U.S. Air Force missileers from the 90th Missile Wing perform their duties
in a remote, underground Launch Control Center. 

What It’s Like to Live and Work with the
World’s Deadliest Weapon: the Minuteman III ICBM
Blake Stilwell / Military.com

(November 22, 2024) — People taking a great American road trip through the Great Plains and western parts of the United States will find vast, flat expanses and encounter places that seem untouched by civilization. At first glance, it might appear that there’s no way anyone could live or work in these tracts of unoccupied spaces, but more often than not, hundreds of people are living and working out there on the world’s most lethal weapon: the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)

Some parts of North Dakota, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska are home to some 400 nuclear-tipped ICBMs and the 10,000 service members who are keeping them on 24-7 alert, as they have since 1959. In a new episode of Newsweek‘s “Unconventional” web series, Navy veteran and former spy Naveed Jamali takes viewers behind the scenes of the land-based leg of the U.S. military’s nuclear triad.

The Minuteman III ICBM was first deployed in 1970, and although upgrades, improvements and warhead changes have taken place over this time, the mechanisms and procedures for launching the missiles have remained pretty much the same ever since. The Cold War might be long gone, but if you ask the U.S. Air Force, a nuclear deterrent is still very necessary.

“From my own experience working in counterintelligence, I can say the Cold War ended for us, but for places like Russia and certainly like China, it never did,” Jamali told Military.com. “We remain those countries’ main adversaries; we are their primary target. Look at the Russians and Chinese flying bombers off the coast of Alaska together; that’s a pretty big game changer. So the threat of conflict and the need for deterrence, in my opinion, is something that I would say is above what we saw even in the Cold War.”

The bulwark of that deterrence, as “Unconventional” shows, is a group of airmen in their early 20s who are essentially deployed to a 9,000-square-mile missile range for days or weeks at a time. They’re not in direct fire, they’re not in combat, but their mission is to keep the missiles ready to launch all day, every day. With the missileers are every kind of specialty needed to keep the operation going, from weapons maintainers to “missile chefs,” keeping everyone fed. The show follows the crew from F.E. Warren Air Force Base’s 90th Missile Wing, which is spread across three states.

“It’s kind of a lonely job to be in, living in the middle of nowhere,” Jamali said. “What these young people are doing is making sure the systems are operational. I think people can understand that. The thing is that they’re doing that in support of a nuclear weapon. When you start thinking about the enormity of that responsibility, contributing to making sure our nuclear force is ready, that is wild. I was shocked to see someone who’s 20 and understands what they’re doing. I think most Americans don’t understand this, let alone most 20-year-olds.”

It’s a great job, one that comes with better living conditions than most remote duty stations, but it’s not for the faint of heart. The Launch Control Centers for America’s land-based ICBMs are reinforced vaults, intended to survive direct nuclear blasts. Each one is manned by two missileers who are underground for a full 24 hours. Getting into a missile silo is even more daunting, requiring maintainers to climb down a small, 30-foot vertical shaft. The only other exit is through the missile’s blast doors.

A look inside a buried Minuteman III missile silo.

“The minute you’re close to these weapons, you’re keenly aware that adversaries are watching closely,” Jamali said. “You feel you’re being watched even if you can’t see the watcher. It is the most powerful weapon man has ever created, and that enormity of it in this sort of clean, sterile, calm environment is surreal. Those weapons, even though they’re in a fixed position, remind our adversaries that today is not the day, and tomorrow is not looking much better.”

“Up Close with the Minuteman III ICBM” is the latest episode of Newsweek‘s “Unconventional.” To watch it or previous episodes, visit “Unconventional” on YouTube.