon as they have more details, they’ll share them with the community.

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The Air Force is replacing the aging Minuteman III missile system with Sentinel, which is expected to last through 2075.

Components and subsystems of Minuteman have been upgraded since it first became operational in the early 1970s but most of the fundamental infrastructure uses the original equipment, according to the Air Force.

Dalton said that fresh off meeting with airmen that it was “impressive…to see how they are managing through some of the day-to-day challenges of continuing to sustain Minuteman. It is ready to go tonight if we need to, to respond to a threat, but is increasingly challenging in terms of getting supplies given the supply chain challenges we see across the country for really anything these days post-COVID, but particularly for a system that was designed back in the 60s. Some of those parts are really hard to come by and so it’s just a real tribute to the creativity and ingenuity of our airmen, but that, I think to me, underscores why we have to move forward with this modernization in partnership with the people of Great Falls, because we can’t take that for granted.”

The current land-based nuclear deterrent Minuteman III ICBM system includes 400 deployed missiles, 450 silos and more than 600 facilities across nearly 40,000 square miles over six states, three operational wings and a test location.

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Dalton said they’re grateful for the community support in Great Falls and Montana in the daily operations of the existing system, including moving missiles and associated equipment and vehicles on public roads. She said that’s also something they’re considering as they look to what Sentinel will entail.

The existing Minuteman III system is old, but very difficult to hack or manipulate.

As the Air Force is developing the Sentinel system in a much more digital era, Dalton said they’re “clear eyed about the types of threats that the nation is facing today.”

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Looking in particular at the People’s Republic of China and its conventional, nuclear and cyber capabilities and modernization, Dalton said looking specifically at Sentinel, “we’re really looking holistically at what protections, what measure of resilience we need to be building in to the system so that it can be prepared to be responsive through whatever our adversaries or potential adversaries might present to us. It could really run across the different domains in which we see whether it’s China or Russia currently active or developing capabilities in. We are working closely with industry partners to ensure that we’ve got the right cyber security protections built in and…that also goes for our current systems. As we continue to rely on Minuteman III and other aspects of the nuclear enterprise, we are building in the resilience and security protocols that need to be able to operate through disruption.”

Delays and cost overruns for the Sentinel program have renewed some conversations amongst lawmakers about reducing the nation’s nuclear fleet, but Dalton said each leg of the nuclear triad has unique features and is important to the national defense.

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The ICBM in particular, she said, is geographically dispersed across five states presenting a range of targets to adversaries, making it “very difficult for any given potential adversary to target us. It would be a significant escalation for them to do so, and so it raises the cost considerably for them to even contemplate doing that. The ICBM leg is also incredibly responsive, in terms of the ability, if we see a threat, to be able to respond to defend the United States and its interest and also as a demonstration of our commitment to our extended deterrence to commitments to our allies and partners. They count on us to provide that deterrence umbrella.”

Dalton said that there’s healthy debate every so often on the value of ICBMs, but “we have seen over the arc of decades of bipartisan consensus across administrations and in Congress for the support of the nuclear triad overall, and specifically the ICBM link. So I’m confident we’re going to be able to sustain that measure of support as we make this transition.”

Dalton has served in government positions under the Biden, Obama and Bush administrations, according to her biography.

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Going into the Sentinel conversion, Dalton said the Air Force plans to reuse, to the extent possible, the land that the Defense Department currently owns for the Minuteman III system. If land acquisition is needed, Dalton said, they’ll follow the established federal acquisition and contracting processes, compensating landowners appropriately.

Dalton said the Air Force is continuing to assess what the impacts of Sentinel will be on Great Falls and the other missile base communities. She said that the Air Force is making those assessments and analysis available to the public.

Dalton said they’re also taking lessons from the original Minuteman installation project in the 1960s.

“When we were undertaking the implementation at that point, we know that there were some concerns at the time in terms of workers coming into the community that were not familiar, that there had been an uptick in crime in some areas. One of the things that we’re doing differently this time is creating hubs for those workers coming in so that they have kind of a common area to work, to shop, to seek services to get them through their day-to-day. They will be a little bit more predictable in terms of its geographic scope and known to the community too. [They’ll require anybody coming in to do that work to agree to a code of conduct and go through screening before they join so I think that will help mitigate some of the potential concern about there being a potential uptick in in crime. But again, this is an area where we want to be transparent, proactively communicating with community leaders here for any concerns they have,” Dalton said.

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Sentinel could also be an opportunity to create jobs in Montana and other missile states.

Dalton’s team has been talking about how the Air Force can start identifying specific skill sets that will be needed to support Sentinel and also feeding into that talent pipeline, through trade schools or universities.

“I think that’s a real opportunity,” she said.

Dalton said she met with local civic leaders while in Great Falls and that some of them will be visiting the Pentagon in a few weeks.

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She said she welcomes community feedback and questions and that the Association of Defense Communities is a helpful group that collects common questions from local leaders and residents, and is a “powerful voice for the community.”

City Manager Greg Doyon previously served on the association’s board and has a quarterly call with community leaders in the other ICBM communities of Cheyenne and Minot.

Dalton said she encourages that approach and it allows community leaders to communicate across state lines to share lessons learned or questions.

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She said there will likely be a lot of common questions across the ICBM communities and the ability for those communities to share information with each other will be helpful.

Dalton said clear and consistent communication between the Air Force and Sentinel communities will ensure the Air Force officials understand the specific questions and challenges on their minds and how to proactively identify issues or steps they need to take.

“If we start those conversations now, by the time we get to the point where we have workers arriving in the area, we’ll be that much better prepared,” Dalton said. “Commitment to open and clear lines of communication both ways and keeping that up over the next several months, I think will be really important and kind of developing a common road map or game plan or how we’re going to tackle those challenges will be key.”

The plan for Sentinel construction had been planned to start with F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, then move to Malmstrom, followed by Minot.

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That could change though as the Air Force is restructuring the program and looking at the requirements, “there may be a range of courses of action that we want to pursue in terms of how we proceed,” Dalton said.

If the sequence of the project changes and once there’s a firmer timeline for the project, Dalton said they’ll communicate that information to ICBM communities.

A focus of Dalton’s visit was meeting with the Malmstrom airmen working on the existing Minuteman III ICBM system.

She said there’s still work to do in developing Sentinel, but “at the end of the day, we can build the most exquisite platform, but you know, if we don’t make the investments in our people to be able to field and implement that capability, we’re not going to get very far and so making sure that we’re giving as much emphasis to what our airmen need to succeed day-to-day. This is where I think the partnership with the community here in Great Falls is so important too…whether that comes to housing, education, childcare, medical services. It is vital for us to be able to support our airmen so that they can succeed in their mission, so we’re building out an approach for Sentinel that gives the emphasis to the people quotient as well.”

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Dalton also touched on other components of the nuclear deterrence mission at Malmstrom.

She said that new the Grey Wolf helicopter is operating in the skies over the Great Falls region and that Huey’s replacement has greater range, speed and capability.

Three Grey Wolf helicopters are now at Malmstrom and the plan is to have 11 here by the summer of 2025, she said.

Defense News reported earlier this month that the Air Force had roughly halved its purchase of the Grey Wolf from 80 to 42 in an effort to cut costs.

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But the reduction in purchase increased the cost per helicopter, triggering a Nunn-McCurdy review of the Grey Wolf program.

The Air Force said in the spring that the quantity-related breach could be fixed by Congress adding more Grey Wolf helicopters back into the budget, according to Defense News.

The helicopter carrying Dalton on Aug. 28 passed over one of the roads where an airman died in a Humvee incident.

Within the last year, two Malmstrom airmen were killed in humvee rollovers, four airmen were injured and two first responders were injured in two separate crashes.

An airman assigned to the 90th Missile Security Forces Squadron at F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming was killed in a humvee incident in Colorado in September 2023.

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Dalton said 20th Air Force, which is a parent unit to Malmstrom, has worked to ensure there are clear policies for when and why they’re using the Humvees following those incidents.

The Air Force is replacing the humvees with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and the Armored Utility Vehicle, which will be safer on roads here, she said.

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“It’s completely unacceptable that we got to that point. The safety of our airmen comes first. So we have sought to move quite quickly in identifying a solution for that. We should see that come online within the next year,” she said.

To locals who might feel anxious over the unknowns of the Sentinel project in the Great Falls region, Dalton said, “I would say a thank you for the support of our mission here because unfortunately the stakes are incredibly high for our nation right now, given the prospect of the threats that we have from the People’s Republic of China in particular, but also in Russia given its nuclear capabilities and so that community support for our mission is ensuring every day that we’ve got a safe secure nuclear deterrent that we can deliver at a moment’s notice. But we have a generational opportunity here to ensure that our children and our grandchildren are similarly protected and supported. Because Minuteman III has been effective for so many years, but it is an aging platform. And so we have a collective responsibility to the nation to modernize that system so that we can ensure that our children and our grandchildren are protected, so I think that’s the common foundation and imperative that we all need to be working towards.”