U.S. Air Force Eyes Single Nuclear Chain of Command

By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force is considering consolidating day-to-day control over its nuclear-armed bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic missile fleet under a single chain of command, a senior commander said today (see GSN, Feb. 13).

The idea is one of several under review as the service struggles to improve its handling of the strategic mission, following an incident last August in which a B-52 bomber mistakenly transported six nuclear-armed cruise missiles across several U.S. states (see GSN, Sept. 5, 2007).  On Tuesday, Defense Department officials revealed that a Pentagon agency had accidentally shipped four Air Force nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan in late 2006 (see related GSN story, today).

Currently, organizational responsibility for 450 Minuteman 3 land-based missiles resides with Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.  Meanwhile, control of more than 90 nuclear-capable B-52s and 20 B-2 bombers is the purview of Air Combat Command, headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, Va.

The two commands oversee training exercises and equipment maintenance for their assigned nuclear weapons, as well as for an array of conventional weapons.

“There is an ongoing debate as to, organizationally, is that the right construct to do that,” particularly in the wake of last year’s nuclear handling incident, Gen. John Corley, the head of Air Combat Command, told reporters today.  “Would you want to merge all things nuclear inside of one … command chain?”

If such a consolidation proceeds, ICBMs and bombers might come under a single, new heading called “global effects,” the general said.  Operational control over nuclear weapons during combat already falls under a single organization, U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb.

“That debate is ongoing at the present time,” Corley said.  The question might be resolved as early as June, when the service’s top generals confer at a periodic meeting called a “Corona,” he said.

However, he added, “I don’t know how that debate will roll out.”

Such a shift, if implemented, would be broadly in line with many others recommended last month by a high-level Defense Department review that criticized military leaders for a growing sense of complacency about the nuclear mission.

Headed by retired Gen. Larry Welch, a former Air Force chief of staff, the Defense Science Board task force urged the service to create a number of new civilian and military leadership posts dedicated to nuclear weapons oversight.  Streamlining nuclear responsibilities would help address a decade of “credible reports of declining focus and an eroding nuclear enterprise environment,”
which the panel cited as contributing to lapses in nuclear weapons handling.

The task force, though, stopped short of encouraging the sort of organizational shift now under debate. 

There might be “some attractive features” to the notion of assigning all nuclear forces to a single organization, the report stated.  However, “it would require a major restructuring among multiple commands” and “could delay, rather than facilitate, correcting the current deficiencies,” the group explained.  “Instead, the task force recommends focus on restoring full attention to … the operational mission.  The only reasonably certain way the task force could find to do that is to make each level responsible and accountable for the strategic bomber force as their daily work.”

At today’s question-and-answer session, Corley did not elaborate on the benefits or drawbacks of a potential reorganization.

Another task force recommendation — one of several the service is implementing — is to rotate B-52 squadrons through six months of dedicated nuclear mission training on a regular basis (see GSN, Feb. 28).  Both the B-52 and B-2 maintain conventional combat missions in addition to their nuclear roles.

“The focus of a rotational [bomber training approach] is to restore the nuclear enterprise,” Corley said. 

At the same time, the Air Force is debating whether to retain as many as 76 B-52s into the future, rather than the 56 aircraft the service had previously told Congress it would keep, Corley said.

“The B-52 number, by moving it back up to 76 total B-52s — 44 of which are combat [capable] — gives me the comfort that I’ve got the appropriate focus on the nuclear enterprise [and] that I’ve got sufficiency in terms of numbers to do the conventional deterrence [mission],” Corley said.  “It allows me to work the rotational basis.”

If the service were to reduce the B-52 force to 56 aircraft — as the plan currently stands — just 32 of those would be combat-capable, Corley said.

The general added, though, that he did not yet have Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley’s approval for the shift in fleet size.  Corley said he planned to meet with Moseley about the issue today.

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