VIDEO: Ricketts, Committee Witness Speak on Importance of Nebraska’s Sentinel Missile Program

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Last week, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE) highlighted the need to modernize America's nuclear deterrent by supporting the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)program. Sentinel, which will be based partially in Nebraska, will replace the aging Minuteman III ICBMs.

Ricketts questioned Marshall Billingslea, Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute and former Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control at the State Department. They discussed the importance of deterring the strategic threat posed by Communist China and Russia.

"How do you get the Russians and the Chinese, given that the Chinese want to get to [nuclear weapons] parity with us … to the table?" asked Ricketts. "[Would replacing] the Minuteman III with the Sentinel - which again is partially based in Nebraska - is that something we need to continue to pursue? And what's the dangers if we delay the recapitalization of our nuclear forces?"

"We have deferred modernization of our nuclear weapons to the point where we are now at grave risk," responded Billingslea. "We have a just-in-time delivery approach to rapidly aging systems that we can't allow to slip further. So, the cost overruns with Sentinel are worrying, but we can't life extend the Minuteman III past a certain point. And it's vital now that we get on with this."

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Senator Ricketts' comments were made during a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing entitled: "Arms Race 2.0." The witnesses were Marshall Billingslea, Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute and former Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control at the State Department; and Rose Gottemoeller, Fellow at Stanford University and Former Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department.