U.S. Command Declares Global Strike Capability

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire



WASHINGTON ? The U.S. Strategic Command announced yesterday it had
achieved an operational capability for rapidly striking targets
around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons, after last
month testing its capacity for nuclear war against a fictional
country believed to represent North Korea (see GSN, Oct. 21).

In a press release yesterday, STRATCOM said a new Joint Functional
Component Command for Space and Global Strike on Nov. 18 "met
requirements necessary to declare an initial operational capability."

The requirements were met, it said, "following a rigorous test of
integrated planning and operational execution capabilities during
Exercise Global Lightning."

The annual Global Lightning exercise last month tested U.S. strategic
warfare capabilities, including the so-called CONPLAN 8022 mission
for a global strike, according to publicly available military
documents.

CONPLAN 8022 is "a new strike plan that includes [a] pre-emptive
nuclear strike against weapons of mass destruction facilities
anywhere in the world," said Hans Kristensen, a consultant for the
Natural Resources Defense Council. Kristensen first published the
STRATCOM press release on his Web site, nukestrat.com.

Military analyst William Arkin, in a column on the Washington Post
Web site in October, wrote that the classified exercise involved the
response to a radiological "dirty bomb" attack on Alabama by the
fictional country Purple or allied terrorists. "In the exercise,
Purple is a Northeast Asian nation thinly veiled as North Korea,"
according to Arkin.

Maj. Jeff Jones, STRATCOM spokesman, said today that the exercise
incorporated various scenarios and added, "Everything is fictional
that we put in the exercise."

Global Lightning employed command and control personnel, according to
the STRATCOM release.

Global strike attacks could be launched from U.S. long-range bombers,
nuclear submarines or land-based ballistic missiles, according to the
STRATCOM Web site.

The new command was created Aug. 9 in an attempt to integrate broad
elements of U.S. military power into global strike plans and
operations.

That, according to an Arkin commentary in the Washington Post in May,
could include anything from electronic jamming to penetrating
computer networks, to commando operations, to the use of a nuclear
earth penetrator. CONPLAN 8022, he wrote, is intended to address two
scenarios using such capabilities: preventing a suspected imminent
nuclear attack from a small state, and attacking an adversary's
suspected WMD infrastructure.

STRATCOM Commander Gen. James Cartwright said at an opening ceremony
that the new command would help the country convey a "new kind of
deterrence."

According to the STRATCOM release, "The command's performance during
Global Lightning demonstrated preparedness to execute its mission of
providing integrated space and global strike capabilities to deter
and dissuade aggressors and when directed, defeat adversaries through
decisive joint global effects in support of STRATCOM missions."

According to Arkin's article in May, CONPLAN 8022 was completed in
2003, "putting in place for the first time a pre-emptive and
offensive strike capability against Iran and North Korea."

STRATCOM's readiness for global strike was certified to Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush in January
2004, Arkin reported.

http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_12_2.html#FB378486