The time to move ICBMs from the Air Force to the Army is now

In his first message to airmen, new Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said it plainly: “At our core, we fly and fix aircraft. It is the heart of who we are and what we do.” He’s right — and yet, for decades, the land-based leg of America’s nuclear triad has sat within a military service fundamentally mismatched to the mission.

Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) ended up in the Air Force in the early days of the space age when missile and rocket technology were deeply intertwined. The architects who championed ICBMs — figures like Gen. Bernard Schriever — have long since passed. What remains is an ICBM force sliding into disrepair and a troubled modernization program that is 81 percent over budget and risks undermining the credibility of America’s nuclear deterrent.

With the ICBM enterprise at a crossroads, Congress and the administration should move this critical mission to the Army, where it logically belongs today.

The moment is right for decisive change: The Sentinel program is already being restructured, and new missiles, silos, and support facilities will begin to take shape in the coming years. The question is whether we use this opportunity to fix a long simmering structural mismatch, or whether we pour new systems and even more funding into an outdated structure that continues down the failed path of the past 30 years.

There are three fundamental reasons why the Air Force is no longer a fit for the ICBM mission, and why the Army is.

First, as Wilsbach’s message indicates, silo-based missiles are simply not core to the Air Force identity or mission, and they never will be. With a fleet of aircraft that is the oldest and smallest it has ever been, the nation needs an Air Force that is laser-focused on restoring and expanding US airpower — not managing a missile force.

Second, the missileer career field has no natural synergy with the rest of the Air Force and is increasingly orphaned and disconnected. Missile operators and maintainers train and work separately from the rest of the service, and gain experience that does not translate well to airborne missions or most senior leadership roles in the Air Force. Combined with an ICBM force that has been shrinking since the end of the Cold War, the missileer career field has chronic morale problems, limited promotion opportunities, and an unsustainable size — issues documented repeatedly over the past 30 years.

Third, because its missile fields are widely dispersed, the Air Force currently sustains a fleet of utility helicopters it does not otherwise need to fly crews between silos — along with helicopter pilots, maintainers, security forces, and training pipelines unique to the ICBM mission. At a time of shrinking force structure and financial pressures, maintaining a separate fleet of aircraft and supporting career fields just to protect the ICBMs seems wasteful.

In contrast, the Army already operates all of the nation’s other land-based missiles, including the military’s only other silo-based missiles — the ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Long-range fires is a growing and highly valued Army mission, and Army personnel in ICBM jobs would build skills better aligned with other jobs in the Army. Moreover, the Army already has the utility helicopters and force structure needed to take on the ICBM security mission more effectively and efficiently than the Air Force. The ICBM mission is a natural fit for the Army.

Certainly, this idea will find kneejerk opposition inside the Air Force. After all, no one wants to lose the prestige, history nor budget associated with this vital mission. But we hear again and again from Air Force advocates how this is the oldest, most brittle air service the US has ever had, and how that could cost American lives in a future conflict. If that’s the case, then the service needs to be free of extraneous mission sets and able to focus on what Wilsbach termed the “core” of the US Air Force. 

The nuclear deterrence mission is too important to be a secondary responsibility within any service, and the Air Force simply does not have the bandwidth to modernize its fighters, bombers, tankers, and ICBMs simultaneously.

Reassigning the ICBM mission to the Army would give each military department responsibility for one leg of the nuclear triad, relieve the Air Force of an unsustainable modernization burden, and reinforce the Army’s growing emphasis on long-range fires. Importantly, the transfer can and would be conducted with the upmost attention to nuclear safety and assurance — something that can never be compromised.

Now is the best time for a clean transfer of the entire ICBM enterprise — people, programs, facilities, and funding — from the Air Force to the Army.

Todd Harrison is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on defense strategy, defense budgeting, and space policy.