US Air Force gears up to put nuclear bombers on 24-hour alert
During the height of the Cold War, B-52 bombers armed with nuclear warheads were stationed and ready for action 24 hours a day. Now the US Air Force is getting ready should this reality return.
By HAGAY HACOHENUpdated: OCTOBER 23, 2017 14:24A U.S. B52 plane (R) flies during Exercise Eager Lion at one of the Jordanian military bases in Zarqa, east of Amman, Jordan, May 24, 2016. (photo credit: MUHAMMAD HAMED / REUTERS)
The United States Air Force is taking preparatory steps to put nuclear armed B-52 bombers on full time alert, ready to fulfill their mission should the order come.“I look at it more as not planning for any specific event, but more for the reality of the global situation we find ourselves in,” said Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Goldfein in an interview to Defense One.The order to put the Air Force bombers on 24-hour notice has not been given yet, stressed Golfein. The Air Force is just gearing up in case the situation arises.“The world is a dangerous place,” said General Golfein. “It’s no longer a bipolar world where it’s just us and the Soviet Union.”Barksdale Air Force base in northwestern Louisiana is the home of Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees all nuclear forces the Air Force has under it's command.The base contains nine empty B-52 landing pads and facilities that can host over one hundred airmen. The E-48 Nightwatch and the E-6B Mercury will soon temporarily fill the landing pads as they begin to spend some of their time on-alert there on the base.If a nuclear war is declared, both planes will serve as the flying command posts of the current defense secretary and STRATCOM commander, respectively.“Our job,” said General Goldfein, “is options.”
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