Inside the push to modernize the US nuclear arsenal
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
It’s the worst-cast scenario no one wants to talk about: what happens if America's nuclear missile silos are attacked? The Minuteman III is a powerful intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking targets on the other side of the world, and it could be our best bet. But it’s aging, and land-based ICBMs have an Achilles heel. USA TODAY Defense Reporter Davis Winkie joins The Excerpt to discuss “The Nuclear Sponge” – a five-part project by USA TODAY that dives into the strategic debate and costs of modernizing the land leg of America’s nuclear arsenal.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the worst-case scenario no one wants to talk about. |
| 0:06.0 | What happens if America's nuclear missile silos are attacked? |
| 0:10.0 | The Minuteman 3 is a powerful intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking targets on the other side of the world, |
| 0:17.0 | and it could be our best bet. |
| 0:20.0 | But it's aging and land-based ICBMs have an Achilles heel. |
| 0:27.0 | Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, January 7, 26. |
| 0:34.0 | The nuclear sponge is a five-part project by USA Today that dives into the strategic debate and costs of modernizing the land leg of America's nuclear arsenal. |
| 0:45.5 | Join me to break down the design and finances of this undertaking, as well as insights into the delicate balance of global nuclear power at play is USA Today defense reporter |
| 0:57.4 | Davis Winky. Good to have you here, Davis. Thanks for having me. Before we get into the cost of updating |
| 1:03.7 | it, can you give me a brief history of the nuclear sponge? Yeah, the nuclear sponge is a colloquial term used to describe the nuclear missile silos |
| 1:16.8 | that the U.S. has strewn about the Great Plains and Mountain West. |
| 1:21.6 | There's currently 450 of them that house about 400 operational nuclear missiles. |
| 1:26.8 | And the reason why it's called the nuclear sponge by some is that one of these |
| 1:32.2 | strategic reasons for keeping these weapons, according to advocates, is they can be targeted |
| 1:39.7 | in an enemy first strike and will therefore have enemy nuclear weapons strike these relatively |
| 1:46.7 | remote areas rather than hitting more populated areas in the United States. |
| 1:51.7 | The logic there is that if there's an all-out nuclear war scenario, the anything that keeps |
| 1:58.0 | more firepower from hitting American cities is a net good. It's disturbing |
| 2:03.7 | logic, but those are the kinds of things that nuclear strategists get into every day. The term |
| 2:10.1 | itself dates back to Air Force General Lou Allen, who is the chief of staff in the late of |
| 2:15.2 | 1970s. Alan, believe it or not, was actually a nuclear physicist who rose all the way to the post of the Air Force's top officer. |
| 2:23.3 | And he put a lot of thought into this thing. |
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