That was probably just written as an "out of the box" idea, not as a serious proposal. How much energy would it cost to stop the rotation of the Earth? And that should be spent in a matter of minutes. There's no source on Earth that can provid that power. And where would these "engines" be hooked? All over the globe, I suppose, because otherwise it wouldn't be very effective.

So no. To suggest "the US Air Force" had such a plan is most likely click-bait.