Air Force establishing new nuke wing at Offutt Air Force Base next year (2024)

The Air Force plans to establish a new air wing at Offutt Air Force Base that will focus on nuclear command-and-control and add 70 positions at the Bellevue facility, the Nebraska congressional delegation said in a statement released late Friday.

The new 95th Wing will be focused on nuclear command and control, a function assigned to the Offutt-based U.S. Strategic Command in 2018.

The Wing will be composed of:

The new wing will fall under the Air Force’s Global Strike Command, headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.

An Air Force slide deck prepared for members of Congress said the activation of the 95th Wing “is part of the Department of the Air Force reorganization to optimize the Department for Great Power Competition,” an apparent reference to growing nuclear threats from Russia and China.

“It speaks volumes that Offutt is the Air Force’s installation of choice for the new 95th Wing,” said Sen. Deb Fischer in the statement. “Nebraska is the center of gravity for nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) missions, and we are proud of our indispensable role in America’s national defense.”

The 95th Wing personnel added at Offutt would include 25 officers, 36 enlisted airmen, and six civilians, according to the slide deck. The unit’s staff would arrive in the first three months of 2025, and the Wing would become fully operational in mid-2026.

It’s not clear where at Offutt the command will be located. The Wing will require 8,000 square feet of office space, according to the slide deck.

Rep. Don Bacon, a retired Air Force officer who served at Offutt, said in an interview that the new wing is an excellent fit for the base because of the expertise here in nuclear matters and electronic warfare.

“Getting a nuclear command-and-control wing makes sense,” he said. “There’s a lot of opportunity to grow nuclear command-and-control, and it needs to be here at Offutt.”

One of Bacon’s goals is to return the fabled “Looking Glass” mission to Offutt. A chain of Strategic Air Command EC-135 jets and crews stayed airborne continuously to back up the command–and-control systems in SACs Offutt bunker, protecting against the threat of a “decapitation” strike against SAC headquarters.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Navy took over Looking Glass and the continuous airborne alerts ended. But it is currently making plans to retire those aircraft. Bacon wants the Air Force to take it over.

“We need to bring that mission back to Omaha,” he said.

Rep. Mike Flood, whose district includes Offutt, called the Air Force’s decision “great news.”

“This will not only add a mission to the base but will also continue to create more opportunities in Bellevue and the greater Omaha area,” he said in a statement.

“I look forward to welcoming the women and men who will call Omaha, Nebraska, home as part of this newly activated unit,” Sen. Pete Ricketts said in the same statement.