In follow-up to my two recent posts called “Failure” and “Deficiencies?” the media in Montana finally picked up the story about the failure of a major inspection at Malmstrom AFB, Montana. The story had been percolating across the web for at least a couple of days.

Part of the problem with local reporting on stories like this is twofold: One reason is the media located around most military installations are mostly in awe of the military. Most reporters never served, so this is “golly-gee” to them. They get to ride in the jets, helicopters, and see “special” things and it somewhat corrupts their reporting. Second, and most important, is that most of the reporters have no idea the differences between a missile alert facility and a launch facility or an F-15 and an F-16. This is very apparent in Montana.

Readers may find it a little ironic that just a couple of months after the Secretary of the Air Force, Michael B. Donley, and the Air Force Chief of Staff, Norton A. Schwartz, visited Malmstrom AFB, the base failed a major inspection.

Donley and Schwartz came into their present positions when their predecessors were fired after several incidents that brought discredit upon the Air Force and the United States.

While failing a major inspection, like a Nuclear Surety Inspection (NSI), is an eye opener and “heads will roll” it is small in comparison to losing control of six nuclear-tipped missiles that were flown across the country or the accidental shipment to Taiwan components that arm and fuse nuclear warheads.

Inspections are conducted to ensure things like that don’t happen – to nip it in the bud so to speak. Unfortunately, military bases conduct several local inspections leading up to a big one, like the NSI, to correct problems before the inspection counts for real.

There are probably several reasons for these missteps from the Air Force in recent years.

First and foremost (to some people) is that our nation’s military is stressed due to two wars and increased threats both at home and abroad. Since 9/11 our military personnel are being asked to do more in their day to day operations and when they deployed to war zones. Many military personnel are either coming back from a deployment or facing a future deployment. Year after year of dealing with this tempo can bring down even the best people.

Another reason that may be overlooked in today’s military is arguably a leadership vacuum that happened way back in the early to mid 1990s.

In the early 1990s, the Department of Defense promoted a couple of programs called Special Separation Benefit and Voluntary Separation Incentive (VSI/SSB) to reduce the military forces. The plan was to cut the forces by about 25% by 1997.

The forces were reduced significantly. Some reports showed around 77,000 military personnel took part in the VSI/SSB program. To be eligible, members must have completed more than 6 years of service as of December 1991.

Today, we may be seeing the results of this downsizing. Many of the thousands of people who took these programs would have been in the senior leadership of their branches of the military. Many would be the E-8s and E-9s in the enlisted ranks and the O-5s and O-6s in the officer ranks.

Nonetheless, a lesson must be learned that even when decisions are made next year by President Obama, these decisions just may harm the military for many many years down the road. I know that my friends on the left are right now thinking about Bush policies that may harm the military down the road (or already have) and that’s fair game, too.

No matter what the causes are of the recent failures in the Air Force, steps must be put in place to prevent future failures. Today is a new day. We can’t have any more failures because it gives those who want the military bases that house nuclear weapons, like Malmstrom, even more ammo to call for their closure. The world is still a very dangerous place.