Minuteman

Minuteman (pronounced min-it-man)

(1) A member of a group of American militiamen just before and during the Revolutionary War who held themselves in readiness for instant military service (sometimes lowercase).

(2) A US intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with three stages, powered by solid-propellant rocket engines.

(3) A variety of small, sometimes secretive paramilitary organizations formed in the US over many years with the aim of opposing variously defined threats (communist invasion; illegal immigration etc).

(4) Name for the Missouri Secessionist Paramilitaries, a pro-secession organization active in St Louis, Missouri, US between Jan-May 1861.

1645: An Americanism predating the revolutionary wars and a compound word, the construct being minute + man.  Minute is from the Middle English minute, minut & minet, from the Old French minute, from the Medieval Latin minūta (one-sixtieth of an hour; note); doublet of menu.  Man is from the Middle English man, from the Old English mann (human being, person, man), from the Proto-Germanic mann- (human being, man), probably from the primitive Indo-European mon- (man) (“men” having the meaning “mind”).  It was cognate with the West Frisian man, the Dutch man, the German Mann (man), the Norwegian mann (man), the Old Swedish maþer (man), the Swedish man, the Russian муж (muž) (husband, male person), the Avestan manš, the Sanskrit मनु (manu) (human being), the Urdu مانس‎ and Hindi मानस (mānas).  The ICBM was deployed first in 1962 but the name may have existed as early as 1958.  All uses of minuteman are derived from the idea of civilian-soldiers, the colonial and revolutionary era militiaman who promised to be ready to fight at one minute's notice; as military formations, they were mobile, rapid-deployment forces.  Minuteman is a noun; the noun plural is minutemen.

Development of the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) began in 1958, immediately after the USSR successfully launched Sputnik, the military significance of which was at the time less the satellite than the big 8K71 rocket used to launch it into orbit.  Essentially a modified Soviet ICBM, the 8K71’s success proved the Russians had the ability to deliver their nuclear weapons to the continental US.  At this point, whatever the views of the military, US strategic policy still envisaged the nuclear deterrent as a retaliatory rather than a first-strike weapon but the US missiles were liquid-fueled and thus not able to be launched in less than two hours.  The warheads from a Russian first-strike would explode in the US within thirty minutes.  The Minuteman solved the tactical problems inherent in the early US ICBMs, the big, immensely complex, liquid-fueled Atlas and Titan rockets.  The Minuteman’s missile and launch-site components used stable solid fuels, were (relatively) small and used a (relatively) simple design able (relatively) easily to be mass-produced, thus providing a quick-reacting, (relatively) cheaply produced, highly survivable component for the nuclear arsenal.  In service now for almost sixty years, they’re not scheduled wholly to be replaced until 2027.

By 1962, the Minuteman thus became the centerpiece of US nuclear strategy.  Inevitably, it became also the focus of disputes between the Pentagon, the White House and the congress over cost which translated into squabbles about how many were needed.  This gave the generals the chance to prove they were as adept as the politicians at budgetary low skullduggery.  The generals were surprisingly willing to compromise on the missile count because they knew the next generation of Minuteman warheads would be Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) which meant three (later MIRVs on other platforms would have ten) warheads per missile so, even after appearing to accede to requests for restraint, the Pentagon ended up with about the same number of warheads originally requested.