From Khyber Pass to Mountain Home: Air Force Global Strike Command is adapting convoy security techniques learnt in Afghanistan to better defend warheads and ICBM components during transit, said AFGSC boss Lt. Gen. James Kowalski. “We’ve had a decade of conflict on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we’ve learned a lot about providing security … and integrating intelligence, and we’ve learned a lot about how to do convoys,” Kowalski told reporters at a roundtable at AFA’s Air & Space Conference on Tuesday. “What we want to do is capture all those lessons learned now, and apply it to our missile fields,” he explained. Since the command stood up, AFGSC has continuously been in search of ways to improve security of the nation’s ICBM fields. In the last year alone, AFGSC placed helicopters and security forces on 24-hour alert at each of the three ICBM bases, and installed remote situational awareness at every ICBM launch facility, noted Kowalski. For Fiscal 2015 “we’re going to take a very aggressive look … and make another improvement in the effectiveness of our security forces,” he stated.
Amid NATO’s continued push to ramp up air defenses in Eastern Europe, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall swung by seven allied countries to boost relations last week, including those on Russia’s and Ukraine’s doorstep.