The U.S. Air Force is taking steps to strengthen nuclear deterrence education and experience for the younger generation of airmen, according to Gen. Robin Rand, who leads the service’s Global Strike Command.
Speaking Wednesday at a House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing on the Pentagon’s nuclear forces budget request for fiscal 2017, Rand said these efforts involve finding commonality between the services and implementing initiatives such as an existing exchange program for captains and majors between the Air Force and Navy.
Rand said the Air Force has also established advanced nuclear deterrence studies programs in which officers are temporarily placed in Albuquerque, N.M. He added that the Pentagon branch is “looking at career broadening for our missile and bomber pilots” by expanding assignment opportunities for missile crews into bases in Europe that offer dual-capable aircraft missions.
Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said he is concerned that “we have an entire generation of young airmen performing nuclear operations that have little appreciation for the special significance that these weapons have.” Considering the threat of nuclear aggression is “arguably more diffuse and unpredictable” than during the Cold War, Fleming said, it is more important than ever to strengthen deterrence education and research for the younger generation.
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) mentioned ongoing morale problems in the Air Force, asking Rand whether the morale of the missileers could be restored. The Air Force nuclear mission has taken a number of embarrassing hits in recent years, including the firing of Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, former commander of the 20th Air Force, which oversees the nation’s ICBMs, due to “personal misbehavior,” and cheating by more than 70 sailors and 90 missileers on monthly missile launch system proficiency tests. Past hearings raised the issue and noted that much of the morale problem was attributed to poor working conditions and schedules, boredom, and lack of sleep. An Air Force general testified last June that the service had modified the alert schedule to give missileers greater rest and flexibility to address these complaints.
Rand said the Air Force is actively addressing its culture issues for missile crew members. It “is not a light switch I can turn on and off,” he said, “but I’m very impressed by the caliber of our young men and women who serve in the missile fields.” Rand said the Air Force is working to clarify the individual roles of crew members and looking to assist them with career development.
Addressing the president’s fiscal 2017 budget request for the Department of Defense (DoD), Robert Scher, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities, said the $582.7 billion in proposed discretionary budget authority “is affordable if prioritized appropriately.”
“We certainly have sufficient amount of money in the Defense Department budget to ensure that we can fund the No. 1 priority,” the nuclear forces, he said. On the DoD’s modernization of nuclear delivery platforms, he added that “our choice is not between keeping our current forces or modernizing them. Rather the choice is between modernizing those forces or watching the slow and unacceptable degradation in our ability to deter.” The president’s budget for fiscal 2017 includes $19 billion to modernize the nuclear enterprise.
According to Arthur Hopkins, acting assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, the department in fiscal 2017 will continue funding the Ohio replacement submarine and the Trident II missile life extension; sustain the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile and its follow-on capability, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent; upgrade the B-2A and B-52H heavy bombers; develop the Long-Range Strike Bomber; and develop a long-range standoff cruise missile to replace the aging air-launched cruise missile. The fiscal 2017 DoD request includes $1.4 billion for development of the Long-Range Strike Bomber and $1.9 billion for the Ohio replacement program.
Asked about potential efficiency measures to meet future budgetary constraints for defense, Scher said “we use the money as efficiently as possible” and that “the main thing is to continue to be able to have secured funding and predictable funding in the out-years.”
