The Defense Logistics Agency demonstrated its commitment to supporting America’s aging nuclear fleet with a memorandum of agreement outlining logistics support to the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, Jan. 7.
The document was signed by DLA Logistics Operations Director Navy Rear Adm. Vincent L. Griffith and Army Maj. Gen. Allen W. Batschelet, USSTRATCOM chief of staff, as one of a number of initiatives, driven by DLA director guidance, to ensure DLA fully serves this critical combatant command and the nuclear enterprise generally. The MOA, among other things, establishes two DLA liaison positions at HQ USSTRATCOM to ensure DLA maintains a strategic, operational, and tactical planning interface with USSTRATCOM and its components.
Griffith and officials from DLA’s Nuclear Enterprise Support Office have been working with USSTRATCOM, which oversees the military’s nuclear capability, to increase the agency’s role as the services modernize nuclear assets. Many of those systems are 40 years old and are expected to remain in service for another 20 to 25 years.
The nuclear enterprise consists of all weapons systems and command, control and communications systems that support our nuclear deterrent mission. Although the services already count on DLA for parts, the agency can play a much more comprehensive role in sustainment, said Air Force Col. Steve Petters, NESO’s deputy director.
After the signing, Petters and Griffith described several ways that DLA can improve overall support. For example, as the Air Force identifies all the components that make up the ballistic missile as a weapon system, including the missile itself, launch facility, control facility, communications, equipment and utility support, etc., DLA is energizing its supply chains to provide parts it’s never been asked to provide before.
More information on DLA’s commitment to the nuclear enterprise is available in the September-October 2015 edition of Loglines.