Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
5/29/2015
The Air Force last week released its Strategic Master Plan, which outlines the nuclear mission as “the clear priority” for the service. The document largely reiterates some sentiments expressed in last year’s “America’s Air Force: A Call to the Future” strategy document, calling for stockpile and hardware investments when necessary. The plan also notes that the service maintains other capabilities to deter “a wide range of actors.” While the document describes nuclear deterrence as essential, it also states the service should be prepared to confront new threats and actors that cannot be deterred through such means.
“The Air Force’s capacities in ISR, global responsiveness, and variable effects (both lethal and non-lethal) make us uniquely suited to underwrite American deterrence in the 21st Century,” the plan states. Nations can access “technologies with catastrophic effects” outside the nuclear sphere, including radiological, chemical, biological, space and cyber capabilities, the plan states. “Deterring states and non-state actors whose interests, structures, value systems. and objectives mean that they may not respond to nuclear deterrence will require additional capabilities to detect, monitor, attribute and respond accordingly to undesired behavior while minimizing the risk of escalation or wider conflict,” the plan says.
The plan claims that for the U.S. to maintain an effective and credible nuclear deterrent, the Air Force should protect investments for sustainment of infrastructure, weapon systems, and nuclear command, control and communications, should improve weapon systems while reducing “overall cost and complexity,” and should demonstrate that senior leaders value airmen serving the nuclear mission. Ways to demonstrate value include providing incentives, pathways for advancement, and opportunities to transition between career tracks inside and outside the nuclear enterprise, according to the report.
