SHREVEPORT – Air Force Major General Jason Armagost looked over the 509th Bomb Wing during a June 18 change of command ceremony at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
The 509th Bomb Wing lined up in formation, and Armagost spoke about the wing’s rich history, specifically being the group that delivered the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II and the overall 8th Air Force’s efforts that made D-Day possible.
Even though none of the uniformed airmen knew that they’d soon be carrying out a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in just a few days (as part of Operation Midnight Hammer on June 21), Armagost surveyed the wing and felt strongly about how they would perform in a plan developed over the course of 15 years should President Donald Trump order the mission.
“The 509th pulled off a mission just like they did in 1945,” Armagost said. “It went off with a lot of professionalism and perfect discipline.
“In all my years, with a lot of forethought and a little bit of luck, I’ve never seen something executed with the precision and integration across the board as this mission.”
B-2 Spirit stealth bombers delivered 14 bombs (30,000-pound class) on two key Iranian underground uranium enrichment plants at Fordow and Natanz with submarines firing cruise missiles at a third site Isfahan.
The bombers entered and left Iranian air space without a single Iranian shot fired.
Armagost discussed the integration and execution of various Air Force and other military entities Tuesday at the 26th annual Nuclear Triad Symposium to an audience of nuclear industry and military representatives from across the nation. The symposium was hosted by BRF at LSU Shreveport, which provides a declassified setting to discuss industry-specific topics.
Though a conventional strike that didn’t include nuclear weapons, Armagost said the United States demonstrated its capabilities to its adversaries and allies around the globe.
“It sends a very, very clear signal to Russia and China,” said Armagost, commander of the Joint-Global Strike Operations Center in the Air Force Global Strike Command. “If you can’t deliver in a conventional way, it calls into question the credibility of a strategic operation.
“How we allocate resources and how we plan, we need to ensure that our credibility can’t be assaulted because we can’t deliver.”
Deterrence and assurance.
The United States thinks of its nuclear arsenal in terms of deterrence to adversaries and assurance to its allies.
But James Howe, an expert on Russian nuclear capabilities, said Russia’s recent focus on low-yield nuclear weapons could signal an increasing willingness to use nuclear warheads in tactical situations.
“There’s evidence that Russia has thousands of low-yield nuclear weapons with the ability to make around 1,000 nuclear weapons of various types each year,” said Howe, who is a consultant to the National Security Research Institute. “Lower-yield nuclear warheads would have more limited fallout and could potentially involve less escalation compared to the use of higher yield traditional nuclear weapons.
“Russia believes that the United States is risk averse, and that nuclear weapons are an effective deterrent.”
Howe added that Russia undoubtedly owns the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and has an industrial production advantage to produce more.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States made a conscious decision to divest from its nuclear industry in favor of conventional weapons. The nuclear weapon is an equalizer of sorts for a Russia military that’s at a clear disadvantage in conventional warfare as evidenced by the war in Ukraine for the past three years.
China entered the stage as a major nuclear force in the 21st century and is rapidly increasing its nuclear weapon stockpile, which is also likely to include low-yield nuclear missiles.
Chris Yeaw, the associate executive director for strategic deterrence and nuclear programs at the National Strategic Research Institute, said China is estimated to surpass the U.S. in the number of nuclear weapons by 2035.
But warfare is much more than just total number of nuclear warheads, particularly when the three major players tally in the thousands.
With its current military assets and new platforms like the B-21 Raider stealth bomber and Columbia nuclear submarine class coming online in the coming years, the U.S. still retains technological advantages in both the conventional and nuclear spaces.
“Nuclear weapons back stop everything,” Yeaw said. “China was clearly at a disadvantage 10 or 20 years ago, but they have considerable strategic and theater forces now.
“While I don’t think that (Chinese president Xi Jinping) will make a move on Taiwan because the costs would be so high, if he feels like the window is closing on reclaiming Taiwan, his number of theater-level nuclear weapons in the region just might give him the confidence to make that move.”
But America’s strike against Iran demonstrated its superiority in long-range strike capability even before the B-21 Raider enters service, which is currently being flight tested.
Air Force Global Strike Command commander General Thomas Bussiere encouraged unity behind nuclear deterrence and the nuclear enterprise.
“Symposiums like this are important not only to bring together the academic experts, our industry experts, our civic leaders and our federal partners — it’s important because quite frankly, now is the time for our nation to lock arms and get this right,” Bussiere said.
Other two Triad legs undergoing upgrades
With the Air Force nearing completion on its B-21 Raider stealth bomber (conventional and nuclear capability), the new air leg of the nuclear triad is close to taking flight.
But the Triad has two other legs – land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads and submarines armed with nuclear weapons.
Navy Rear Admiral Todd Weeks said the new Columbia class nuclear submarines are about 60 percent complete with the goal of being on patrol by 2030.
“The Columbia class will not only be the most advanced ballistic missile submarine in the world, it’ll be the most advanced submarine in the world,” Weeks said. “It has the best sensor suite and tactical combat systems in the world, and has upgrades in maintenance and training infrastructure, including completely digital diagnostics.
“This will allow for higher operational availability for the ‘survivable’ leg of the Triad.”
The land-based Minuteman III is holding on in its 55th year of service while the new Sentinel system is being designed and implemented.
The wide-ranging projected to replace these 450 missiles and their facilities spread over five states is a monumental task, drawing comparisons to the nation’s largest infrastructure projects in its history like the U.S. interstate highway system.
Not only is Sentinel a gargantuan project in its own right that must come in at or under its $141 billion price tag, the Minuteman III system must simultaneously be maintained and operated as the nuclear triad leg with the quickest response time.
“We’re doing everything we can to sustain Minuteman III while we wait on Sentinel,” said Major General Stacy Jo Husser, commander of the 20th Air Force in the AFGSC. “We spent 2.4 million maintenance hours in the past five years, which is 30 percent more than the previous five years.
“The last Minuteman III missile is projected to be pulled in 2052, so parts of these systems will be operational for another 25-plus years.”
Husser added that the development of remote maintenance will significantly cut travel time and expenses, meaning personnel won’t have to physically travel to all 450 missiles each year.
Atrophied industry seeing signs of rejuvenation after significant investment
The decision in the 1990s to move away from intense research and development in the nuclear industry and the general decline of American manufacturing overall has slowed progress in maintaining current capability and completing upgrades to various systems.
Kent Jones, assistant deputy administrator for systems engineering and integration at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, says investment that revved up in the last seven years is starting to pay dividends.
“We had a nuclear industry infrastructure collapse at a time when Russia and China were re-capitalizing their industries,” Jones said. “But we have made key investments in infrastructure and stockpile modernization and other investments that will allow us to remain a nuclear country.
“Both aisles of Congress have gotten behind this mission.”
Jones added that it’s hard to find all the dollars to do every necessary upgrade all at once, but he added that manufacturing and workforce is progressing toward a point where American industry can provide what the nuclear enterprise needs.
Heavy hitters like Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics are tackling massive projects, but the importance of smaller entities like Shreveport software company Praeses also play a vital role in the industrial defense environment.
Smaller companies tend to be more nimble and agile to meet challenges in quickly changing landscapes, but the barriers to entry are daunting considering the level of security and secrecy needed in the nuclear enterprise.
“The nuclear enterprise is ancient in some ways, and small business can innovate in some ways that much larger ones can’t,” said J.D. Hunsicker, vice president for government programs at Praeses. “But the requirements, particularly in the cyber protection systems, make it extremely difficult.”
Ideas surfaced from an industry panel that suggested relaxing certain requirements in areas of the nuclear enterprise that aren’t top secret in nature, particularly in the certification process.
But the general direction is clear – America is reaping the rewards from a recapitalized nuclear enterprise that will supply U.S. forces with the tools they need to continue to provide a credible nuclear deterrence.
Jones provided an example of how nuclear deterrence works from his military service in Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait.
“We came across Iraqi artillery that had chemical weapons,” Jones said. “But the Iraqis didn’t use those chemical weapons because they were afraid of our nuclear weapons.”