US to put nuclear bombers on 24-hour alert, first time since cold war

An order asking the US Air Force to put nuclear-armed bombers on 24-hour alert amid the ongoing tension with Kim Jong un-ruled North Korea. If the order is issued, it will be for the first time since the end of cold war in 1991 that B-52s will return to war-ready front.

According to Defense One, the US bombers, armed with nuclear weapons, would be set to take off at a moment’s notice once the order is in place.

The report quoted US Air Force chief of staff David Goldfein as saying that the move is not a plan for any specific event, but for the current global situation. He said that the US is ensuring that they are prepared to go forward.

Though the alert orders are yet to come, preparations are already underway.

The report further cited three major reasons for this move – North Korea’s aggression with nuclear arsenal, US President Donald Trump’s confrontational approach to Kim’s regime, and Russia’s active armed forces.

This comes almost a week after North Korea warned that a nuclear war might break out at any time as the situation in the Korean peninsula had reached the “touch-and-go point”.

North Korea's deputy UN ambassador Kim In-ryong had told the UN general assembly's disarmament committee that Pyongyang had the right to possess defense nuclear weapons.

He had said that North Korea was the only country in the world that had been subjected to "extreme and direct nuclear threat" from the United States since the 1970s.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson later asserted that the diplomatic efforts to relax tensed relations with North Korea would continue "until the first bomb drops".

He had also said that Trump had instructed him to try and reduce stress between the two nations through diplomatic efforts.

North Korea had recently called on its citizens to be ready for a nation-wide struggle against "war thirsty" US President Donald Trump and his "gangster-like moves for domination and aggression."

(With agency inputs)