Nuclear security
Air
Force admits nuke flaws, but will fixes work?
Dec.
20, 2014 9:38 AM EST
FILE
- In this April 15, 1997 file photo, Air Force Lt. Jerome White stands at the
door of his... Read more
WASHINGTON
(AP) — Faced with one of its biggest challenges in years — repairing a troubled
nuclear missile corps — the Air Force has taken an important first step by
admitting, after years of denial, that its problems run deep and wide.
Less
certain is whether it will find all the right fixes, apply them fully and
convince a doubting force of launch officers, security guards and other nuclear
workers that their small and narrow career field is not a dead end.
The
stakes are huge.
The
nation's strategy for deterring nuclear war rests in part on the 450 Minuteman
3 missiles that stand ready, 24/7, to launch at a moment's notice from
underground silos in five states.
Some
question the wisdom of that strategy in an era of security threats dominated by
terrorism and cyberattacks. But whatever their role, those intercontinental
ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, will have to be safeguarded for years to come.
The
responsibility is enormous, the cost of mistakes potentially colossal. The
business end of these missiles can deliver mass destruction with breathtaking
speed. Accidents, though rare, are an ever-present worry.
That's
why it can be disquieting to hear missile officers describe their unhappiness
and lack of faith in nuclear force leaders.
In
sworn testimony to investigators looking into allegations that two ICBM
commanders at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, were mistreating their
subordinates, one officer spoke of deep pessimism.
"I
go about most of my days wishing I was in another place, in another Air Force
field," the officer said, according to a copy of investigation testimony
provided in September and obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of
Information Act. The officer's name was removed from the document by Air Force
censors citing privacy protection.
The
belated admission by the Air Force and the Pentagon's civilian leaders, after a
series of AP stories revealing the issue, that the nuclear force is suffering
from years of neglect, mismanagement and weak morale has yielded opposing
interpretations of what it means.
Some,
including experts who are critical of the Air Force, say it makes more obvious
the need to invest billions to modernize the force. The flaws are fixable, they
say. They cite a resurgent Russia and a belligerent North Korea as reasons to
make the added investment to ensure that America's nuclear force is
revitalized.
Subscribing
to this view, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced on Nov. 14 that the
Pentagon would make top-to-bottom changes — more than 100 in all — in how the
nuclear force is managed and operated. He said the Pentagon would spend up to
$10 billion more over six years to improve the force. Ten days later Hagel
announced his resignation, leaving questions about follow-through.
The
opposing view is that this moment presents an opportunity to reconsider and
restructure the nuclear force, possibly eliminating the ICBMs while enhancing
the remaining sea- and air-launched nuclear forces. That view, however, is not
predominant in the Obama administration, which favors the policy embraced by
its predecessors, that the decades-old nuclear structure must be preserved for
the foreseeable future.
What
that leaves is a risk of reverting to past practices, perhaps with additional
failures.
Eric
Schlosser, author of "Command and Control," a highly regarded 2013
book on the ICBM and nuclear risk, said there is little doubt that the Pentagon
needs to update the nuclear missile force's basic infrastructure.
"But
that's a short-term solution," he said in an interview. "The bigger question
is: How many land-based missiles do we need in the 21st century? How should
they be deployed, and do we need them at all?"
Schlosser
and others have expressed concern about morale problems in the force — an issue
the Air Force had been slow to acknowledge even after the AP wrote last year
about an unpublished RAND Corp. study that found evidence of
"burnout" and hopelessness among missile crews and other members of
the ICBM workforce.
Paul
Bracken, a Yale University professor and author of "The Second Nuclear
Age," says he finds it unsettling to read about neglect of the ICBM force
and the turmoil in the ranks of those who operate the missiles.
"If
things are so bad, if for some reason we did want to fire an individual nuclear
weapon, could we? Would the weapon take off?" he asked in an interview
this month with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "With all of the
problems in our nuclear force, it seems to me that there'd be some real doubts.
You really wouldn't want to use one of these weapons, because you don't know
what is going to happen."
Bracken
added that in the event of a massive nuclear attack by Russia, "I'm sure
we could retaliate — we've got enough weaponry at our disposal. If we fire
enough of them in a mass counterstrike, some are bound to work."
Evidence
of what some would call the Air Force's willful disregard for its nuclear force
is not hard to find. Michelle Spencer, for one, documented it in a
little-noticed research paper she wrote for the Air Force in 2012. Her study
team found examples of Air Force decisions to deemphasize nuclear training and
education.
"At
times the signs were clear that expertise and culture had declined to the point
that the (nuclear) enterprise was in danger of catastrophic failure," she
wrote.
Spencer
put particular emphasis on nuclear expertise — how to expand it, how to
maintain it and how to reward it.
"Without
answers to these fundamental questions, the Air Force nuclear enterprise
remains on the same trajectory as it has been for the last two decades - in
ever-increasing decline," she wrote, adding that at some point it may be
unable to sustain a nuclear mission that is supposed to be central to U.S.
defense strategy.
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