Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
11/21/2014
In the wake of two reports released last week that exposed widespread flaws in U.S. nuclear enterprise personnel structures, the Defense Department has vowed to grow Global Strike Command by 1,100 military and civilian billets, up from the personnel increase of 848 announced in August. The increases are aimed at addressing manpower shortfalls detailed in the reports. Chaired by retired Gen. Larry Welch, former Air Force Chief of Staff; and retired Adm. John Harvey, former commander of U.S. Fleet Forces, an external review into the nuclear enterprise completed in June recounted reviewer visits to bomber and missile bases where the 100 percent manning commonly reported by leaders was not indicative of the manpower standards established for certain ranks. For instance, the external review reported that the 7-, or craftsman/supervisor-level and the 5-, or intermediate “journeyman-level” qualifications were only 40 percent filled while the 3-, or apprentice-level, was at 140 percent manning. “Lack of capacity to qualify the 3-levels due to the excessive workload for the experienced personnel to meet mission demands exacerbates this situation,” the external report states.
While the external review states that execution of the recently published “Nuclear Enterprise Human Capital Strategic Plan,” aimed at proper job placement, remains to be determined, the same report recommends that Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh revamp the service’s readiness reporting system to adopt more stringent reporting requirements for manning levels, clearly delineating the relationship between authorized manning levels and the actual available quantity of qualified airmen. The military-wide Personnel Reliability Program, a medical and psychological evaluation mechanism, might have contributed to the reviewer-found lopsided nuclear force manning levels, the external report states.
In an effort to cut bureaucratic red tape and make “common sense adjustments governing who must be in the PRP,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is updating the program to prohibit inspectors from questioning the judgments of medical professionals, according to a fact sheet based on the reviews. “The rejection rate at some units with special conditions and a high percentage of personnel requiring PRP qualification can be between 40 and 50%,” the review states. “For each such rejection, there can be a 60-to-90 day loss in filling the position followed by a lengthy period to qualify those accepted for PRP duties.” While officials created the PRP during the Cold War to ensure force strength, the program has since disintegrated into a “burdensome, largely administrative” exercise that took away from the AFGSC mission, according to the report.
DoD CAPE to Perform Oversight of Nuclear Recommendations
Last week, Hagel said he would hold senior DoD leadership accountable for implementing nuclear enterprise reforms recommended by the two reports he commissioned in January, after the discovery of test cheating by Malmstrom AFB missileers. Hagel has charged the head of the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) Office, Jamie Morin, with assembling a team to evaluate the 100 recommendations of the two reports and how well they’re being carried out. “We will need to know what’s working and what’s not,” Hagel said. The team will meet monthly with Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work and other members of the reports’ review groups, all of whom will report to Hagel every 90 days. “We must change the cultural perception of a nuclear enterprise, which has particularly suffered in the Air Force,” Hagel said. “We must restore the prestige that attracted the brightest minds of the Cold War era, so our most talented young men and women see the nuclear pathway as promising in value.”
Ongoing Review Group Formed
In addition to the CAPE-led team, Hagel formed the Nuclear Deterrent Enterprise Review Group (NDERG), which will measure how well each recommendation is implemented. The group was scheduled to meet this week to finalize the proposed changes to the PRP. OSD did not respond to NS&D Monitor requests this week for details on the meeting. “What we would do in the past is we’d have a checklist,” Work said at a Nov. 14 press conference. “It said to do this, yes, we did it, [and] we’d check it off. Now, we have metrics for every single one. They report to the NDERG. The NDERG meets on a quarterly basis.” In addition to quarterly meetings with Hagel, the NDERG will periodically meet with Work.
Past nuclear enterprise review groups, Work said, did not involve enough of senior DoD leadership. “What makes this different is the NDERG is chaired by me, the No. 2 civilian in the department, and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the No. 2 uniformed officer in the department,” Work said. “And we report directly to the secretary. That’s it. So this is much, much different. And it was because of the insistence of … really seasoned nuclear officers that if you do not do this as a secretariat-level initiative, you’re going to go the same way as in the past.”
STRATCOM to Track Readiness
In addition to the review groups, Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, will hold meetings for triad leaders geared toward addressing sustainment and modernization challenges. Part of an effort to gain more holistic snapshots of the health of the force, quarterly readiness reviews will focus on critical mission resources, according to the fact sheet. Readiness reviews will entail reporting on infrastructure, sustainability and nuclear command, control and communications.
