ELLSWORTH AIR FORCE BASE, S.D. – Ellsworth hosted the first event in the Striker Speaking Series July 21, 2016, a traveling symposium headed by Maj. Gen. Michael Fortney, the vice commander of Air Force Global Strike Command.
Fortney, joined by three deterrence and geopolitical experts, led a panel discussion focused on the command’s role in exercising global deterrence and assurance and how Airmen contribute to making that effort both possible and credible.
“To me it’s really simple – deterrence is assurance,” Fortney explained to the attending Airmen. “It’s a combination of credible capability and willingness to use it so that other countries know the risk of taking action is too great.”
The advent of nuclear weapons has helped prevent ‘Great Powers’ wars on the scale of World War I where an estimated 15-18 million people were killed and World War II where 70-85 million were killed, Fortney added.
“If preventing suffering and death is a good thing,” Fortney said, “then deterring war is a good thing too, which is what our nuclear weapons are used for.”
There are also more nuclear powers now than there were in the Cold War, and all of them are reinforcing and modernizing their forces. Additionally, those other nations do not share the same interests as the United States.
“Has history changed so much to where we don’t need nuclear arms anymore?” Fortney asked. “I don’t think so.”
Fortney concluded by making the point that the United States needs to continue modernization and re-capitalization efforts of current nuclear capabilities, to maintain relevancy when dealing with other nuclear states and to preserve safety and reliability standards.
Approximately 250 Airmen attended the panel and were encouraged to engage in discussions about exercising deterrence, how their jobs contribute to the cause and convey their thoughts and feelings to AFGSC major command leadership.
“I think [this] is a great opportunity to get out and see the Airmen who are actually performing the mission tasks,” said Dirk Deverill, the foreign policy advisor to AFGSC and panel member for the series. “It helps leadership really understand that service members are having a day-to-day effect, and we have the chance to let them know the status of issues arising.”