The future of the most powerful USAF units?

Right now the most powerful units in the USAF arsenal are the 90th, 91st and 341st Wings based in the Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota.

The only aircraft these units fly are Bell UH-1N helicopters used for base support functions.

However the main piece of equipment they use is the might LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBM. Each of the roughly 450 LGM-30Gs in service packs up to 1.5 megatons of TNT spread across 3 MIRVs or 475 kilotons for SIRV LGM-30s equipped with W87s.

The LGM-30 entered service in the 1970s and is expected to serve to 2030. It’s replacement, the LGM-118 Peacekeeper which was overbudget and thanks to end of Cold War, production was cut and the 50 missiles were retired as part of arms limitation talks.

Not much has been mentioned about a Minuteman replacement and the missiles are getting old with issues starting to emerge in rocket motors etc:

http://nation.time.com/2013/01/23/the-nations-icbm-force-increasingly-creaky-broken-missiles/

http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/pentagon-weighs-whether-hang-or-replace-icbms/

If the USAF is serious about maintaining an effective deterrent against “rising powers” then updating the ICBM fleet seems far more critical than fielding all stealth fleets.

Photo of statue is deliberate. The Minutemen were critical to early American independence ops just like LGM30 Minutemen are critical to safeguarding US and allies.