By Jamie Crawford and Barbara Starr
Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska (CNN)If Russian Federation aimed a long hit missile similar the "Satan 2" it simply tested or Democratic People's South Korea all of a abrupt targeted the headquarters of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, summit commanders would get got a minor window to teach to safety. But the U.S. is prepare for such a scenario as well as the four-star full general tasked amongst executing the U.S. reply to a nuclear smasher would get got to the air inside minutes. He'd live on able to ship out the President's orders as well as launch a nuclear assault inwards reply from the security of a especially equipped jet, known equally the "Doomsday" plane. "I get got a certainly amount of minutes to teach on that airplane as well as for that airplane to teach off as well as to a rubber distance before a nuclear weapon went off here," John Hyten, the caput of U.S. Strategic Command, told CNN inwards an exclusive interview before this calendar month from his headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base inwards eastern Nebraska.
At the base of operations a countdown clock is ever visible to Hyten telling him how many minutes away an incoming missile would live on from impact, equally good equally how much fourth dimension he has to live on rushed from his subway battle deck to the surface as well as a vehicle that would whisk him to a nearby tarmac where the all-important airplane would live on waiting.
"The roads volition opened upwards up on this base of operations as well as I'll move beeline straight for the runway," Hyten said.
The aircraft, a Navy E-6B which has the airframe of a Boeing 737, operates equally a total command as well as command facility inwards the air where Hyten, or 1 of his senior officers tin ship out the President's orders if this part of Nebraska comes nether attack.
"I expect at this jet as well as the whole nuclear corporation genuinely equally this is America's insurance policy," Brigadier Gen. Gregory Bowen, deputy manager of global operations at Strategic Command, told CNN during a tour on board the plane. "This ensures our survival equally a nation if you lot will."
With a minor Navy flying crew, the command deck on the plane, piece much smaller than the Global Operations Center on base, has the mightiness to move inwards simply the same agency from the air.
"We know on this jet where the President is, all the presidential successors, the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], the secretarial assistant of defense, everybody that is of import nosotros runway their location," Bowen said.
In improver to a nuclear smasher adviser, at that topographic point is too a meteorological adviser on board constantly studying electrical flow weather condition patterns to a greater extent than or less the footing to sympathize where whatever nuclear fallout is drifting therefore that U.S. bombers tin live on notified.
The plane, which tin live on refueled inwards the air allowing it to rest inwards flying for days, too has antennas that tin communicate amongst U.S. submarines as well as transmit orders as well as messages to them without having to land.
And mayhap most importantly, the airplane too has a command panel that tin launch U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles if the worst illustration scenario is playing out on the ground.
"If they were struck as well as all of the people downwardly inwards the launch command centers were dead or unable to communicate, nosotros tin genuinely straight utter to the missile silos amongst this gear as well as launch the missiles ourselves," Bowen said.
During the Cold War, the airplane was inwards the air almost 24/7 simply inwards illustration an unforeseen nuclear telephone commutation amongst the Soviet Union happened. With today's threat from North Korea, Russian Federation as well as elsewhere, the airplane is notwithstanding regularly airborne to develop for whatever possibility.
But despite the frequency of the exercises what the airplane as well as the overall mission of Strategic Command represents has never move routine to Hyten, who is good aware of the gravity of what's at stake.
"The showtime fourth dimension I did it nosotros laid off on the runway as well as nosotros get got off, as well as I expect downwardly as well as there's my house," Hyten said. "And as well as therefore I realized there's my married adult woman as well as I'm right away inwards a rubber place, but if this was the existent footing that would live on the terminal fourth dimension I ever saw her."
But the plane's unique mightiness to execute a nuclear state of war from thousands of feet to a higher house the footing sends a strong message to hostile nations.
"We get got to brand certainly that nosotros equally the U.S. get got the capability as well as nosotros demonstrate the capability to our potential adversaries that should they determine they desire to smasher us, the damage of doing that is going to live on unbearable," Bowen said.
In the end, the airplane as well as the entire U.S. nuclear missile programme are nigh keeping threatening behaviour at bay before it boils over.
"That's part of what this jet does, it is deterrence inwards its simplest form," Bowen said. "If you lot shoot at us, your province is going to move away. It's that simple."
Buat lebih berguna, kongsi:
