Trouble inside the US Air Force's nuclear missile force runs deeper and wider than officials have let on, with an unpublished study citing evidence of "burnout" among launch officers with their fingers on the triggers of 450 weapons of mass destruction.
The unpublished study for the Air Force also finds evidence of broader behavioural issues across the intercontinental ballistic missile force, including sexual assaults and domestic violence.
The study provided to The Associated Press in draft form, says that court-martial rates in the nuclear missile force in 2011 and 2012 were more than twice as high as in the overall Air Force. Administrative punishments, such as written reprimands for rules violations and other misbehaviour, also were higher in those years.
These indicators add a new dimension to an emerging picture of malaise and worse inside the ICBM force, an arm of the Air Force with a proud heritage but an uncertain future. Concerned about heightened levels of misconduct, the Air Force directed RAND Corp., the federally funded research house, to conduct a three-month study of work conditions and attitudes among the men and women inside the ICBM force.
It found a toxic mix of frustration and aggravation, heightened by a sense of being unappreciated, overworked and at constant risk of failure.
Remote and rarely seen, the ICBM force gets little public attention. The AP, however, this year has documented a string of missteps that call into question the management of a force that demands strict obedience to procedures.
The AP was advised in May of the confidential study, shortly after it was completed, by a person who said it should be made public to improve understanding of discontent within the ICBM force. After repeated inquiries, and shortly after AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a PowerPoint outline, the Air Force provided it last Friday and arranged for RAND officials and two senior Air Force generals to explain it.
Based on confidential small-group discussions last winter with about 100 launch officers, security forces, missile maintenance workers and others who work in the missile fields - plus responses to confidential questionnaires -- RAND found low job satisfaction and workers distressed by staff shortages, equipment flaws and what they felt were stifling management tactics.
