Interagency nuclear weapon recovery exercise to take place

  • Published
  • By 341st Missile Wing Plans and Programs Office
MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. --  Senior members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Department of Energy, United States Customs, and various other state and federal agencies will come to Malmstrom April 22 and 23 for a unique training experience: how to respond to and eventually recover a lost, stolen or seized nuclear asset. 

While the U.S. has never experienced this sort of incident, known as an "Empty Quiver" in the nuclear community, there has been a major post-9/11 shift in strategic thinking that is driving a new training dynamic in the nuclear arena. For instance, an Empty Quiver has generally been seen as an impossibility, but due to an ever changing and diverse threat environment, born at the end of the Cold War and matured during the War on Terror, the U.S. no longer has the luxury of assuming what is and what is not possible. The result is an extensive exercise involving 120 to 150 participants from different local, state and federal agencies. 

The goal of the two day summit is to help all agencies involved both prepare for and refine their responses to an Empty Quiver event in or around Malmstrom. While this will be a "table top" exercise, meaning that no actual equipment or forces are employed, all members will be responding as they would during a true incident. Attendees will see two different scenarios and will be asked to flesh out their responses to the highest degree possible in order to better identify shortfalls in reaction procedures. 

In terms of exercise details, all members will be asked to identify their notification and response actions in a realistic manner, after which response times and capabilities will be assessed in order to evaluate effectiveness. The overall goal is to determine both who can respond to an incident and how quickly assets can be maneuvered into position. Of key interest is the off-base support that Malmstrom will receive to recover control of its nuclear assets. Keep in mind that should the DoD or DoE lose control of an asset, it will most likely not occur on base, but somewhere in the missile complex. The incident's location could very well lengthen the military's response time, making it critical to include these other agencies to effectively recover the asset. Identifying potential delays or gaps in the overall response plan will further both regional security and global security as a whole. 

In the end, day-to-day responsibility for maintaining effective control of our nation's nuclear arsenal falls to specially certified personnel working in and around nuclear weapons. However, the moment a weapon is lost, stolen or seized, securing that weapon becomes everyone's business. We must take steps to ensure a timely, coordinated and effective response is in place to combat this unlikely, but serious threat. 
Conducting exercises with multiple agencies in a realistic setting is critical to ensuring we can immediately regain positive control and ensure our nation's safety and security.