In Visit to Sandia, Air Force Bases, Hagel Also Addresses Morale of Airmen at ICBM Bases
Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
1/10/2014
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel this week said the Obama Administration will stand behind the nation’s nuclear deterrent and plans to modernize the weapons complex and the nation’s fleet of delivery vehicles even as analysts raise alarms about the potential price tag of the deterrent. In recent weeks, the Congressional Budget Office and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) have released reports estimating that the cost of maintaining the nation’s nuclear deterrent will rise significantly in the coming years (see related story). “To modernize your nuclear weapons stockpile and assure that they continue to stay secure and safe, it takes money; it takes resources,” Hagel said after a Jan. 8 visit to Sandia National Laboratories and the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base. “This country has always been willing to make that investment and I think we will continue to make it. I think the Congress will be a strong partner in this.”
While simultaneously pushing for reductions in the size and utility of the nation’s nuclear stockpile, the Obama Administration in recent years has laid out an ambitious plan to overhaul the nation’s nuclear deterrent. The plan includes new multi-billion-dollar facilities for the nation’s weapons complex, like the Uranium Processing Facility planned for the Y-12 National Security Complex, and a warhead modernization strategy that includes a series of major life extension programs that would start with a refurbishment of the B61 bomb and include three interoperable warheads. Plans are also in the works for a new long-range bomber, new nuclear submarines, new intercontinental ballistic missiles, and an upgrade to the country’s nuclear command and control system.
Deterrent’s Costly Price Tag
All of those plans, however, will be costly, and the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released shortly before Christmas that it would take $355 billion over the next decade to maintain and modernize the deterrent. CNS took the study further, suggesting this week that the deterrent would cost more than $1 trillion over 30 years. Hagel said he was unsure of the estimates for maintaining the deterrent, but emphasized that the Administration was committed to maintain the nation’s nuclear forces, suggesting that the trip to Sandia and Kirtland Jan. 8 and F.E. Warren Air Force Base Jan. 9 was in part to demonstrate the importance of the nuclear mission. “I think it’s very important that all of us who have some responsibility for the national security of this country pay attention to every aspect and area of that responsibility,” he said. “And certainly the nuclear component of our defense capabilities—the deterrence capabilities that nuclear gives us—and as I have said in the past and believe firmly, that nuclear deterrence has probably had a lot to do with keeping peace in the world since World War II.”
Hagel Addresses Air Force Nuclear Morale Issues
During his visit to F.E. Warren, Hagel said he planned to meet with airmen working at the base’s ICBM fields, which were the subject of several unflattering reviews last year that raised questions about the preparedness and morale of the men and women performing the Air Force’s nuclear mission. It was also revealed in a December Inspector General report that Maj. Gen. Michael Carey said the nation’s ICBM force he headed up was suffering from the worst morale in the Air Force. Carey was fired in October as the commander of the ICBM force for a drunken escapade during a visit to Russia. “This is an area that, in particular, that we have to pay attention to first to acknowledge to them, to these men and women who do this kind of work. It is lonely work,” Hagel said, adding: “They do feel unappreciated many times. They’re stuck out in the areas where not a lot of attention is paid. And I know they wonder more than occasionally if anybody’s paying attention.”
Hagel said he met with a handful of airmen during the change of command ceremonies at U.S. Strategic Command in November and heard similar concerns about morale. “When you add up sequestration; no budget that we’ve had—we now have some predictability for two years, but it’s only two years; we shut the government down for 16 days. That alone isn’t everything, but it adds to all this uncertainty and unpredictability,” Hagel said.
He said he didn’t plan to immediately consider boosting the pay or compensation structure for airmen with nuclear jobs, which has been suggested by some as a way to combat some of the problems the Air Force is encountering. “It’s not so much a pay compensation issue. These young, smart people wonder, ‘What I’m doing with my life, is it important? Does it make a different? Am I appreciated? Do people really care?’ “ Hagel said. “And I think that psychic reinforcement is, to any of us, really important and that sort of responsibility I think our leaders have, starting with me.”
Hagel Emphasizes Importance of Sandia Skills
After he visited Sandia National Laboratories, Hagel said he came away impressed with the work done at the lab and emphasized the need to preserve the knowledge and skills that reside at the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories. Sandia officials said Hagel’s visit was the first by an active Defense Secretary in the lab’s history. “I was impressed with not only the technical capability but the people,” he said. “The skill sets that are always required in any institution, but particularly in this area of nuclear weapons, nuclear modernization capabilities, research development; we need to continue to be able to recruit and keep the cutting edge minds in the world on our team on this.”
