Like many, many others who had had some experience with nuclear weapons programs, I had a hard time believing that the Air Force could be so fucked up as to fly six nuclear weapons across the country and then leave the unguarded bomber sitting on the ramp overnight.
Sadly, it seems that the Air Force is indeed, just that fucking incompetent, for it seems hard to believe that all of those folks facing disciplinary action are willing to take one for the team so Chimpy could cover something up.
I don't know whether I'm relieved because it wasn't some evil plot hatched out the Black Hole of Morality that is this administration or appalled that the Air Force can be so screwed up when it comes to handing things that can bust a city.
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Friday, October 19, 2007
3 comments:
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I blame it on President George H.W. Bush, who eliminated SAC and took the B52's off nuclear alert. Eliminating SAC eliminated the entire organization that was responsible for nuclear cruise missile procedures and policies. Neither of the successor organizations had experience handling nukes or any interest in promulgating the policies and procedures for handling nukes. In short, all the nuclear expertise in the USAF was basically downsized and laid off, and nobody really did anything about it.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who grew up under the end of the runway of Barksdale Air Force Base I'm happy that my old home isn't a target for a nuke anymore, but it does seem a shame that they got rid of all their nuclear expertise before, well, before getting rid of the nukes. Sigh. Downsizing. You want to know what happened to America's competitiveness in international markets, that's the whole story in a nutshell. Big businesses have become a storehouse of dimwits, because they laid off all the competent people to "save costs". The USAF, alas, is not immune to that either.
I'm not sure I buy that, for I do know that the surface Navy had no strategic nukes, but they managed to handle tactical nukes for decades without serious issues.
ReplyDeleteBut the surface navy did not eliminate the entire organization responsible for handling tactical nukes in a military version of a corporate downsizing. Supposedly SAC's responsibilities regarding handling the nuclear cruise missiles were going to be moved elsewhere. As we can see, it never really happened -- the organization was eliminated, the organizational knowledge died with it, the rules and regs and procedures for dealing with nuclear cruise missiles were relegated to dusty old rule books that nobody in the current USAF ever reads because the current USAF is oriented around tactical use of conventional weapons (on paper anyhow).
ReplyDeleteRule of thumb: If you're going to eliminate an entire division of your enterprise, yet need the knowledge maintained within that division... don't do it. Downsize it and make it a smaller subdivision of a larger division of your enterprise, but don't eliminate it. Eliminating it means you lose critical skills. I've seen it happen in private enterprise time after time after time, and immediately recognized what had happened when this event happened (I never bought the paranoid version i.e. "they meant to do this to set up a nuclear attack on Iran", it was too clearly an organizational failure).
- Badtux the Organizational Penguin