Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said he expects the incoming Trump Administration to conduct a nuclear posture review to assess what is needed to keep deterrence healthy. Speaking on Wednesday at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., Goldfein sought to explain the need for all three legs of the triad, noting the Air Force is building its next generation B-21 Raider bomber and beginning work on the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent system to replace the aging ICBM system. To drive that point home, Goldfein held up a decades-old floppy disk that is still in daily use in the Air Force’s missile fields. The Air Force is looking forward to a discussion on the future of deterrence, one that isn’t just the missiles in the field but also issues in space and cyber, Goldfein said. Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s nominee to be Defense Secretary, recently expressed support for modernization of the missiles and bombers, but said he’d need to look at updating the Air Force’s Long-Range Standoff missile.
Sierra Nevada Corp. has acquired five ex-Korean Air 747-8 jumbo jets on which it will host the Survivable Airborne Operations Center. The jets will be transferred next year and will serve as the platforms for the SAOC, the $13 billion contract for which SNC won last month. The jets were…