STRATCOM Leader Charts Nuclear Path for American Military

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. --- The U.S. Strategic Command commander here recently laid out his vision for the future of America's strategic deterrence mission and the importance of nuclear stewardship.>> Gen. Kevin P. Chilton also outlined the necessary measures to correct the accountability and day-to-day management issues with nuclear weapons following the Defense secretary's scrutiny of the Air Force's mismanagement of nuclear assets.>> "We have three main lines of operations here," the general said. "The first being strategic deterrence, the second being space operations and the third being cyberspace operations. In each one of these areas, we have forces assigned from the management level at the headquarters, and forces at the operational level of war executing every day, whether it is the mission of being ready and deterring, or actually conducting operations in space and cyberspace.>> On top of that, we have some key enablers that perform in the areas of missile defense, information operations, synchronized planning for combating weapons of mass destruction, and we make recommendations to the secretary of Defense on how to use our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets. We also provide the warfighter input into the process in getting new equipment and capabilities.">> The Airmen, Sailors, Soldiers and Marines of STRATCOM are ready to perform the strategic mission today and every day as they protect America from a full range of threats while supporting the war on terrorism.>> "STRATCOM is in the fight today," said the command astronaut pilot with more than 5,000 flight hours. "We are in the business of saving American lives and we do that every day. Consider how much the joint force around the world depends on space capabilities delivered by this combatant command, or how much the joint force requires our cyber connectivity capabilities by moving intelligence data between (MQ-1) Predators (flying in Iraq or Afghanistan) to analysts (in the United States) to be able to hunt down our adversaries anywhere on the planet. STRATCOM is the backbone of those capabilities. And when it comes to strategic deterrence, we keep peace through our readiness.