The Air Force may pump $5b into Cheyenne for a new generation of nuclear weapons

The United States military is expected to spend between $4 billion and $5 billion over the next 10 to 20 years in Cheyenne to modernize F.E. Warren Air Force Base’s intercontinental ballistic missiles system. That kind of money would be significant anywhere, but especially in Cheyenne, it could more quadruple the typical amount of construction spending in the city.

It’s good news to locals. Dale Steenbergen, president of the Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce described it as “huge dollars.”

But the local economic benefit comes as just one small piece of a project meant to overhaul the country’s nuclear weapons system at a time of rising tensions between the United States and Russia and an increasingly bellicose North Korea, which has nuclear warheads of its own. While Wyoming’s Congressional delegation and some policy makers view it as an overdue step to keep America safe, others see it as a risky gambit that could push the world closer to nuclear war.

While the Cheyenne dollars will be spent on relatively non-technical upgrades like concrete pours for new missile silos and buildings to house improved communications systems for the ICBM system, they’re part of a roughly $140 billion effort to replace aging Minuteman Missiles.

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