Cold War
With the end of fighting in Korea, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had taken office in January 1953, called for a "new look" at national defense. The result: a greater reliance on nuclear weapons and air power to deter war. His administration chose to invest in the Air Force, especially Strategic Air Command. The nuclear arms race shifted into high gear. The Air Force retired nearly all of its propeller-driven B-29/B-50s and they were replaced by new Boeing B-47 Stratojet aircraft. By 1955 the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress would be entering the inventory in substantial numbers, as prop B-36s were phased out of heavy bombardment units rapidly.
Also after the deployment of forces to Far East Air Force to engage in combat over Korea, the history of Fifteenth Air Force becomes indistinguishable from that of Strategic Air Command. During the Cold War, Fifteenth Air Force aircraft stood nuclear alert, providing a deterrence against an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union. During the Vietnam War, squadrons of 15th Air Force B-52 Stratofortesses (B-52Ds mostly, some B-52Gs) were deployed to bases on Guam, Okinawa and Thailand conducting Arc Light strikes on communist forces.
The 15th Air Force also included missile squadrons, such as the 703d Strategic Missile Wing and 706th Strategic Missile Wing.
Read more about this topic: 15th Expeditionary Mobility Task Force
Famous quotes containing the words cold and/or war:
“That cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“Stiller ... took part in the Spanish Civil War ... It is not clear what impelled him to this military gesture. Probably many factors were combined—a rather romantic Communism, such as was common among bourgeois intellectuals at that time.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)