Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Air Force leaders say nuclear weapons will be the central focus of a new Global Strike Command, but the service faces growing questions about how the strike headquarters will juggle its additional responsibilities in training and providing forces for conventional combat operations (see GSN, April 7).

Currently, two different Air Force commands are responsible for ICBM operations and bomber aircraft missions. The new Global Strike Command, expected to open its doors by October, is to oversee both types of nuclear delivery systems.

"Bringing them together under one command -- so that nuclear is No. 1 all the time and doesn't have to compete against other resourcing demands inside that command -- is certainly one of the virtues of Air Force Global Strike Command," Maj. Gen. Donald Alston, Air Force assistant chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said Friday at a breakfast event on Capitol Hill.

However, B-2 and B-52 bombers are capable of carrying either nuclear weapons or conventional munitions. That dual role means that even if the new command puts nuclear missions as its highest priority, it must also grapple with day-to-day demands for bomber aircraft in their conventional role in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world.

In the future, another conventional strike system is expected to come under the new command's purview, as well.

The Air Force's first non-nuclear "prompt global strike" weapon -- the Conventional Strike Missile -- could be fielded as early as 2012, according to defense officials. Alston said he has not yet had an opportunity to sort out how operational authority over the new, long-range conventional weapon system would be integrated into Global Strike Command.

For many years -- with bombers flying in Iraq and elsewhere in their conventional combat role -- Defense Department leaders viewed Air Combat Command as the appropriate headquarters to oversee training for the long-range aircraft.

Meanwhile, Space Command has taken responsibility for the preparedness of ICBMs, which share some of the same rocket technologies as those used for satellite launches.

However, an independent task force on nuclear weapons management, headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, last year recommended establishing a single, consolidated command to oversee nuclear operations (see GSN, Sept. 15, 2008).

Defense Secretary Robert Gates convened the panel following revelations about the Air Force's unauthorized transfer of nuclear-armed cruise missiles from one base to another in 2007 and an unintentional shipment of nuclear fuses to Taiwan in 2006 (see GSN, Feb. 3).

Last June, Gates fired Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley, saying the two had not moved assertively enough to reverse erosion in the service's ability to manage its nuclear weapons (see GSN, June 6, 2008).

Alston sought to assure his audience that today's Air Force -- led by Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz -- understands the unique role that nuclear weapons must play in service operations.

"It is very important that the nuclear business is considered a special business," he said at the breakfast session, co-sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation and the National Defense Industrial Association. "These are nuclear weapons. The people that are involved in these systems at all levels -- whether they are in the field or they're at headquarters -- need to have special focus in order to be successful in these mission areas."

Still, with a brighter spotlight now on nuclear weapon safety and security, some are beginning to raise concerns that the Air Force might actually overemphasize the centrality of these arms in a post-Cold War world.

"The reality of the day for the bombers is not the nuclear mission," Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists said after hearing Alston's presentation last week. "Their [most pressing role] is to be ready to fly over to the Middle East and do missions there."

The new Global Strike Command, he said, almost certainly will have to grapple with the same challenge bedeviling Air Combat Command: balancing a need to carefully manage nuclear weapons with a sometimes-competing requirement to train bomber crews for their ongoing, conventional combat role.

"Today, Air Combat Command is the single Air Force provider for presenting organized, trained, and equipped conventional attack forces and nuclear-capable forces through Joint Forces Command to joint force commanders upon demand," according to Schlesinger's September 2008 task force report. "The current organizational approach has emphasized support for conventional combat campaigns, predominantly in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in other operations around the world over the past 15-plus years."

Given this contest for attention and resources, "there is general acknowledgment that there has been substantial decay in the vitality, readiness, and resourcing" for nuclear-capable bomber forces, the task force stated.

"So what has changed in that sense?" said Kristensen, who directs the FAS Nuclear Information Project.

During a question-and-answer session at Friday's event, Kristensen asked Alston whether the new emphasis on the nuclear role might also send a confusing signal to the world that Washington now considers these weapons the preferred choice for prompt global strike.

Such a strategic approach would seemingly conflict with a Pentagon initiative over the past several years to highlight both nuclear and conventional weapon options for long-range attack, the analyst said. The Air Force might unwittingly stoke international tensions if it underscored a new significance for nuclear weapons at the expense of equilibrium sought in the Pentagon's "New Triad" construct -- which combines nuclear and conventional offenses, missile defenses, and a responsible national security framework -- Kristensen suggested.

Alston responded that he was unaware of any confusion over the matter, adding that the new command's dual approach would match that of the overarching, multiservice combatant headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command.

"STRATCOM's responsibilities include both conventional capability and nuclear capability," Alston said. "Global Strike [Command's] responsibilities are nuclear and conventional. So they will be directly connected to U.S. Strategic Command in support of the combatant commander."

The Air Force cannot "take our eye off that [conventional] part of our capability," said the two-star general. "The dual-role bomber force ... is providing a great deal of value to our forces deployed in Central Command. And as a consequence of that, we need to keep those skills up. They need to be able to continue to perform at the level that they're performing. That is a very demanding mission.

"At the same time," Alston added, "we cannot let that compete with the nuclear responsibilities that we have, and fail in our ability to deliver the nuclear deterrent ... We're ready to take all that on. We have done that and we will do it well inside Global Strike Command."

Kristensen remained unconvinced.

In declaring nuclear weapons the first priority for Global Strike Command, "they overemphasize the nuclear mission rather than put it in the proper perspective," Kristensen told Global Security Newswire. "It's one thing to fix the nuclear [management] deficiencies. ... It's quite another to signal to the world that you're now going to focus on the nuclear," with more pragmatic conventional strike missions taking a back seat, he said.

Global Strike Command has since Jan. 12 existed in a skeletal or "provisional" status at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, as the service assembles organizational components and devises its chain of command. Service leaders announced April 2 that, once the command becomes operational this fall, it would be based at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

However, some lawmakers have challenged that decision, charging that military bases in other states scored higher in the Air Force's own internal assessment and would be better suited to house the global strike headquarters (see GSN, April 3).