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Wynne planned to stand up a nuclear command

The Air Force might go back to the future to address its chronic nuclear woes by putting the entire mission under a strategic command.

Former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said he and other leaders were planning just that, but those plans got put on the back burner in March once officials discovered four U.S. ballistic-missile nose cones had been mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in 2006.

Each investigation into that incident — and into the nuclear accident last August that involved six nuclear warheads mistakenly flown from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La. — has fueled criticisms that the Air Force had lost the focus on nuclear weapons since the Cold War.

Wynne told Air Force Times that a new umbrella for the service’s nuclear enterprise would be similar to the old Strategic Air Command to refocus the service on its nuclear mission.

“I’m talking about enhancing the focus that we had as Strategic Air Command. If that means bringing back SAC, I don’t know. ... We were envisioning a command like that, a strategic command. I’m not sure we would call it Strategic Air Command,” Wynne said during a discussion July 9 with Air Force Times editors and writers.

Wynne and former Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley were forced out June 5 by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who pointed to the failings of the service’s nuclear mission.

The responsibility now falls to Gen. Norton Schwartz and acting Secretary Michael Donley — who were nominated to take over — to see whether they will follow through on those plans, Wynne said.

“I think General Moseley had a change he intended to make, and I’m hoping that General Schwartz will see it the same way and make the [same] changes.”

Air Force officials couldn’t confirm the plan was still on the table, but they didn’t deny it, either.

Lt. Col. Michael Brown, a service spokesman, said the Nuclear Task Force stood up by Donley will wait for the new leadership before making any concrete decisions.

Mission for the Cold War

Strategic Air Command stood up in 1946 after World War II as the need for a long-range nuclear bomber force became evident amid rising tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Gen. Curtis LeMay, credited with establishing SAC, had zero tolerance for mistakes and demanded the highest standards from his aircrews, which built pride throughout the command by motivating airmen who believed they were responsible for the Air Force’s premier mission, said retired Col. Walter Boyne, who flew bombers for SAC from 1952 to 1958.

The command folded in 1992 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. U.S. Strategic Command was stood up and took over some SAC missions while the rest were dispersed throughout the service.

“I think it’s time to bring it back. It was a crime in terms of heraldry and tradition to eliminate Strategic Air Command in the first place,” Boyne said.

Retired Gen. Richard Hawley, who commanded Air Combat Command from 1996 to 1999, agreed and said it makes sense to consolidate the nuclear bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile missions under one command.

Hawley said the commands now lack a “center of excellence” dedicated specifically to training for the nuclear mission.

“Within the area of people development and leader development, I think it’s important that we have a center of excellence focused on security and munitions handling,” he said.

Hawley said the service’s nuclear enterprise gets shortchanged in funding because it lacks an advocate dedicated solely to the nuclear mission.

“If the Air Force found it in its capability to stand up a new Strategic Air Command, it could advocate for long-range strike and other acquisition,” he said.

Retired Gen. Gregory “Speedy” Martin, who led Air Force Materiel Command and U.S. Air Forces in Europe, warned that reverting to placing all nuclear missions under one command won’t be the cure-all some might think.

“We have to be careful that we don’t say that we can’t do nukes right unless they are under one nuclear command,” he said.

Referring to the effectively protected tactical nuclear weapons in the Pacific and Europe that were out of SAC control, he said, “We’ve done nukes right, and they were under various commands.”

Space Command

Bringing back SAC isn’t the only idea floating around the service.

Another idea being debated would bring the bomber and ICBM missions under one command, such as Space Command, said a retired senior official who worked in U.S. Strategic Command but asked to remain anonymous.

“Moseley and Wynne were going down that path to put it under Space Command,” he said.

That would save time and money over standing up a new command, he said. “You have people that already understand nuclear munitions and understand the command-and-control perspective.”

The ICBM mission falls under Space Command, but bringing the bomber mission under the same umbrella would be a challenge, he said.

Plans exist to organize a B-52 squadron dedicated solely to the nuclear mission at Minot, which Space Command could take over, but what about the B-2 Spirits that share a nuclear and conventional mission?

“I’m not sure how they would handle that,” he said.

Unlike the nuclear bomber mission under 8th Air Force, the Defense Science Board’s Permanent Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Surety — which investigated after the Minot and Barksdale incident — found ICBM forces had remained tightly focused on their mission.

But the task force led by former Air Force Chief of Staff Larry Welch said organizing the nuclear mission under one numbered Air Force “could be counterproductive in that it could delay, rather than facilitate, correcting the current deficiencies,” according to its investigative report.

“While there are some attractive features of such a solution, it would require a major restructuring among multiple commands and would almost certainly have other unintended consequences,” the report said.

Instead, the report recommended placing a B-52 squadron dedicated solely to the nuclear mission under control of Task Force 204 — the Air Force’s existing nuclear bomber component to U.S. Strategic Command.

Baker Spring, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, said the Air Force is overdue for a nuclear reorganization — whether it be a new command or ceding more control to Task Force 204. But he said he remains skeptical whether a reorganization will change that much.

“Standing up a new command is an option I think should be considered,” he said. “But I’m not convinced we should be satisfied with only organizational decisions.”