AFI 13-550 — Air Force Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications

What this publication covers

This instruction establishes roles and responsibilities to ensure effective stewardship and integrated planning, programming, budgeting and execution, and sustainment of the AF NC3 mission area. In addition, it provides a framework to ensure the Air Force properly organizes, t rains, and equips to enable Nuclear Command and Control (NC2) mission essential functions.

What changed in this edition

This is a complete revision to the previous version of this instruction. This instruction implements Secretary of the Air Force (SecAF) and Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) direction to develop a comprehensive and more centralized structure to manage the AF NC3 mission area. It revises the command relationships, roles and responsibilities, the governance structure, and addresses resourcing, architecture and configuration management, resilience, and assessments. The instruction acknowledges consolidation of the communications systems and components of Air Force NC3 systems into the Air Force NC3 Weapon System (AF NC3 WS), nomenclated and referred throughout this instruction as AN/USQ-225, under Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) as the lead command, in accordance with Headquarters Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff, Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration Program Action Directive (PAD) D16-01 Centralized Management of the Nuclear Enterprise. Finally, this instruction codifies the specialized responsibilities of the Air Force NC3 Center (AFNC3C) as an AFGSC organization with AF-wide responsibilities to lead centralized organize, train, and equip functions of the AN/USQ-225; the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, NC3 Integration Directorate (AFNWC/NC) as the principle integrator of the AN/USQ-225; and Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) as the lead for synchronizing NC3 materiel management across AFMC in support of AFGSC

Publications state their own changes on page 1 — behind a PDF the official host will not serve to a search engine. This is that section, verbatim. It describes the edition above, not every historical change.

If AFI 13-550 changes, who else is affected

1 publication in 1 other community depend on this one, which Nuclear, Space & C2 owns. Each community inspects its own publications; a dependency that crosses communities is owned by nobody, which is why this list normally does not exist anywhere. Built from the publications' own citations, so it reflects what we have read.

Publications that cite AFI 13-550

• AFI 21-103 ACC Sup — Equipment Inventory, Status And Utilization Reporting Current 1 mention

If AFI 13-550 changes, these are the documents that point at it. Extracted from the publications' own text, so it reflects what we have read, not a complete dependency map. Every publishing office validates its own document; nobody validates the seams between them.

Changes & supplements to AFI 13-550

• AFI 13-550 USAFE-AFAFRICA Sup — Air Force Nuclear Command, Control, And Communications (Nc3) Current

Records in this branch carrying the same series and number — interim changes, guidance memoranda, and unit supplements. A copy stamped with one of these is a different document from the base publication.

Nearby in the AFI series

• AFI 13-502 — Physical Security Of Sensitive Conventional Arms, Ammunition, & Explosives (Aa&E) Current
• AFI 13-520 — Aircraft and Icbm Nuclear Operations Current
• AFI 13-527 — Nuclear, Space, Missile, or Command and Control Operations Nuclear Weapons Airlift Operations Training Current
• AFI 13-550 USAFE-AFAFRICA Sup — Air Force Nuclear Command, Control, And Communications (Nc3) Current
• AFI 14-1020 — Intelligence Mission Qualification and Readiness Not in the current catalog