Take Closer Look At Air Force's Nuclear Blunder

Now that new leadership has been identified for the Air Force, is the service's twisting-in-the-wind experience as a result of the mishandling of nuclear and nuclear-related materials over?

Not completely - but that may not be a bad thing. In his June 5 statement announcing that the Air Force secretary and chief of staff would lose their jobs, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates also designated Dr. James Schlesinger to lead yet another senior-level task force to examine the military's nuclear establishment.

Although a call for further inquiries is not exactly relished within the ranks, perhaps it should be. The thoughtful secretary is providing an opportunity to address important issues apparently left unexamined by the investigation Adm. Kirkland H. Donald conducted at Gates' behest.

Specifically, in ousting the service leadership, Secretary Gates cited Adm. Donald's finding of a "decline in the Air Force's nuclear mission focus" as a key reason to hold them accountable. The whys and wherefores of this decline bear further scrutiny.

That effort ought to include analyzing the consequences of changing the mission focus of U.S. Strategic Command or STRATCOM. STRATCOM is the heir to the fabled Strategic Air Command, which was legendary for its draconian discipline and obsession with all things nuclear within the Air Force. In 1992 "Air" was dropped from the title when the command added Navy forces and converted itself into a joint-service organization.

Even so, STRATCOM remained wedded exclusively to its nuclear mission - until, that is, the arrival in 2004 of the highly respected Marine general (and now vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) James E. Cartwright.

Almost immediately, Gen. Cartwright set out to redirect STRATCOM away from a nuclear-only focus to missions seemingly more relevant to a post-9/11 world. Writing in Joint Force Quarterly in 2006, he acknowledged his command's "legacy" nuclear responsibilities, but emphasized the addition of seven new "distinct global missions." As brilliant as it appeared at the time, diffusing the command's concentration away from the nuclear mission now warrants re-evaluation.

Moreover, since a military organization takes its cues from above, Dr. Schlesinger may wish to examine, for example, the role of Gates' own Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, whose portfolio includes policy responsibility for logistics and nuclear matters.

Among other things, the outsourcing of defense logistics, particularly in the sensitive-materials arena, deserves a fresh look. Military officers have no legal authority to either "command" contractors or discipline the thousands now enmeshed in such operations. Accountability without authority is inherently problematic.

What about further command accountability? Leaving that task to the new Air Force secretary, as Gates has done, presents quite a challenge.

Leadership accountability does not occur in a vacuum. Abu Ghraib, Haditha or, for that matter, the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut where the Long Commission specifically found commanders wanting, did not lead to pink slips for any service's most senior leadership.

Likewise, although the Navy typically relieved the vessel's skipper following each of the several incidents involving nuclear submarines in recent years, no admiral, let alone service secretary, was shown the door.

Given such precedents, when is enough enough? At what point does the quest for Air Force accountability that Secretary Gates rightly insists upon become a counterproductive witch hunt?

In truth, the bulk of America's military has, in fact, fixated on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While understandable in a way, the entire defense establishment nevertheless suffers from a "This-Waritis" contagion that manifested itself in the incidents that forced Gates to act.

No one thought that exhortations to win today's irregular warfare fights would lead to the perception that the nuclear mission was anything less than, as Gates puts it, "of paramount importance." Obviously, the wrong message got out there somehow and Gates had no choice but to forcefully correct it.

Gates is clearly a strong and decisive leader. In the months ahead it will be vitally important that he let no one perceive he is anything but a fair one as well. It may be necessary to decapitate a military service in the midst of a war in pursuit of a higher purpose, but crushing the morale of the Air Force is in no one's interest except that of America's enemies.