Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
9/19/2014
As the Air Force is downsizing, $500 million will reinvigorate Global Strike Command’s Future Years Defense Program, and the command will bring in more than 1,100 people during the next several years as part of its Force Improvement Program (FIP), officials said this week. Officials announced the FIP in August as an effort to raise morale among airmen after an internal investigation released this spring found that Malmstrom Air Force Base (Mont.) missileers had cheated on monthly proficiency tests.
In addition to the personnel boost, the Air Force has excluded 4,000 Global Strike Command airmen from service-wide manpower reductions, said Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall. “For too long, our leaders have not [done] enough to support the missileers and the others involved in this enterprise—overlooking career paths, compensation, decaying infrastructure, and small unit leadership that are mission-critical,” Kendall said Sept. 17 at this week’s Air Force Association Air & Space Conference. “That is changing. It will continue to change. Know that what you do every day is foundational to America’s national security and the top priority of the Department of Defense.”
The Air Force will distribute the FYDP funding toward integral nuclear enterprise objectives including facilities sustainment, bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile operations support, launch control center maintenance, and updated nuclear defender equipment and uniforms, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced Sept. 15 at the AFA conference. “There’s no question in my mind that our nuclear mission is first and foremost,” James said.
Staffing, Incentive Pay Addressed
The service will also fill eight critical specialties to 100 percent employment levels. “People who are coming back from overseas assignments are already being diverted to fill some of these things, so it’s not something we haven’t started doing,” said Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, assistant chief of staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration (A10). “It’ll probably take a couple of assignments—three or four—until we’re able to say, ‘OK, we’ve achieved our goal, the 100 percent manning for those eight.’”
James said the service will add some money toward ROTC scholarships, with 10 awarded to upcoming seniors graduating in 2015, and 30 more expected for FY 2015. She also said $300 monthly incentive pay will be offered to officers performing the nuclear mission, as well as up to $300 a month in special duty assignment pay for certain enlisted career fields throughout the nuclear enterprise.
Force Will Realign Its Organization and Implement New Training Procedures
FIP changes entail organizational realignment and new training procedures. More than five years after Global Strike’s 2009 establishment, 20th Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein noted this week that his unit is transitioning away from train-and-equip functions and toward U.S. Strategic Command Task Force responsibilities, including 24/7 situational awareness. Speaking Sept. 18 in Washington at a strategic nuclear enterprise conference, Weinstein also noted that his force is moving toward a new promotional structure which involves selecting missileers based solely on gained experience and expertise. “During a second tour, our operators will transition to instructor and evaluator positions, serve as flight commanders and assume other leadership positions,” he said. “All that said, FIP is not a list of policy changes, it is a mindset and a philosophy as we work to make lasting, foundational changes in the ICBM culture.”
In the months since the cheating discoveries, teams visited the nation’s five ICBM and bomber bases where they interviewed and surveyed airmen and held town hall meetings. Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, commander of Global Strike Command, said leaders of his force are making efforts to empower airmen and move away from micromanagement, an issue commonly identified by airmen serving in the operations, maintenance, security forces, mission support and helicopter specialties.
Program Reacts to Concerns Raised by Airmen
Wilson said an evaluation-based culture engendered the micromanagement, while the FIP strives to re-center command culture around experience. An initial step of the FIP involved Wilson and Weinstein reviewing over 350 suggestions from airmen, and Global Strike Command will act upon 90 percent of the total feedback, Wilson said. He cited the helicopter group as an example of one outcome of the FIP. “We talked about not being optimized structure-wise to be able to grow helicopter leaders of the future, so we set up a new helicopter group that does just that,” the commander said. “They’re provisional right now, they’ll reach IOC [initial operating capacity] here in a few months, but they’ve stood up at F.E. Warren Air Force Base. So now, all the helicopter squadrons, the three, report under this helicopter group that reports to General Weinstein.”
Harencak highlighted airmen as the most important part of the nuclear enterprise. “The greatest weapon system that we have in the United States military nuclear deterrent doesn’t come with a tail number, it doesn’t come with a serial number stamped on it; it comes with a Social Security number,” he said. “The greatest weapon we have that protects our country the best is our airmen and our sailors, and we have to start with them.”
