Free Republic

Pentagon Undecided on Nuclear Warhead for New Cruise Missile WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Defense Department has yet to determine which nuclear warhead will be fielded on a weapon that replaces the 1980s-vintage Air Launched Cruise Missile, according to Pentagon and combatant command officials (see GSN, Feb. 24). Defense officials are “carrying out an Analysis of Alternatives to be completed this fall for an ALCM follow-on system,” John Harvey, a Pentagon nuclear force official, said last month. “Plans are to sustain the ALCM and the W-80 warhead, [the] ALCM warhead,” until the new missile, the Long-Range Stand-Off weapon, “can be fielded,”...

In addition to violently roiling the Air Force for months, the infamous “Minot Incident” of August 2007 did something else. It highlighted a new view of the future of nuclear-armed cruise missiles. That event saw B-52H bombers unwittingly fly operational Advanced Cruise Missiles from Minot AFB, N.D., down to Barksdale AFB, La. Mostly unremarked is that weapons were being taken south for decommissioning. The Defense Department is retiring the nuclear-armed AGM-129 ACM entirely. As a result of strategic nuclear arms treaty obligations, the Pentagon scrapped planned life extension programs for the ACM. DOD moved to eliminate the ACM entirely and...

Conditions that led to August incident in states could reoccur, expert says RAF LAKENHEATH, England — A nuclear weapons expert said the Air Force’s response to a recent mishandling of nuclear weapons raises questions about the security of America’s arsenal worldwide, including at several installations in Europe. “[Maj.] Gen. [Richard] Newton said everything [in North Dakota] was done to Air Force regulations,” said Philip Coyle, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, an independent Pentagon watchdog group. “The problem I had with that was the same conditions could exist at other Air Force bases around the world.”...