Needed: Infrastructure to Match Mission Responsibilities

US Strategic Command occupies “a unique operational place” in the nation’s defense and it needs a modern command and control complex that is capable of handling the command’s demanding mission set, said Gen. Robert Kehler, STRATCOM boss. “The facilities that we perform that job from today were designed in the early 1950s, constructed in the middle 1950s,” and are “not supporting the mission demands any longer,” said Kehler in remarks during a June 3 field hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces panel in Bellevue, Neb. Bellevue is near Offutt Air Force Base, STRATCOM’s headquarters. To meet the demands of controlling the nation’s strategic nuclear deterrent, space forces, cyber activities, and ballistic missile defenses, STRATCOM’s assessment is that “we need to go back and reconstruct a new command-and-control facility,” he said. The Air Force has programmed $564 million over the next three fiscal years to build that complex and is seeking Congress’ support for it. The new facility would “essentially bring the infrastructure here to the point where it matches now the mission responsibilities that we’ve been given,” said Kehler.