Air Force Emphasizes Nuclear Duties

Maj. Gen. C. Donald Alston is the Assistant Chief of Staff, Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, for the U.S. Air Force. He spoke with a group of reporters and bloggers on September 10 about the changes and re-emphasis that the Air Force has engaged in with regard to its nuclear mission.

The Air Force has care, custody and primary control over the land based and air launched nuclear missile arsenal, as well as the aircraft deliverable gravity bombs. In 2007 and 2008 a series of lapses in security and procedures resulted in a total reevaluation of this mission and how the Air Force conducts it.

Major General Alston told reporters that several independent and internal evaluations had reached similar conclusions. The most notable of these was conducted by former Secretary of Defense Dr. James Schlesinger and a committee of experts.

Alston described the evolution of the problems that then plagued the Air Force nuclear program. With the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, defense policy de-emphasized nuclear response. Money and resources were devoted to other areas.

In the War on Terror, Alston reports, the Air Force has been operating at an extremely high level of activity for eight years. All of the aircraft platforms in the nuclear arsenal have been used in conventional combat, with non-nuclear weapons.

The expeditionary nature of these missions came to be seen in the Air Force culture as the path to promotion and career success. The airmen associated with the missiles and bombs that make up our nuclear deterrent force were viewed as being assigned to a backwater and not the front lines.

Major General Alston talked about the necessity to keep and grow both enlisted personnel and officers in the specific and unique duties and responsibilities that go with the nuclear force. The issues discovered by the reviews and evaluations all pointed to these matters as material to the public failures in 2007 and 2008.

The General described the emphasis on the expeditionary force as a "drag on nuclear force culture". Dr. Schlesinger's report found the culture of the nuclear force "wanting".

Another problem that was uncovered, and is now being addressed, according to Alston, was the sheer number of Air Force Commands and commanders who had responsibilities for nuclear weapons, delivery systems and supplies.

Out of that has come the newest Air Force command, Global Strike Command. Alston say that this Command, headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, should have about 270 personnel by the end of this year. When the transfers and reorganization is complete, the headquarters will have over 900 personnel assigned.

Global Strike Command will consolidate the lines of authority over nuclear weapons. Alston stated that the transfer of the bombers assigned to Global Strike should be complete by December 1, 2009, and that the transfer of command for the missiles assigned will be complete by February 1, 2010.

The Air Force is now adding material on the nuclear mission to programs at all the schools that it maintains, both at the enlisted and the officer levels. It is actively seeking to retain trained personnel and to recruit others. The changes that the Air Force is making are intended to send a message to any nation, any leader who is thinking about challenging the United States 'Not today!"