The U.S. Air Force's Global Strike Command has told policymakers it is prepared to re‑equip land‑based Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) and to restore the nuclear‑carriage capability across the B‑52 bomber fleet if required. Those options, long constrained by the bilateral New START arms control framework, have resurfaced as that treaty expired earlier this month and no successor agreement has been reached with Russia.
Reintroducing MIRVs to the land leg would allow each ICBM to carry several warheads, multiplying the number of deliverable warheads without increasing missile numbers. Reviving the B‑52s' nuclear role would expand the bomber leg's operational flexibility and provide a more visible, deployable component of U.S. deterrence. Both moves are reversible in technical terms but would have immediate strategic and political consequences.
The expiration of New START removes a formal limit on deployed strategic warheads and delivery systems, and it weakens the treaty‑based verification regime that had constrained rapid, opaque force adjustments. In this context Washington's readiness statement functions as both a hedging step and bargaining leverage: demonstrating capacity to raise its nuclear posture while signaling to Moscow — and to allies and partners — that it retains multiple options to maintain deterrence.
The practical and diplomatic implications are broad. Operationally, MIRVing Minuteman missiles would require development work, testing and changes in basing and command arrangements; reaccrediting B‑52s for nuclear loads entails maintenance, logistics and training. Strategically, such moves raise the risks of an arms‑race dynamic with Russia and could complicate U.S. relations with China, which is not party to New START and is rapidly modernizing its own forces. For allies, the development underscores persistent doubts about arms‑control durability and the fragility of limits that shaped nuclear postures for two decades.