Less than a month after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Nov. 14 announced oversight and organizational changes within the troubled nuclear enterprise, the Air Force yesterday announced it will align accountability for missiles, launch systems and equipment support under a single command. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced the move during a keynote address last night at the Winter Conference of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Project on Nuclear Issues. Currently, responsibility for intercontinental ballistic missile demonstrations, validation, modernization and life extension programs resides under the one-star Strategic Systems (SS) billet, led by Brig. Gen. Daryl Hauck. Additionally, two-star Maj. Gen. Sandra Finan oversees AFNWC, including its main launch system operations and equipment support efforts. The new office will be a two-star billet.
“The idea here is to enhance support to the nuclear mission,” James said. “So, put another way, whereas now, you have two separate belly buttons for cheap parts of the nuclear sustainment and modernization missions, in the future we will have one. We will have one senior leader accountable for the entirety of the weapons systems.” The move is an effort to prevent two “divorced” offices that “may or may not” work synergistically, because the two divisions fall under separate budgets and procedural approaches. The new office will aim to treat nuclear weapons and their systems as a single unit.
The service will also move the organizational lines of the 377th Air Base Wing at Kirtland AFB, N.M., from Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) to Air Force Global Strike Command. This will allow the wing to focus on installation support at Kirtland, James said. “We’re going to have Global Strike oversee that because their role is support of the airmen and the operations,” she said. The move attempts, in part, to establish a “laser focus,” and to free up AFMC to lend product and modernization support the new SS/AFNWC unit, James added.
