Nukes over Amerika (Are you ready for some Nuclear Football?)

Here's a clip from an article by the Shreveport Times newspaper (password required):

General Bruce Carlson, then-commander of the 8th Air Force at Barksdale:

Carlson completed his third main assignment, to change the way 8th Air Force operates in order to meet new jobs given it by U.S. Strategic Command, or Stratcom, in what are called Global Strike missions. In these, Stratcom, or the president or defense secretary, calls 8th Air Force and describes what needs to be done. And in half a day or less, it has to come up with the means and methods to do that, with surveillance and intelligence before the mission and reconnaissance after to determine the success of the operation.

“We’re now at the point where we are essentially on alert,” Carlson said. “We have the capacity to plan and execute Global Strikes on their command.”

(snip)

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This refers to the May 2004 date that then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed something called the Interim Global Strike Alert Order.

Control of some nuclear weapons were significantly relaxed to fulfill the requirements of this order.

The Air Force was required to be able to HIT any spot on the planet within 12 hours, including all planning, recon, intel, etc...

Keep in mind, any orders under this Strike Order do NOT have to be approved by the President.

This is a new wrinkle to the story...

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and to quote Strangelove once more:

Major T. J. "King" Kong:

Well, I've been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones. You sure you got today's codes?

"HIT any spot on the planet within 12 hours, including all planning, recon, intel, etc..."

Well, at least there is no room for error.

Good Dawg A'mighty.

I've talked to alot of folks, read a million 'news' stories and enough 'tin-foil' blogs and more boring government stuff than a man should endure...

Some select clips from today's mega search:

In what seems to be the only reported story involving the 'nuclear football...' to ever surface. Boris Yeltsin was awakened one night when Russian radar sites detected a missile launch from somewhere north of Norway. For several minutes, Yeltsin's 'football' was activated, but Russian experts finally decided the missile was headed AWAY from the coast and the situation was terminated.

The missile was a sub-orbital reseach rocket from a US university observing the Northern Lights. If launched from a small island off the Norwegian coast and was reported TO the Russian gov't, but the info was not passed on to Russian commanders.

BTW: The Russian 'football' system requires 2 units, but the US version has direct link to command and control.




Info on the football:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Football

Not Just A Last Resort?
A Global Strike Plan, With a Nuclear Option

By William Arkin

Sunday, May 15, 2005; Page B01

Early last summer, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved a top secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" directing the military to assume and maintain readiness to attack hostile countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically Iran and North Korea.

Two months later, Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force, told a reporter that his fleet of B-2 and B-52 bombers had changed its way of operating so that it could be ready to carry out such missions. "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert," Carlson said in an interview with the Shreveport (La.) Times. "We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes." Carlson said his forces were the U.S. Strategic Command's "focal point for global strike" and could execute an attack "in half a day or less."

In the secret world of military planning, global strike has become the term of art to describe a specific preemptive attack. When military officials refer to global strike, they stress its conventional elements. Surprisingly, however, global strike also includes a nuclear option, which runs counter to traditional U.S. notions about the defensive role of nuclear weapons.

The official U.S. position on the use of nuclear weapons has not changed. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has taken steps to de-emphasize the importance of its nuclear arsenal. The Bush administration has said it remains committed to reducing our nuclear stockpile while keeping a credible deterrent against other nuclear powers. Administration and military officials have stressed this continuity in testimony over the past several years before various congressional committees.

-snip
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400071.html