High Plains Grifters

Plagued by scandal, the U.S. ICBM force needs an overhaul

For more than 50 years, Americans have relied on the nuclear triad to guarantee their strategic safety. Fourteen Ohio-class submarines carry dozens of missiles on untraceable deterrent patrols in the world's oceans. Sixty B-2 and B-52 bombers are on alert for missions around the globe. But it turns out that the third leg of the triad--the weapons we put atop missiles and then hide in the ground in the U.S.--may be the most unreliable of all the doomsday devices.

Unreliable, that is, if you measure by the personnel who man the missiles. On Jan. 30, the Air Force said 92 of...

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