“Read a step, do a step, get a banana.”
No, we’re not talking about primate training; we’re at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, home of the 90th Missile Wing, talking to some of the U.S. military’s smartest, most highly-educated members about what it takes to maintain security for their part of the U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons.
As you might expect, there’s a whole lot of highly advanced technology and some deadly serious armor and weaponry involved. But it turns out security is as much about process as anything else. Not to mention training, training, training.
We visited F.E. Warren on May 24 on behalf of the International Nuclear Security Forum (INSF) to learn about how the U.S. military manages security for around 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), armed with nuclear warheads and spread across 9,600 square miles in three states. Stimson’s National Defense Fellow Lieutenant Colonel Mary Yelnicker, an Air Force ICBM operator by training, arranged the visit and served as expert guide.
Three core teams of specialists – security forces, maintenance crew, and operators – protect $3.1 billion in nuclear assets and work to ensure the ICBMs remain in a round-the-clock state of immediate readiness to launch. “Whatever the question is, the answer is ‘Yes, we can do it,’” says 1st Lieutenant Emily Griffiths, who manages 24-7 accountability and oversees New START inspector visits for the base’s weapons, whether deployed in launch facilities in the field, undergoing maintenance, or in storage. “Our job is to make sure these weapons are safe, secure, and reliable. Whatever it takes, these weapons can launch whenever needed.”
The aging systems, now 40 years past their original end-of-service date and due to be replaced at the end of this decade with brand new Sentinels, need regular maintenance and servicing.
Interested in learning more about New START inspections and post-Cold War era nuclear security cooperation efforts? Don’t miss Stimson Non-Resident Fellow Bill Moon’s Nuclear Security Adventures series, where he writes about the Russian Ministry of Defense visit to F. E. Warren Air Force Base in 2000 as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program. Read the Field Note.
Bringing the missiles back to base for that is a major effort, requiring an intimidating convoy of advance reconnaissance vehicles, armored vehicles, pickup trucks with members of security forces and armed helicopter escorts. These convoys take place several times a week, rumbling visibly along interstates and highways as well as gravel and dirt roads.
“We roll heavy with big guns,” 1st Lieutenant Christine McMath of security forces summarizes, emphasizing a very deliberate intent to intimidate and deter any potential adversary or threat.
Not only that, but the route is swept several times preceding the scheduled transfer, with the advance party noting construction that might slow the convoy down, typical traffic and other conditions (the better to recognize potentially threatening aberrations on the day), and other critical features of the route. The final planned route is submitted to the Joint Nuclear Operations Center, which tracks the convoy every step of the way during the actual journey.
Out in the field, rotations of missile security forces squadrons fan out across the 9,600 square miles to bunk down in Missile Alert Facilities, each responsible for responding to alarms from 10 neighboring launch facilities. These specialized missile “cops” work hand-in-hand with missile operators stationed nearby in underground launch control capsules and who are responsible for around-the-clock monitoring of signals from the weapons housed in those 10 launch facilities, as well as for performing the actions needed to launch a weapon should the command ever come. When not on alert in the field, the cops take turns training for a range of hair-raising threat scenarios or taking leave to recharge and ensure peak performance when next on duty.
While perhaps less flashy, the complex choreography of maintenance security teams highlights the interrelationship of multiple layers of physical and human security in maintaining comprehensive security for the weapons during vulnerable moments of exposure for repair.
“Defense in depth is the name of the game,” says 2nd Lieutenant David Evans, who heads up the Weapons Storage Area security operations.
The most obvious layer of defense throws back to the classics: ‘guns, guards, and gates.’ The ever-present chain-link fences, deployed barrier systems, a crewless aerial system fleet, security cameras, radars, and guard towers equipped with machine guns surround the sensitive Weapons Storage Area where missiles are brought for maintenance. Many of these measures are also supplemented with finely-tuned sensors surrounding the silos in the field.
Maintenance personnel themselves represent a critical, if invisible, layer of security premised on the “two-person rule.” Nothing happens unless at least two people are present. Access to the silos requires two separate codes, one for the “A-circuit,” the other for the “B-plug.” A split-knowledge model means that no one has access to both, so it takes two people, from two different groups, to open and enter the silo. While in the silo working in cramped spaces on complex electrical or mechanical systems, team members are also constantly and vocally ensuring at least one other person can see what they are doing, a procedure known as “calling your twos.” All this under intense time pressure, too, since ensuring the young staff executing these repair missions are not out on the road and in the field for more than 12 hours at a time is also part of the safety and security regime.
But back in a non-descript conference room Captain Sean Gavan from the operational support squadron fits the last piece of the puzzle in place. Explaining the security measures in the standard operating procedures (SOP) of the missile operators, he hefts a thick binder of SOPs across the table. “It’s all in there,” he says. “How to deal with every situation you can think of, and how to deal with those you haven’t thought of.”
Human error is always the wild card in managing security, and checklists are critical to reducing opportunities for human error. “You don’t have time to look up the directive. You have to know the latest guidance off by heart,” says Lt. Col. Yelnicker. “But you don’t wing the procedures either. You follow the SOP. Read a step, do a step.”
