US Joint Forces Command is likely to fall victim to the Pentagon’s belt tightening, but that won’t affect the US relationship with NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, which is also based in Norfolk, Va. That according to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who spoke to defense reporters in Washington D.C., Tuesday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has recommended that President Obama close JFCOM, but “We have no plans to move ACT, and personally I do believe that it makes sense to have a NATO headquarters also in the United States, not only in Europe,” said Rasmussen.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…