ND North News

The Senate Armed Services Committee convened to consider the nomination of General Ken Wilsbach as the next U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff. If confirmed, General Wilsbach will oversee the organization, training, and equipping of 689,000 active-duty, Guard, Reserve, and civilian personnel both domestically and abroad.

Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), chair of the SASC Airland Subcommittee and co-chair of the Senate Defense Modernization Caucus, expressed his support for General Wilsbach’s nomination. “I have to say, I can’t imagine a person better prepared and equipped than you are for this job,” said Cramer. “I’m really grateful you said yes, and I’m really grateful you got the call.”

Cramer addressed the importance of the Sentinel program during his remarks. The Sentinel program is designed to replace aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles with the new LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM system. Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota uniquely hosts two legs of the nuclear triad: B-52 bombers and Minuteman III ICBMs.

“Thank you for your commitment to the Sentinel program,” Cramer stated. “It’s really important to us in Minot, having two of the three legs [of the nuclear triad], to know that we’re going to see it all the way through. We’re not going to stop two-thirds of the way. In fact, I maintain that if you’re going to stop anywhere along the way of developing Sentinel and putting those new missiles in the ground, you shouldn’t start. […] I really appreciate your commitment to Sentinel.”

Senator Cramer also questioned General Wilsbach on future plans for airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities as reliance on space-based systems grows. Over recent years, Cramer has raised concerns about retiring airborne ISR platforms too quickly without adequate replacements.

“You’re exactly right,” responded General Wilsbach regarding airborne ISR needs. “The RQ-4, the MQ-9, both are really important to us, especially prior to the conflict. Admittedly, if they go into a high threat environment, they could be shot down. But, if it’s not a high threat environment, we can get great value out of those platforms to do missions that if we didn't have them, and you didn’t have that capability on space, you would have to go without. So as we go forward into the future, we need to balance that. And frankly, it’s a simple math problem, right? You take the entirety of the collection that you wish to have, and you determine what you’re actually collecting. And if you have a big gap, then you can easily make decisions, resource decisions, on what you want to keep and what you can afford to get rid of because you have...that capability to collect elsewhere.”

General Wilsbach recently joined Senator Cramer in visiting Grand Forks Air Force Base and North Dakota Air National Guard facilities in Fargo for tours focused on ISR missions involving unmanned aerial systems such as RQ-4 Global Hawk at Grand Forks AFB and MQ-9 Reaper at North Dakota ANG.