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Comforting: Air Force's nuclear focus has dimmed
By Charlie
So says a report, reviewing the incident in August where a Minot AFB-based bomber was loaded up with nukes and flown to Louisiana.
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military has lost focus on its nuclear-weapons mission and has suffered a sharp decline in nuclear expertise, factors that may have contributed to a mishap last year in which a B-52 bomber unknowingly carried six nuclear warheads across the country, according to two new independent reviews.Both studies found that levels of nuclear training and alertness at the Air Force slipped after the end of the Cold War. But one of the reports was much more critical, saying accidents far worse than the errant B-52 flight could occur without immediate changes in nuclear procedures.
"The task force and several of the senior [Defense Department] people interviewed believe that the decline in focus has been more pronounced than realized and too extreme to be acceptable," said the report compiled by an outside panel chaired by retired Air Force Gen. Larry D. Welch.
….
Dozens of officers have been either disciplined or relieved of command, but the Welch report's findings raise new questions about whether failures within the Air Force were more systemic than originally believed. The first Air Force investigation into the incident, completed in October, pinned much of the blame on individual officers at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.
The war on terror (thankfully) hasn’t given our nuclear arsenal much to do, so this lack of focus is understandable, but not forgivable. It does bring up the question of “what is the mission of the Air Force?” A question that John and I have discussed at length. Here’s what he said on the Air Force’s mission drift:
I think what freaks Air Force types out about small wars talk (and equipping the force with short range slow-movers) is that they fear they'll go back to the days of subservience to the Army (shoot here, fly here). Zoomies are a proud bunch, and they take a certain satisfaction in the fact that they're our first line of defense against heavy hitters like Russia and China.
What the Air Force has here are two diametrically opposed missions: Space, missile, and strategic duties that require satellites, missile silos, and nuke-capable strategic bombers that will be the country’s strategic deterrence force and charged with dealing with the mythical “near peer” – and heavy lift, combat search and rescue, J-TAC, weather, CAS, and technical expertise for the irregular wars we are actually fighting.
Does it make sense then to cleave the organization in half, to allow for each mission to get 100% of the organization’s attention? I know many officers got fired for the Minot incident, but it seems to be a symptom of a larger problem of mission drift, but this is an outsider’s perspective.
Update (John): Interesting VMI fact, Lt.Gen. Daniel Darnell '75 spoke on this incident yesterday.... in front of a Congressional subcommittee.
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Comments
Charlie,
You pose a good question in splitting the Air Force into two entities, allowing each to focus on its core competencies.
This will not happen because the Air Force is all about ALL things air. The USAF is fighting for control of UAVs, C2 of all air operations, and to dominate all airspace over the globe - not the Russians or Chinese, but over the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.
There are three issues here: training, resource, and discipline. The USAF has spent it's time after 9/11 trying to get a bigger slice of the funding. I've been in some of the Title X fights in which the USAF was given the lead to develop materiel solutions and amazingly all the programs pointed to the F-22 and the JSF.
Training: train your fighters. The USAF has lost to the Israeli and Indian air forces in mock dog fights. This is unacceptable. Train your nuke crews to the most exacting standards. Anything less is unacceptable.
Resource: Supporting the WoT, admin, fending off Bears - the most valuable commodity of time gets used up pretty quickly - so make the training exact, intense, and regular. The second resource is command competency and focus on the rules. If the officers and NCOs don't know the rules, resource the service with new officers and NCOs.
Discipline: The USAF has more officers than it has command billets. Fire those who fail, or who accomodate unacceptable conditions such as what happened at Minot. Fire the commanding general on down. Use the Navy's system of "Lost Faith & Confidence" memos followed by short shore duty and retirement. There will always be another officer who will jump at the chance for command.
To sum up: don't split the service - just enforce the standard.
My two cents...
Saying the USAF has lost to the IAFs (both of them) in dogfights is a bit disingenuous. The exercises were held using various parameters and were held for the purpose of training both sides. One example of the parameters is that for much of one of the exercises with the Indians the USAF fighters were not allowed to use any sort of airborne or ground radar assistance and they were restricted to simulated semi-active radar missiles. No Slammers. It wasn't just two sides going up against each other no holds barred. That sort of contest would have little training value.
I think the solution is not in splitting up the USAF but in recreating the internal divisions. What happened at the end of the Cold War WRT nuclear forces? SAC was stood down, the bombers went to ACC (aka TAC - the bastion of the fighter jocks) and missiles went to Space Command. Now, I'm not saying we should reconstitute SAC, as the tankers should definitely stay with AMC, but perhaps we should spin off the strategic forces into some sort of subsidiary command of ACC with more teeth, or even into a separate command.
Soldier's Dad alludes to the problems with this, though, as 8th AF was originally supposed to do that and has since been distracted with JFC, Stratcom, and now being the USAF's lead agency on standing up Cyber Command.
The bottom line is that the strategic bombers need to stop feeling like the red haired stepchild of ACC.
I don't think the entire airforce should be split into two entities, but Air combat command certainly needs to be split in two.
In the bad old days, there were two major fighting majcoms. SAC (Strategic air command) was the shining nuclear jewel on the hill, with nuke bombers, and missiles, and the lion share of all resources. TAC (Tactical Air command) was the redheaded stepchild. A lot of our failings in providing decent air support during Vietnam, and more critically in Korea, were a result of TAC getting shafted in favor of SAC.
What I would do is bring back both these venerable forces, minus the whole TAC getting shafted part. Let Space command keep the ICBMS and satellites, meantime the resurrected SAC would get Heavy bombers, F-22s, F-15s, And Strat airlift global Hawks and U-2s. Give TAC the F-16s, F-35s,A-10s,a good number of AC-130s, Predators and reapers. SACs' mission: Own the air and bomb the bad guys infrastructure. TACS, do whatever it takes to make sure the guys on the ground see tomorrow, preferably a few clicks forward of where ever they happen to be right now.
Next I'd have TAC stand up a wing or Numbered Airforce specifically dedicated to COIN and theater air to ground support. (Trash hauling, theatre medevac, COIN airsupport,etc.)Super Tucanos or Texans, C-27 Spartans,etc. Make that team your first line deployers, designed specifically to operate forward with the troops, in the most austere of conditions. Dirt runways and jungle airstrips.
ACC is getting attrited up hardcore right now. The F-15s are limping, (but fixable IMHO) the F-16s are going to start limping if they don't get backup soon, all this is happening in the middle of acquiring F-22s and 35s. A-10 is in the middle of a modernization program, the B-52s are in need of walkers their so old. The B-1Bs and B-2s are still good, but their expensive as heck and limited in supply.
If ya ain't plannin' ta use a nuke under any circumstances then what's the point in being so sharp?
Thanks for sharing this valuable information. Intuition made a great deal of this information suspect, but now we have some empirical evidence for our beliefs.
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The 8th AirForce is distracted. Originally conceived to manage stategic resources...its resources have been on tactical missions for 6 years(B-52s,RC's et al). Bad design to have 8th Air Force providing resources to Joint Forces command and US Stratcom.