MINOT AIR FORCE BASE - The commander of the new Air Force Global Strike Command said the president's decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan will not affect the mission of the Air Force's newest command.
However, he said it will affect airmen and government civilians in units in the command whose skills are needed in Afghanistan.
Lt. Gen. Frank G. Klotz, commander of Global Strike Command, the command established to oversee nuclear assets, said of the president's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, "Obviously, that's a decision taken by the president, the commander-in-chief, on the advice of the senior military leaders, and we are all very supportive of the decisions that have been taken."
"In terms of impact on Global Strike Command, it will not affect our mission in any direct way," Klotz told local media Wednesday during a news conference at Minot AFB.
"However, there are airmen and government civilians who work for the units in Global Strike Command that have skills that have been needed, still are needed and no doubt will continue to be needed in the fight in Afghanistan in order to deal with and defeat people who would do great harm to Americans and to our allies. So I would expect that we will continue to have airmen and government civilians who deploy to Afghanistan and participate in a wide variety of missions and functions that are a key element of that fight," Klotz said.
Klotz was at the base Wednesday to meet with members of the 91st Missile Wing, which officially became a unit of the new Global Strike Command Tuesday. The missile wing people oversee 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles in the Minot missile field. The missile wings at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyo., and Malmstrom AFB, Mont., also transferred from Air Force Space Command to Air Force Global Strike Command Tuesday.
As for his meetings with the Minot missile wing airmen Wednesday, he said, "What we have found, much to our delight, is people seem to be genuinely pleased and enthusiastic about the change."
Day to day, he said life will go on very much like it has gone on in the past. "Our airmen will be working for the same supervisor who will be working for the same squadron commander who will be working for the same wing commander. There's only one person whose boss changes as of yesterday and that's the commander of the 20th Air Force, Major General Roger Burg. He has a new boss and that's me," Klotz said.
Burg and Col. Fred Stoss III, commander of the Minot missile wing, also attended the news conference Wednesday.
Klotz said the big difference that the airmen in the new command will see is that they now have a major command Air Force Global Strike Command that is focused solely on their mission and the people who perform that mission.
He said Air Combat Command the command the bomber units presently are under and Air Force Space Command are great commands led by brilliant leadership. In his own career, Klotz said he has proudly worn the patch of Air Combat Command and Air Force Space Command. His Air Force career includes having served as the vice commander of Air Force Space Command.
"But they have a lot of very, very important tasks that they perform on behalf of the Air Force, on behalf of the nation and behalf of our allies. And it covers a wide gamut of activities," Klotz said.
He said the new command will be focused on one set of activities nuclear deterrence and global strike forces.
"Not only that, but the people we are hiring into the headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base are people that have broad experience and background in this business," Klotz said. He said many of them have served Minot AFB as operators, maintainers, security forces or providing support, or at other bases bomber bases and missile bases.
"So they have walked a mile in the same shoes that the people here at Minot wear they understand the business, they understand the challenges that they have in terms of performing the mission and they will be, in my view, wonderful and marvelous advocates and champions for the bases and the mission and the people," Klotz said.
Klotz said the nature of deterrence has clearly changed since the end of the Cold War.
"What we faced at the end of the Cold War was a titanic struggle between the United States and its allies on one hand and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact on the other. Two very different views on how the world should be structured the rights of individuals living within nations," he said.
"The Cold War happily is over but the world is still a very dangerous, very uncertain, very unpredictable place, and there are clearly those who would do harm to the United States. But equally important or equally of concern, those who would do harm to our friends and allies across the world," Klotz said.
He said what this country's nuclear deterrence and global strike forces do is deter attacks against the United States or against its forces which are deployed around the world and at the same time extend that same guarantee to the defense of our allies.
"They do two things: they deter and they assure," he said. He noted that they don't do that for some hypothetical future, some hypothetical scenario.
"They do that right here and now today. That's what Global Strike Command units and forces provide is deterrence of attacks against the United States as well as assurance to our allies and friends around the world that we are helping them provide for their own national and regional security," Klotz said.
The Air Force's nuclear-capable bomber units, including the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB with its B-52s, will transfer from Air Combat Command to Global Strike Command Feb. 1.
