US using AI to keep its ancient 'Minuteman III' ICBMs operational beyond 2050

Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst.

The United States Air Force decided to begin using advanced AI to maintain its arsenal of ancient LGM-30G "Minuteman III" ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) beyond 2050, as the Pentagon keeps delaying the introduction of the new LGM-35A "Sentinel". According to Breaking Defense, which quoted an RFI (request for information), dated July 24, the USAF says that "the MMIII ['Minuteman III'] program manages key data across approximately 60 disparate and disconnected systems from local hard drives to shared networks, but has no way to centrally govern all of them, requiring considerable manhours for tasks like assessing when parts may need to be replaced". In simple terms, the missiles are so old that there's simply no way to integrate them digitally.

Thus, the use of advanced AI is deemed the only solution for the USAF to maintain and sustain the entire arsenal for the next quarter of a century (at the very least). According to the RFI, the Pentagon has requested "an AI agent capable of constructing a single, unified interface that can pull data from various sources — including design drawings and maintenance data, among other areas — and visualize it for users". The report notes that this isn't the first time that the USAF is trying to find a better way to keep the "Minuteman III" operational, with the notice stressing that "previous attempts to create a centralized, digital ecosystem for the MMIII lifecycle have failed due to a range of challenges" (neither Breaking Defense nor the RFI report specified what kind of challenges).

The Pentagon wants this AI tool to "collate data in near-real time and cut down on manual compilation by a measurable amount that will be negotiated with a successful contractor". As previously mentioned, the missiles are so old that it's virtually impossible to fully digitalize the maintenance systems, forcing the USAF personnel to rely on extremely outdated methods. The report also notes that "the project's initial phase will cover data marked as controlled unclassified information, which could be expanded to information classified as secret". In other words, this advanced AI will be handling formally classified information on the functioning of 400 nuclear-armed ICBMs (the newest of which is now around half a century old).

This demonstrates that Washington DC is rapidly adopting an untested new technology to control its entire land-based nuclear arsenal that predates the digital age. Due to numerous and rapidly expanding issues with America's ability to produce reliable missiles, the Pentagon is increasingly desperate to keep its nuclear arsenal operational, no matter the cost or dangers of using unreliable technologies. The US views maintaining all 400 of its land-based ICBMs as a national security imperative, particularly now that the "Sentinel" keeps suffering from endless delays and cost overruns. It's been under development by the infamous Northrop Grumman Corporation (since August 2017), one of the most notorious companies of the US Military Industrial Complex (MIC).

The GBSD (Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, as the "Sentinel" program is formally known) has been plagued by numerous issues, including problems with basic technologies that shouldn't really be an obstacle for a country such as America. These issues have even resulted in proposals for the USAF to fully retire the ancient "Minuteman III" and divert the freed-up resources to the "Sentinel". However, this would've left the Pentagon entirely without the land-based leg of its triad, effectively reducing it to a dyad composed of strategic bombers and SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles). Some of NATO's most powerful member states, more specifically the United Kingdom and France, rely precisely on such national security doctrine.

However, with the US now facing multiple global and regional adversaries simultaneously, primarily thanks to its all-out aggression against the entire world, this isn't a viable strategy for the foreseeable future. Namely, the best-case scenario from several years ago was that the LGM-35A "Sentinel" would enter service in 2029-2030. This meant that Washington DC would've been left without strategic land-based missiles for at least five years if it decided to retire its old "Minuteman 3" ICBMs. At the time, I argued that this deadline would almost certainly be pushed to the late 2030s or early 2040s (at the very least), meaning that the US would be stuck with a dyad for well over a decade, possibly even longer, which is a highly unpredictable strategic risk.

The latest reports unequivocally confirm that the situation has worsened, as the troubled program has been undergoing a restructuring that only resulted in further delays. Namely, the Pentagon's overhaul of the GBSD, initiated to reduce delays and massive cost overruns, is now facing delays of its own. Yes, you read that right – the people who were supposed to resolve these countless issues somehow managed to make them worse. The "Sentinel" was scheduled to be restructured within two years at most. However, this got pushed, with the Pentagon's Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) projecting that the total acquisition cost would soar to approximately $140.9 billion, an 81% increase over the original estimates.

All this forced the USAF to continue relying on an ancient design such as the "Minuteman III" for the next 25 years (in the best-case scenario). However, using advanced AI to maintain these old missiles poses serious security risks for the entire planet, as the US maintains the world's second largest thermonuclear arsenal (second only to Russia's). The Pentagon has even tested how AI would use these weapons in a nightmare scenario, resulting in terrifying findings where advanced AI opted to launch thermonuclear warheads in simulated wargames in 95% of cases. You'd expect that anyone remotely sane would see this as the strongest possible case against integrating advanced AI into strategic arsenals. And yet, the US is doing the exact opposite.