The mechanism: The nuclear triad — ICBMs, submarines, bombers — is being rebuilt all at once for the first time since the Reagan era, and the two biggest line items just blew through their budgets in the same twelve months. Northrop's Sentinel ICBM program triggered a "critical" Nunn-McCurdy breach in January 2024, with unit costs projected 81% over baseline and total program cost near $141 billion, per the Pentagon's own review. General Dynamics' Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine, built at Electric Boat, has slipped its lead-ship delivery from 2027 to 2028 and carries a class price tag north of $130 billion. Nunn-McCurdy forces a formal certify-or-cancel review, but the Pentagon has publicly bet the triad's land leg on Sentinel and the sea leg on Columbia — both were reaffirmed rather than killed. That's the tell: these programs are now too strategically load-bearing to lose funding outright, which means budget pressure gets displaced sideways, onto sustainment accounts, force-structure line items, and the other leg of the triad, rather than onto Sentinel or Columbia themselves.