Air Force Global Strike Command has confirmed it is prepared to upload multiple warheads onto the Minuteman III ICBM force and restore nuclear capability to all 76 B-52H bombers—including the 30 currently configured for conventional use only—if directed by the President. The declaration follows the expiration of the New START treaty with Russia, which had imposed binding caps on deployed strategic warheads and delivery systems. An AFGSC spokesperson told The War Zone that the command “maintains both the capability and training” to execute these changes, marking the first time since the early 2000s that the U.S. land-based nuclear arsenal could return to a MIRVed configuration.
The problem Air Force Global Strike Command now confronts is not whether its missiles and bombers still work. The Minuteman III, first fielded in 1970, remains one of the most reliable strategic weapons ever built. The B-52H, designed in the 1950s, continues to fly combat missions. The problem is that for two decades, both systems have operated with one hand tied behind their backs—artificially limited by treaties that capped warhead counts and required visible, verifiable distinctions between nuclear-capable and conventionally-only airframes.
What the command is now prepared to restore is the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle capability that the LGM-30G possessed when it entered service. Each missile originally carried three W78 warheads, each with a reported yield of 335 kilotons. Today, all 400 deployed Minuteman IIIs carry exactly one warhead, either the W78 or the newer W87 salvaged from decommissioned LGM-118A Peacekeeper missiles. The Peacekeeper, retired in 2005, could carry up to 11 warheads simultaneously. Some of those warheads now sit in storage or have been reconfigured for single-warhead Minuteman III deployment.
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The basic function of re-MIRVing an ICBM is straightforward in concept: replace the payload bus, add more reentry vehicles, update the targeting software. The engineering reality is considerably more layered. Each Minuteman III silo would require physical modification to accommodate multiple warheads. The missiles themselves, some of which have been in service for more than five decades, would need to be recertified for the additional weight and separation dynamics. According to now-retired Gen. Anthony Cotton, former head of U.S. Strategic Command, the question of “what does it take to potentially do that” remains under active study.
Still, the capability carries an honest limitation that AFGSC does not disguise. The command has not announced any decision to actually execute these changes. It has stated, explicitly and repeatedly, that it is prepared to do so “if directed by the President.” The distinction matters. The United States has not yet formulated a new nuclear posture following New START’s expiration. Officials have stated they remain committed to future arms control agreements and have signaled interest in bringing China into any eventual framework. Beijing has so far declined. The operational readiness AFGSC is now advertising is a hedge, not a policy.
What makes this matter, ultimately, is not the immediate prospect of 400 Minuteman IIIs suddenly sprouting three warheads each. What matters is the erosion of the treaty architecture that made such uploads unthinkable for a generation. New START limited the United States and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads each. It capped deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers at 700. It required both sides to exchange telemetry and conduct on-site inspections. That system is now dormant. The Biden administration pursued extension; Russia did not reciprocate. Congress, in the FY2025 National Defense Authorization Act, granted the Air Force explicit authority to reconvert the conventional-only B-52s to dual-capable configuration. The legislative permission now exists. The funding and timeline do not.
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The innovator of the original MIRV architecture is, institutionally, the generation of Air Force engineers and Boeing designers who fielded the Minuteman III during the Cold War’s most intense phase. But the engineers who would execute a potential re-MIRVing today are the civilian and uniformed technicians at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, where the ICBM program is managed, and the maintenance crews at Minot, Malmstrom, and F.E. Warren who service the silos. AFGSC spokesperson emphasized that the command “maintains the capability and training” for these tasks—language that signals both readiness and the recognition that actual uploads would stress a workforce already extended by the parallel LGM-35A Sentinel replacement program.
Sentinel, now in development by Northrop Grumman, was designed from the outset to carry a single warhead, in compliance with New START limits. The program is currently undergoing restructuring due to severe cost growth and schedule delays, problems attributed primarily to new ground infrastructure requirements rather than the missile itself. Whether Sentinel will eventually be fielded in a MIRV-capable configuration, or remain a single-warhead system, is now an open question. AFGSC is not commenting on future force structure. The treaty that constrained those decisions no longer applies.
Reported by The War Zone, the B-52 reconversion question is at least somewhat more technically bounded. The 30 bombers currently configured for conventional-only operations had their nuclear enable systems physically modified: removal of code switches, interconnection boxes, cabling connectors. Russian inspectors documented these changes in 2018 and promptly complained they were too easily reversible. That assessment appears accurate. Mark Gunzinger, a former B-52 pilot now at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told Defense News the restoration “could probably be done without much difficulty.” Rep. Adam Smith, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, countered that it would “cost a great deal of money.” Both are correct. The wiring is likely still in place. The certification flights, software validation, and crew training are not free.
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What comes next is a matter of presidential direction and congressional appropriation. AFGSC has now publicly confirmed what strategic analysts have long assumed: the hardware is still capable, the knowledge has not been lost, and the treaty constraints that prevented both MIRV uploads and full B-52 nuclearization are no longer operative. Whether the United States chooses to exercise that latent capacity depends on threat assessments, diplomatic efforts, and the trajectory of Chinese and Russian nuclear modernization.
For the rest of us, who will never enter a missile silo or board a Stratofortress, the significance is quieter but no less profound. The Cold War arms control regime, painstakingly constructed over five decades, has not collapsed in a single dramatic abrogation. It has expired, quietly, without replacement. The missiles remain in their silos. The bombers remain on their ramps. But the hands that tied them are no longer holding.
