Modernization Mountain: Ash Carter and the Aging Triad

Aaron Stein 0:00

I was surprised that there are gangs in North Dakota.

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

How y'all doing?

Aaron 0:03

West, west, west, west. What? West side.

Jeffrey 0:09

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, the only and therefore leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, and the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog.

Aaron 0:24

And I'm Aaron Stein. I'm a contributor to the Arms Control Wonk blog, and I'm also an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. As well as a doctoral fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy. Hey, Jeffrey, you want to know? We have a new scandal involving missiles, nuclear weapons, drugs, and wait for it, underage prostitution.

Jeffrey 0:44

Yeah, I had no idea that there were gangs on Hee Haw.

Aaron 0:49

I don't think anybody had an idea that there were gangs up there in North Dakota. Yeah.

Jeffrey 0:54

So, dear listeners, the Air Force Times... Managed to dig up that in December, a missileer at Minot Air Force Base was the leader of a violent street gang. And he was sentenced in a court martial to 25 years in prison. And he was convicted of two counts of sexual assault of a child younger than 16. Distribution of marijuana and magic mushrooms, use of magic mushrooms, willful dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman, pandering unlawful entry, and forced specifications of communicating threats.

The story in the Air Force Times also notes that he twice slipped a roofie to an adult female civilian. The first time she woke up, another man was raping her, and the second time she woke up, It appears that the Miss Lear in question was raping her. So he seems like a pretty bad guy.

Aaron 1:56

Pretty bad. I'd say he's a really bad guy.

Jeffrey 2:00

Yeah, he seems like a really unpleasant individual. Yeah. So I was really shocked, Aaron. I mean you're from Southern California, right? You have gangs.

Aaron 2:11

Yeah, yeah. We have our gangs down there, lots of them. I was surprised that there are gangs in North Dakota. I'll be completely honest.

Jeffrey 2:18

Yeah, so it turns out they're LA gangs or Southern California gangs. So this guy was from outside of San Diego. And he brought his gang sort of across state lines? So I think so. There's this other story in the Bismarck Tribune that I dug up that looks at a shooting that happened in December. Or no, sorry. I think the story is from December.

The shooting happened in July of 2013. And there were charges filed against five men who were from Bakersfield, California, which I know is sort of – A little north of L.A., but still Southern California. And they were – I can really kick out of this. You're laughing already because you know what it is. I'm sorry, listeners. I told them they were part of a gang called the Country Boy Crips.

Aaron 3:11

I find that so funny. Not just the Crips, like the Crips of the Bloods, but the Country Boy Crips, presumably because they're in North Dakota.

Jeffrey 3:18

Yeah, right?

Aaron 3:19

How are you all doing?

Jeffrey 3:21

West side. Yeah.

Aaron 3:24

It's absolutely bizarre, but it's kind of terrifying. The country boy crypts that have links to the crypts of Bakersfield, one of which is operating or at least is buried underground and operating or at least in charge of one of our nuclear missiles. Correct? It makes it a little hard to lecture other countries.

Jeffrey 3:45

About not allowing non-state actors access to nuclear weapons, how did this slip through the background briefings? Like, not only are, have you been running, well, the personnel reliability program, right? Yeah, I mean, there's supposed to be a program that is supposed to like find exactly this kind of person and not let them anywhere near nuclear weapons. It failed. Totally failed.

We've been having a lot of failures. I'm not sure, Aaron, that it's fair to condemn an entire program based on a single slip-up. Putting a member of the country boy Crips down there with his finger on the button in quotes?

Aaron 4:23

That was a Dr. Strangelove joke. That one totally went over my head. I thought you were being serious for a moment.

Jeffrey 4:31

I was like, what? No, no, no.

Aaron 4:32

That's what they say when it's clear that the bomber is going to go start a nuclear war.

Jeffrey 4:38

Yeah. And General Ripper, it's obvious General Ripper is unstable and he's somehow in command. And that's the response of Buck Turgidson, the George C. Scott characters. I'm not sure it's fair to condemn an entire program based on a single slip-up.

Aaron 4:54

Well – It is funny. But I think even the way they would address this threat, we have to put together a panel to study it, right?

Jeffrey 5:03

Right. Well, so it turns out this is not a single slip-up, right? So there have been a series of these scandals dating to the munitions transfer incident where the six nuclear-armed cruise missiles are flown across the country.

Aaron 5:17

They're all Air Force scandals, right?

Jeffrey 5:20

Almost all of them, yeah. The only one that I can think of involves the deputy commander of STRATCOM, who was a Navy admiral.

Aaron 5:29

Oh, that's right.

Jeffrey 5:30

Yeah, it does raise this interesting question. It's kind of interesting to me that all this stuff is ending up in the press.

Aaron 5:38

Right, exactly. I feel like we're reading too much about our nuclear forces, if you know what I mean.

Jeffrey 5:43

There are a lot of leaks. A lot of those leaks go to Bob Burns at AP. And I do sometimes wonder if the Air Force is trying to, first of all, kill off the ICBM force in order to reprogram the money, or whether it's just that there's a general Air Force aversion to being in the nuclear business in its entirety.

But yeah, let's have a panel.

Aaron 6:07

Yeah, let's have a panel. Well, the reason why I bring it up is because In response to some of the other problems that's been going – I think there's the cheating – the missileers that were cheating on their tests. I think Chuck Hagel put together a report on the ICBM forces, the Harvey Welsh report.

Jeffrey 6:24

It just came out. Yeah, it's two reports, right? It's like didn't we just have one of these scandals? So there have been a series of other stuff. There was the cheating scandals. There was the Air Force general who went on the drunken bender in Moscow where he tried to play guitar at the Beatles cover band at the Mexican restaurant.

Aaron 6:41

And seemed to be getting honeypotted, right? That's a verb.

Jeffrey 6:43

And seemed to be getting honeypotted, yes. He was discussing the finer points of some defense-related physics problems with the cigarette girl at the hotel. Jesus. The worst part about that was he was apparently running around telling people he was like a highly cleared Air Force general. Like, oh, God. I think he went to – didn't they go to like a Mexican restaurant to get wasted on margaritas?

Yeah, yeah, and he tried to play with the Beatles. He wanted to play guitar with the Beatles cover band.

Aaron 7:09

Yeah. The worst part about that is going for Mexican food in Moscow.

Jeffrey 7:15

Yeah. And he went back the next night because he wanted to beat the same girls again. It's like, no, no, man. The KGB will just send them to your hotel. You don't have to go to the restaurant.

Aaron 7:25

Yeah. Oh, god. OK. That's embarrassing.

Jeffrey 7:27

And there was the deputy commander of STRATCOM who was – is I believe – I haven't followed up on this because he was disciplined. But he was the subject of a criminal probe for gambling at a casino using fake chips.

Aaron 7:45

That's embarrassing too.

Jeffrey 7:47

And there are I believe – I think there are two of them, although the name of only one has been made public. But at a different missile base, there was a different drug ring. One of the officers associated with that drug ring was just court-martialed.

Aaron 8:04

Do you think he was a member of the Country Boy Crips? It's a she. Oh, she was a member of the Country Girl Crips?

Jeffrey 8:15

And I looked up her LinkedIn profile, and she's from the other side of the country. So I don't know if she has gang affiliations or not.

Aaron 8:28

The fact that they were asking these questions I think just shows what state of – it's just an absolute mess, a total mess.

Jeffrey 8:37

Right. So outgoing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel convened a review, which actually was a pair of reviews. It was an internal and an external review headed by an admiral named John Harvey. That was the internal review, and the external review was headed by retired Air Force General Larry Welch. And by my count, this is the fourth. Different review about how to fix the problems in the nuclear mission that General Welch has run.

Aaron 9:06

I think they all propose some sort of thing like increasing morale, increasing pay, something along those lines.

Jeffrey 9:14

Yeah, spend more money, focus more. But obviously, I've written this a ton of times and it will come as a shock to no one. I think the fundamental problem is that The Air Force doesn't want to be involved in this mission, and everybody who's involved with it knows that it's a marginal mission. I mean, Ash Carter was asked about this, actually, at his confirmation hearing, and he said that deterrence was a sort of bedrock of our national security.

But I think even if you – you can say that until you're blue in the face, but I think no one believes it. I often like to point out, the thing that kicked all this off, the munitions transfer incident – That happened the day before a three-day weekend. And it's a very human thing. I wrote in a column, you could hear lover boys working for the weekend, playing in the back.

I don't think people – people know that it's not serious. They know that we're very unlikely to use nuclear weapons. They don't take the job seriously. And so I think it ends up as kind of a dead-end career path. And then it's a vicious spiral because once it becomes a nightmare, like with all of these scandals, if you're a promising Air Force officer, Do you really want to risk your entire career overseeing a base that probably has an operating drug ring in it?

By the country blood crips? Well, I mean like I've got – we've got busted drug rings at two different Air Force missile wings.

Aaron 10:45

Yeah, I mean, in all seriousness, it speaks to exactly what you're saying. And they write about it in the reports, but I don't think you can fix it. It's just a lack of morale, maybe not just taking the job very seriously. But it doesn't mean that we – I almost feel like we just keep kicking the can down the road through these reports and they all say some variation of the same thing.

But Hegel has left. He quit or got fired, whatever you want. He and his socks are still in the job.

Jeffrey 11:13

Yeah, that's right, for now.

Aaron 11:16

Ash Carter probably in all likelihood will get confirmed, and he's going to be left with having to at least address this issue in some regard.

Jeffrey 11:24

Yeah, and I have to say – I mean I think first of all, I believe Ash Carter will make an outstanding secretary of defense. We had a very long podcast where we sang his praises.

Aaron 11:36

Right.

Jeffrey 11:36

He's better than the auto pen. No, he's way better than the auto pen. He's great. I know. That's a joke. I know. I'm just – look, I'm – I think the administration was really lucky to get a quality person willing to serve out two years given the widespread perception that the administration is sort of insular in its decision-making.

So I think the country is lucky to have Ash Carter, and I'm not – I would want to say nothing negative about him because – He is far and away the best choice. So having said that, he's a really interesting person to have to deal because we've been kicking this can down the road for a really long time.

I think people don't remember that when he was an assistant secretary of defense in 1994, he ran the Clinton administration's nuclear posture review, which was really the only point in time when I think there was An opportunity for a fundamental rethinking of the role nuclear weapons play in our security. And the way I would say it is aligning the role they play to the role that they actually play in the real world, right?

Making our policies match the reality.

Aaron 13:03

No, no, yeah, I mean... I just think we should just go right into it.

Jeffrey 13:07

That was such a long-winded answer, Aaron. You totally blanked out on me.

Aaron 13:10

No, I didn't blank out. I was waiting for you just to like – because I just think we should go right into it. I mean what was it – there were leaks around that time about his position on the triad itself, what our nuclear force posture should look like, et cetera, et cetera. So let's just go with it.

Let's roll right into it. What made it so interesting? Okay.

Jeffrey 13:29

That's why I have a new foreign policy column coming out. So right after the end of the Cold War, when the Clinton administration did this review, there was this really big debate because our forces then, as they are now, are basically organized around the principle that they have to be ready to respond to a bolt from the blue, a surprise Russian attack.

And a lot of people in the Clinton administration were way more worried about a Russian accidental launch or maybe a miscalculation. Yeah, well, a year later in 1995, we'd have the Norwegian – the black brand, right? Yeah, the sounding rocket. Launched from – the Norwegian-American sounding rocket launched from Norway.

Aaron 14:13

It's a little hard to tell exactly what happened.

Jeffrey 14:15

Yeah. But it does seem that the Russians thought it might have been a bolt from the blue, which is crazy in 1995. But that was precisely the legacy that some people in the Clinton administration wanted to deal with. And there are reports that Carter wanted to consider as an option eliminating the ICBM force and either fully or partly conventionalizing the bomber force.

And I should say these were leaks and they were leaks that were intended to make Carter look bad and he denies them. Right. I mean, he says that this was really just a force planning exercise for start two. And it wasn't really intended as a fundamental rethink and you know, that he was a big supporter of the triad.

Aaron 15:08

But there's more. I mean there's Jan Nolan's book, which I think sort of adds some meat to what is – around these leaks. Right.

Jeffrey 15:15

So apart from the efforts to attack him, Jan Nolan wrote this very slim little book called Elusive Consensus, which is about nuclear policymaking early on in the Clinton administration. It's got a chapter on the nuclear posture review, and she does all of these interviews with participants in the process, some of whom like Carter and think he's heroic and admirable, and some of whom don't like Carter.

And they all paint him as being someone who was pushing the hardest. And again, I think it speaks to his, I think he's right, like pushing the hardest to really try to reconceptualize what we do. And so, you know, it's very hard to sort through What he supported at the time and what he didn't. Yeah, what were you going to say, Eric?

Aaron 16:15

Oh, I was going to say there's a lot of smoke that he was in favor at least of getting rid of the ICBM force. As you said, conventionalizing the bomber force. And he's not alone. I mean that idea has been around for a while. It saved money and exactly for what you're saying is that the ICBM force has no mission almost.

Its purpose ended a long time ago, maybe even before the Cold War ended.

Jeffrey 16:40

Well, I mean the Clinton administration took to saying that the purpose of the ICBM force was to hopelessly complicate the plans of an attacker, which is like – it's not exactly calling them warhead sinks, but it's pretty close. And that's not a super compelling mission where you're going to get your best people to sign up for. So look, I don't know – Whether the accounts in Jan's book from so many participants in the process are true or whether Carter's account is more accurate.

It's entirely possible, as we discovered when we discussed the origin of this podcast, that people can sincerely believe incompatible things, despite the fact that the evidence shows I'm totally wrong about how we started this. I think it leads us to this really interesting spot where Secretary Carter is going to be facing – Budgetary pressures that will actually push us in the direction of eliminating the ICBM and conventionalizing the bomber force.

And so, you know, I mean, at his confirmation hearing, he did express support for the triad. Oh, yeah, he was he was asked directly about the reports that during the 1994 nuclear posture review that he had supported eliminating the ICBM force. And And conventionalizing the bomber, moving to a monad. And he didn't actually directly respond, but he then talked about the importance of deterrence.

And I interpreted this talking about the importance of the triad and saying – I have to say, I actually think that that's sincere. When he was the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, and then the Deputy Secretary of Defense, he helped shield the nuclear budget from sequestration and was pretty vocal in making the argument that he thought it was a bargain.

I think he is a sincere supporter of the triad. I just think it's sort of delicious that whether or not he was really pushing to eliminate the ICBMs and conventionalize the bombers in 1994— In 2015, that is budgetarily where I think we're headed, and it's going to be really interesting to see how he handles these super thorny questions.

Aaron 18:57

Did you watch the Super Bowl?

Jeffrey 18:59

No.

Aaron 19:00

Did you see the advertisement Lockheed Martin had during the Super Bowl?

Jeffrey 19:04

No.

Aaron 19:06

So you didn't see the LRSB underneath their computer-digitized shroud and how expensive it looks? How could you not see this? This has gone viral. Lockheed Martin had a sort of a 45-second clip where we are innovations. They start with their first flying wing. Then we go to the B-2. Then we go to the X-47U class. And then at the end, they have a pilot who looks like straight out of Goose from Top Gun without the mustache, walks up to what is probably the LRSB underneath a shroud.

It looks very pricey. How are we going to pay for a new triad? I think this is where we're going to.

Jeffrey 19:46

I don't think we are. I mean one of the things – so we wrote this report called Trillion Dollar Triad, which is a catchy name. It gets us a lot of flack actually, where what we tried to do was look at the cost of the – Program to replace all of the legs of the triad, which we're going to do.

We're building new ballistic missile submarines, we're building a new long-range bomber, and we have to replace the ICBM force around 2030. And The big headline is a trillion dollars over 30 years, which some people sort of dispute, and there's a whole bunch of debates. For the record, we don't make our own estimates. We just curate other official estimates because we knew people would attack them.

But what struck me as most interesting about it is whether or not you think a trillion dollars over 30 years is a lot of money or it's a bargain. It's that you have to spend the bulk of it in a five-year period. There is this really intense five-year period where you have to be buying a ballistic missile submarine every year You have to be buying 10 to 12 ICBMs and you've got to be buying like 10 to 12 bombers.

By the way, at that point, F-35 fighter procurement is still going. And so it's just really like if you could average the cost over 30 years, it might be doable. But there is like this five-year period that some defense officials are now calling the modernization mountain. And I keep saying that like this is going to end like into thin air.

Aaron 21:22

Right. So let's just – Wait.

Jeffrey 21:24

I didn't see the Super Bowl and you didn't read into thin air because you didn't laugh at that joke.

Aaron 21:27

I did read into thin air. I did read into thin air. The ICBM force dies on the mountain. I get it. I get it. I was going to make a very smart point but now I forgot. No, one thing it brings up is – I think it loops back to your original point that I think we made in the way beginning is do you see like a correlation between the Into Thin Air Mountain and the ICBM force dying and all of these stories that are coming out.

So is the Air Force trying to kill off its nuclear mission? Because it doesn't want it anymore because it can't afford it.

Jeffrey 21:58

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I think there are people who don't want to spend the money, and so they're happy to publicize this. And I think what they're really hoping is for top cover from the White House. I mean, I think they're hoping that the White House will come in and say, yes, we support eliminating this.

Because I don't think they want to take the heat. But I also think that It's not entirely insincere, right? These are real scandals, and these are real problems affecting the force, and I think they arise from the lack of mission. And so, again, you can talk until you're blue in the face about how important the mission is, and you can try to create incentives to encourage people to go into it, and you can really fund it very well.

But at the end of the day, if you can't come up with a compelling solution The mission, the forces, the people who are there aren't going to take it very seriously, which is why we invited Geoff Brumfiel from National Public Radio to come on and do a little interview because he went out and visited some of the sites and did a little piece for All Things Considered called Should America Keep Its Aging Nuclear Missiles?

Aaron 23:06

Well, I'm going to have to listen to this because you want to know something?

Jeffrey 23:08

Yeah.

Aaron 23:09

I'm going skiing, so I'm not going to be able to make the interview.

Jeffrey 23:14

We were just in Tahoe, so I don't ski though, but the boys went skiing.

Aaron 23:18

So I look forward to listening to it like everybody else. Great. Well, I'll call Jeff. Okay.

Jeffrey 23:25

We're joined by Geoff Brumfiel, a science correspondent at National Public Radio. How are you doing, Jeff? Doing pretty well, Jeffrey. Good to talk to you. I'm really excited. So Jeff has written a series, well, I guess reported a series since it's for the radio on the ICBM force. And Aaron and I were discussing the challenges facing presumed incoming Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.

And a big one relates to the future of the ICBM force and whether they can sort of fix the problems that have been occurring or whether it makes sense to retire it as it ages out. So like you actually have data. You went out and visited?

Geoff Brumfiel 24:00

Yeah, that's right. I mean, I don't know if I'd call it data, right? But as far as a journalist is concerned, one trip counts. But anecdote.

Jeffrey 24:11

We deal in anecdote mainly.

Geoff 24:13

But I did actually get to go out to the 90th Missile Wing out at F.E. Warren. I got to sit in on their training, and then I got to go down on an active alert and – Yeah, basically see how the job is done on a day-to-day basis. Drove out in their Ford Taurus.

Jeffrey 24:34

Wow, they let you go out on an active alert?

Geoff 24:37

Yeah, so I actually did get to go out. And I should say I'm not the only reporter who was reporting on the missile wings last year or even who got to go out 60 minutes. I don't know if you saw Leslie Stahl's series. But basically, what was going on was there was this cheating scandal where a bunch of the officers who are in charge of the missiles were caught cheating on proficiency tests.

And Rob Burns at the AP was doing that. I feel like I have to name check these people since they were in front of me. You know, basically what happened was that these cheating tests sort of gave the missile wings a bad name. And I think that there was some pressure to let reporters in to go see how these jobs are done and to really try and boost morale a little bit, frankly with, with the officers involved.

And actually I was looking back at this. I mean, this has happened on and off over the years, like back in the sixties, even occasionally Popular mechanics or someone would go down and do a profile because it's kind of a tough job and it doesn't it's not a very high profile job compared to what the rest of the Air Force does.

So I kind of jumped on the bandwagon and was lucky enough to actually go out and see a real alert, which is very rare.

Jeffrey 25:50

Yeah. So like what was that like?

Geoff 25:53

It was pretty cool. I've been a nuclear geek since before I became a reporter. I actually briefly even thought I could join the IAEA, despite being vastly underqualified when I was in college. But anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Jeffrey 26:12

You're way too modest.

Geoff 26:15

Well, I would have had to get a degree in nuclear engineering. That's what I think what held me back. So, yeah, so basically, you know, I've always been very interested in this stuff, and I've been a huge geek on all of it. And so, yeah, I kind of really wanted to do this series and really get into this.

And I should say, actually, when the cheating scandal broke... I took the opportunity and I actually started interviewing a lot of missileers. So even before I went out, I had been talking to former missileers about the job and I had a pretty good idea of what was out there. But of course, it was always surprising to see it up close and personal.

Jeffrey 26:55

Well, was there something in particular that really surprised you? I mean, you know, it may strike you as just like a little innocuous detail. But I think I'm somebody who's kind of a visual learner. And so walking me through things and often little details are the kind of thing that I'm like super interested in.

Geoff 27:13

Yeah, yeah. So we show up, you know, at F.E. Warren and we go in and they have their morning briefing. And I got to say... The people at F.E. Warren were really open, and they were really great, and they gave us almost everything we asked for, which is tough. I mean, we're asking to see a nuclear missile – well, not a silo, an alert facility.

But they really worked with us. So we got in there. We joined – See, now you get into the fact I'm not a military reporter, so I can't tell you what the exact designation was. But, you know, the flight, I think, maybe of missiles. So it's about 10 officers paired off in twos who are going to be going out that day on the alert.

And so they talk about the various issues. They were in like this little windowless room, a little conference room talking over, you know, OK, this blast door is broken and whatnot. This toilet doesn't work or whatever. I can't remember exactly, but things like that. Then they all get together with everyone in the different squadrons. I think there are three squadrons out there at Effie Warren, but I could be wrong about that again.

Anyway, but they all get into a big room, they get a weather briefing, they get a status briefing. We had to leave the room while they presumably got some briefing on you know, developments overseas such as they need to know them or other certain national security stuff that's classified. And then they came back out, they had their little suitcases with their codes, you know, and we all got in got in our cars and drove out to these launch facilities.

So I got in, I got in So I got into a Ford Taurus that had like well over 160,000 miles on it. Here we go, 168,000 miles according to the online story. I love by the way that you have to look up your own report.

Jeffrey 29:04

Well, you know. I have to do it all the time too. I write something and then it's a detail and I know I would have checked it at the time and I know it's right. But that's where it's saved, totally.

Geoff 29:14

Exactly. So you get in the Ford Taurus. We get in the Ford Taurus, and we go out onto I-80, and we drive out of Cheyenne. I should say, by the way, Leslie Stahl got to ride in a helicopter. And I'm still a little sad I missed my helicopter ride because I would have.

Jeffrey 29:32

I'm shocked it's a Ford Taurus. I would have thought, you know, something that was kind of off-roady.

Geoff 29:37

Actually, yeah, the Ford Taurus is a little bit of a misrepresentation. Apparently Ford at some point made a Taurus that's actually kind of a hatchback four-wheel drive. And so that's what these are. So they're a little, they're like a beefed up Ford Taurus. But yeah, they're fundamentally Ford Tauruses. Anyway, so yeah, you know, but I didn't want to ride in the helicopter because I wanted to keep it real and like NPR likes, you know, those little details.

Jeffrey 30:03

Well, and it's radio too. So, you know, I mean, I actually don't remember now from the story, but you can do things like, you know, when the car door opens and it goes bing, bing, bing, you got like chances for sound effects and things.

Geoff 30:14

Yes, yes, yes. Although they all hate it here because we do way too many car doors opening.

Jeffrey 30:19

It's like a thing, yeah.

Geoff 30:20

Hey, whatever.

Jeffrey 30:22

Anyway, it was a fun little road trip. How long were you down in the launch? I guess it was an LCC, right?

Geoff 30:30

Yeah, that's right. It was a missile alert facility and then the little capsule is called the Launch Control Center. So how long were you down? Well, I was down there long enough to get launch.

Jeffrey 30:41

That's awesome. You had lunch down there? I did. Did they prop the door open so the delivery guy could get in?

Geoff 30:49

No, no. Actually, there was a whole rigmarole. Yeah, when you go down in these things.

Jeffrey 30:54

So I guess it wasn't that accurate.

Geoff 30:57

Yeah. Sorry. No comment. No comment. I can only report on what I saw, Jeffrey. Did they offer you any drugs? No, no drugs. No.

Jeffrey 31:10

I know I got it. I should note, Effie Warren is the one of the three bases that has not had a drug ring busted at it yet. That's right. Although I guess that means the drug ring is probably still operating. Again, Jeffrey, I can't comment on that as an NPR reporter.

Geoff 31:28

But, yes, you can draw your own conclusions, say what you like. I will say, actually, I got real lucky with the two guys I went out with. I went out with Lieutenant Raj Bansal and a captain named Joseph Shannon. And not only were they professional, but they were not like – Just pieces of wood, you know. They actually were willing to talk about the job, and they're pretty honest about it, you know. And I mean, I can only imagine you're stuck in a hole in Nebraska and you know, the higher-ups tell you you're taking a reporter out with you, you know.

The incentive is not necessarily there to be straight with people, but they were, and they were great, and it definitely helped me to get a good story. Well, how did you – I don't want to bag on – I guess I came away – I did come away thinking a lot of these young officers were really good guys, so I don't want to – To imply that they're all running drug or what's the latest prostitution rings, something like that.

Jeffrey 32:27

Yeah. I, you know, I, I was just being flip. I should say one of my friends, Brian Whedon is a former launch officer. And I don't know. I just, I sort of, maybe, maybe it's my excessive familiarity with Brian, but I, I love giving him crap about this. Hey Brian, you run any drug rings? But I am teasing, but I do have this genuine question about how you...

If you got a sense of what morale was like and whether people thought the mission mattered. Because I think one of the things we've seen is there have been all of these reviews... About the deterrent and especially about the ICBM force that argue that people feel neglected or that morale's low or that they can't quite see the mission.

And then every now and again, somebody says, you know, no, when I was there, morale was really high. And it's kind of like you say, you know, we're just dealing in anecdotes. But give us like one more. I mean, how did you, did you come away thinking like, ah, it's not nearly as bad as I thought or, you know, well.

Geoff 33:28

I came away thinking that the air force is definitely trying to change the situation out there. And I mean, I should say, you know, Effie Warren, as he said, it hasn't had any misdeeds reported officially yet. It also, I think probably has about the best morale of, of the bases. Although I heard let's see, it's Which one's in Montana?

Is that Malmstrom? Yes. Okay. I mean, I also spoke to some former officers from Malmstrom and they, you know, they said actually that's in a pretty nice location, but F.E. Warren's by, it's by Cheyenne, right by Cheyenne, Wyoming. It's close to Fort Collins kind of close to Denver. So it's the least isolated of the bases. It's actually a beautiful base as well.

And I think that helps with the morale there. I'll say that was the one thing everyone really stuck to script on was this mission matters and it's important. I came away feeling like there were different levels of believing that. I will tell you the other interesting thing is that I asked every single launch officer I met on this trip, and I met, you know, over a dozen.

I would ask them, did you volunteer for the missile force? And only one said they had, and that one was Carl Jones, who I... Let me look him up. He actually ended up getting fired. What? Yeah, hold on. Let me see.

Jeffrey 35:03

What did he do? Was he...

Geoff 35:05

He was the number two commander of the 90th Missile Wing, which is where I was. And he was dismissed for loss of trust and confidence. And it had to do, I think, with he—I'm just going to scroll through. I've pulled up kind of a random—here, it's Robert Burns again, the AP reporter who's been leading on a lot of this— In four separate instances, Jones acted in a manner that degraded his status as a senior officer.

The most recent occurred at a thrift store on F.U. Warren, operated by volunteers. According to investigations, Jones went into a shop called Airman's Attic to discuss our policies. He hit the sign on the door and repeatedly hit the shop's front counter while raising his voice and using profanity. These days, I guess that's enough to get you dismissed.

I shudder to think what Curtis LeMay would say. Indeed. Indeed. I mean, you know, so so he was Jones. We interviewed Jones and Jones was the only guy on the base that I met who who actually said yes. He learned about nuclear missiles as a kid, as a teenager. He thought, wow, these are incredible, and he wanted to be in the missile force, and he'd been a lifer in the missile force.

Everyone else, every single other person. Actually, I can't remember if I asked General Weinstein about that as well, but all the other sort of enlisted officers I asked, nope, nope, none of them had volunteered for the job. And in fact, I'm not sure... I've spoken to about eight former officers, and I think all of them had not volunteered for a job.

The deal is they come in on ROTC, and that's pretty much what happens. They end up getting told they're going to mine the missiles.

Jeffrey 36:57

I know that in some of the earlier reports, and there have been some efforts to change this, it seems like if you do have a choice, you pick the space side of things.

Geoff 37:07

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, as I understood it, and you, Brian Whedon, who you mentioned, I mean, he would know this better than I would, but actually you don't get to You don't get to choose. It's space and missiles. And you get sent into missiles. And then traditionally, after you've done a stint in missiles, you might get to go over to space.

And then they close that off, which further lowered morale because they're just bleeding people out of the missile.

Jeffrey 37:32

Well, that's what I mean. I thought one of the earlier reports said you have to close that off because they were bleeding people out.

Geoff 37:37

Right, right, right. So that's done now. So you're a missileeer, you're a missileeer. Well, you do – no, they do go on to other things, but I don't think they get to go to space. I think they have to – I don't know exactly how they get reassigned, but I know people still – either they leave the Air Force or they do get reassigned to some other job.

Jeffrey 37:57

Well, let me ask you two tough questions to kind of wrap up here. And the first is – After the latest round of reports, the Harvey and Welch reports, outgoing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said we'll spend more money and we'll put more emphasis on the mission. And so my first question is, if we take the fact that no one's volunteering or very few people are volunteering as a sign that there is an underlying issue, Do you think that will fix the problem?

Geoff 38:31

I think it's going to help. I mean, I think that they did feel neglected and their equipment wasn't working well. I mean, they would tell me the phones they needed to communicate to each other while they're down in these capsules. Some of them, you could barely hear them. I mean, one of the ones we went out to I think it was Foxtrot and, you know, like we could barely hear the people down the capsule calling up to the surface and stuff.

So, you know, yeah, there is some stuff that needs to be fixed, but you know, there's larger issues. I mean, one of them is these guys one of the more compelling sort of problems I heard about was these guys are trained to be officers, right? They're trained to be leaders, right? And then they get assigned to a job where they essentially don't lead anyone.

I mean, they're just down there with one other officer for these shifts. And the shifts are grueling. A 24-hour shift is tough, but when you think that that doesn't include the drive time, which can be hours each way, and then they have to do it like twice a week, it's really, really hard on them. So the shifts, the sort of lack of leadership, And the fact it's kind of a boring job, if we're honest.

I mean, and I asked them about this. They didn't really see it this way, but it always struck me as kind of a no-win job, right? You train to launch missiles in, what, 90 seconds, and you just train and train and train to do it. Well, if you ever complete your mission, you're not going to get promoted.

You're going to die.

Jeffrey 40:01

That is a really dark sense of humor for National Public Radio. Yeah.

Geoff 40:06

Well, we didn't put that on there.

Jeffrey 40:08

It's perfect for us.

Geoff 40:08

I mean, it's kind of a weird mission to be doing. I mean, it's like being the goalie in a soccer team.

Jeffrey 40:16

Well, so that naturally raises my second hard question, which is... General Cartwright, the former STRATCOM commander, who's a Marine, when he retired, he authored a report with Global Zero that made the argument that one way to solve the problem would be to replace nuclear-armed ICBMs with conventional long range missiles that the U.S. might actually use. So, you know, you train and train and train, but you might actually get to fire something on occasion.

So that's my other question is, you know, would something like that help or make a difference if you conventionalize the missile force or had a conventional missile force?

Geoff 41:04

Are you really asking me that? Like, do you actually, do you believe that That they're going to conventionalize the ballistic missile force? That's a crazy idea, isn't it?

Jeffrey 41:14

Am I way off base? Well, I don't know. I mean, first of all, and I always have to have this conversation when we talk about nuclear weapons, let's stipulate that all of this is insane.

Geoff 41:27

Yeah. Well, that's true.

Jeffrey 41:29

But we've inherited a certain suite of capabilities. And so I'm just observing that the former head of strategic command has said, look, we can't use nuclear-armed ICBMs because they would overfly Russia. So you can only use them in a Russia scenario because otherwise your limited nuclear use against whatever Iran triggers a giant nuclear conflagration with the Russians.

So that's a non-starter. And I know that we spend a lot of time talking about hypersonic and other long-range conventional strike capabilities. So there is this kind of long-running push for a conventional missile force. And so, I mean, whether or not it's a good idea for all kinds of big strategic reasons, I mean, the way Cartwright really presented it, I think, was this is a potential way to fix Or to change the morale culture of these units.

I listened to that and I'm like, that's the kind of thing you say in Washington. Maybe the kind of thing you say in Omaha, but you were out in Cheyenne.

Geoff 42:32

I just fascinated what would that look like from Cheyenne versus what would that look like... Nobody brought it up. Certainly, I don't think it's on their minds at all. I don't think they would ever push for it from that low down on the ladder. I mean, Just naively, like... Okay, so the overfly issue. What was the study?

Was it Rand that did the study that sort of shot down this idea? Get it, shot down.

Jeffrey 43:02

Wait, that there would be an accidental warp?

Geoff 43:07

There was actually a really big study on whether you could conventionalize IFCVMs, and it was by Rand or someone. I read it before I went out there because I thought this might come up. I'll see if I can dig it up sometime. But anyway.

Jeffrey 43:21

You've outwonked the wonk.

Geoff 43:23

Oh, wow. Wow. Well, I may have just made it up. That's the other thing. Who knows? You and Brian Williams. Yes.

Jeffrey 43:33

Yeah, it turns out he didn't go to Cheyenne at all. No, right. He just drove out to a Korean barbecue in Northern Virginia and wrote the whole thing there. Back home time for dinner.

Geoff 43:46

Okay, so just getting back to your question, my take on it, right. So I think you have to look at two things. One is that very real overfly problem and what I understand to be the somewhat spotty performance of the Russian early warning systems that would make that kind of delivery system, I don't know, seem a little dangerous to me.

And then I think the second thing you look at, right, is the state of our hypersonics program. Which hasn't been so successful and isn't testing very vigorously, right? As I understand it, again, you may be able to outwarp me on that.

Jeffrey 44:23

No, no, no, not at all. Look, I'm just observing that this is one of these ideas that floats around. It does. And I thought you'd be the person to hold it to scrutiny.

Geoff 44:34

Yeah, well, I think if the idea is to use sort of a hypersonic, you know, suborbital vehicle, which that is the idea, right? To sort of make the profile different from a ballistic missile? Or am I making that up?

Jeffrey 44:46

I don't know that there is like a super clear idea yet. Super clear idea, yeah. I think there are, you know, there are these two competing programs, which, you know, maybe they're moving toward being an operational system, but... I think it's really a technological demonstrator.

Geoff 45:04

But, you know, maybe the way to end on this is, I mean, whether or not we're actually talking about, like, You know, conventionalizing ICBMs or finding ways to raise morale. I mean, the fact remains, it's very hard for me personally to imagine a world in which these weapons, we give up these weapons, the US gives up these weapons.

And I know you've done this trillion dollar triad work. Maybe I'll just ask you, like, Do you really see any scenario in which land-based ICBMs disappear from the U.S.? Because it seems to me they're pretty much the most powerful weapon ever built. Even if you can make arguments about their obsolescence, people are still going to want them for the foreseeable future.

Jeffrey 45:47

Well, that actually is a beautiful place to wrap this up because that's the column that I just wrote for Foreign Policy on Carter's nomination, which is to say as the Secretary of Defense, I think he is absolutely committed to the strategic value of the triad. And I think there is a very strong consensus in Washington in favor of a triad.

And actually, I'm pretty sympathetic to that argument. But when I look at the budgetary environment and I look at the timeline for replacing the SSBN force and for buying the LRSB and continuing to buy the F-35, I just don't see enough money to replace the ICBM force by 2030, which is kind of when it's got to happen.

Geoff 46:29

Although, I mean, re-upping the land-based missiles would be a lot cheaper than all that other stuff, right? I mean, it's the cheapest leg by far. Right.

Jeffrey 46:38

So that's what I think is so interesting about the politics of it, which is we're not going to get rid of the SSBNs, and the Air Force is not going to get rid of the bomber, and they're not going to curtail the F-35 by. And so it's one of these, I think, really interesting public policy problems where maybe the strategic choice you would make Differs from the choice we will actually make because that choice is shaped not merely by strategic considerations but by politics and vagaries of the budget process.

And so I am always interested in public policy questions where you do something that you know is suboptimal because it's optimal because of all these other external factors.

Geoff 47:21

Cool. Well – I don't, I don't have any, any comeback for you on that, except that all, every, every every arms control log has to, has to, or podcast has to work in one of your foreign policy columns, right? So now we've done that. We can, we can call it a day. Indeed.

Jeffrey 47:36

Well, you know what we actually end on is I ask you for a book recommendation.

Geoff 47:43

I have a one and a half year old child, so I'm not reading anything, but I'll, I'll make a recommendation. If you haven't read On Thermonuclear War recently, I still love that book. I haven't read all of it, obviously, but what a crazy book.

Jeffrey 48:01

Yeah, I got it for a few dollars at a used book sale once, and it's quite a book.

Geoff 48:10

You know, a lot of Dr. Strangelove is direct quotes. Oh, I know. That's why I picked it up. And it's amazing. Oh, that was the other fun trivia. The lieutenant had Dr. Strangelove. He was going to watch it after we left.

Jeffrey 48:25

That's great.

Geoff 48:25

He had it on DVD.

Jeffrey 48:27

Oh, it's brilliant. So my book recommendation is An Elusive Consensus, Nuclear Weapons and American Security After the Cold War. It's kind... Of a discouraging title, but Jan Nolan, when she was working at the Brookings Institution, wrote a very slim, it's maybe 200 pages long, Maybe it's only 100 pages long. It's a book about nuclear weapons decision-making at the beginning of the Clinton administration, and there's a chapter on the 1994 Nuclear Apostle Review that goes into considerable detail about Ash Carter's role, although Ash has disputed Jan's account, but it's still the best thing ever written on the subject.

Cool. That sounds interesting. Hey, thank you so much for coming on and talking to me. It's been a pleasure. Like I said, I actually listen to it every week. Great. And to all the listeners, thanks for listening.