Do We Really Need the B-2?

Congress is poised to pay for at least two more B-2 Stealth bombers at $530 million each, the most expensive airplane in the nation’s history. But it also has attached enough strings to the program to make certain that the B-2 does not fly away with the defense budget. That makes sense, in light of a study that says that the United States would spend l4 times as much to hit a target with a B-2 as it would have to spend to hit the same target with alternative weapons already on hand.

The B-2 is the most expensive item in the defense budget this year, but some other expenses are as hard to justify in a budget that will be in real decline for the fifth straight year. What one senator called a “ruthless lobbying effort” persuaded the House and Senate conference committee to let Grumman Corp. build 18 more F-14D fighter planes that the Navy did not want in order to save jobs on Long Island in New York. Because Congress cannot agree whether to build the big mobile missiles that Republicans want or the smaller missiles that Democrats want, Congress agreed to fund both.

But the big spender is the hump-backed flying wing, designed and built in ways that make it hard to spot on radar, hence the Stealth designation. In theory, the B-2 could pounce on targets before an enemy knew it was coming. But according to a recent analysis published by Harvard University’s International Security magazine, using a B-2 would cost more than using a Midgetman missile, a single-warhead missile that the Air Force has resisted as too expensive.

In fact, the ability to sneak past radar may not even be important in a war. The bomber would reach targets in the Soviet Union long after the United States had started retaliating with long-range missiles that might well have destroyed or at least ripped big holes in the radar screen of the Soviet air-defense network, so Stealth would not be important. If some radar were to survive, there are nearly 100 B-1b bombers already on duty that the Air Force itself says are nearly as elusive as the B-2. The B-1b also could be armed with cruise missiles that it could fire at targets from outside the range of Sovier radar.

The Air Force argues that only bombers can retaliate effectively against missile silos protected by thick concrete cocoons, but new missiles being built for the Navy’s Trident submarines are so accurate that they could do that job as well as a bomber. Stealth bombers would be good for dropping bombs that would burrow into Soviet command posts and explode, the Air Force says. But does that mission make sense? Would America want to kill the only Soviets who might be able and willing to call off a nuclear war?

For some years, the Air Force promoted the B-2 as the only way of finding Soviet missiles that can be moved around on trucks and railroad cars. But, again, the Air Force itself acknowledges that technology for guiding bombers to mobile targets does not exist and is not even in sight. The technology is important because no B-2 crew could hope to locate hidden missiles by peering through smoke billowing up from the rubble of nuclear explosions.

There are other arguments for the B-2, each matched by an argument against it. The strongest case for the plane is its technology. Its graphite wings and titanium fuselage make it lighter and its shape creates less drag in flight. The combination adds up to a more energy-efficient aircraft, features that may well lend themselves to commercial application as pilots and engineers gain experience with the plane. But the aerospace industry does not need an entire fleet of 132 bombers to expand and perfect the technology.

Conceivably, the B-2 could serve as a bargaining chip in arms control talks. But the Soviets so far seem not to need any chips in return for agreeing to cuts in their defense budget so that funds can be diverted to consumer goods.

There is an argument that the B-2 stabilizes nuclear forces--stability being arms control jargon for a balance of weapons on both sides that reduces fears of a surprise attack. Bombers are slower than missiles and, unlike missiles, can be called back if they are launched by mistake. But any bomber meets that test.

The Air Force also wants the B-2 because under a so-called counting rule the START treaty for cuts in nuclear weapons would allow it to carry as many warheads as the Air Force could cram into it, unlike a B-1b, for example, armed with cruise missiles. But as Times writer Robert Toth reported earlier this year, many defense analysts believe the services already have more warheads focused on targets than they really need.

With logic stacked against the B-2 in so many respects, the fact that it survived seven weeks of logrolling in conference committee begs an important question. Why?

One answer may be that the Air Force has spread contracts for bits and pieces of the Stealth bomber into nearly every state, as it did with the B-1b, so that there are jobs at stake in a majority of states and districts.

Another may be that Congress has been persuaded that it cannot kill the B-2 and still get deep cuts in intercontinental nuclear missiles under the START negotiations under way in Geneva.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney has said that Washington’s intentions to sign a START treaty assumed that the B-2 would be part of any new and smaller force of nuclear weapons that might emerge. But Washington can change its assumptions about the next generation of strategic forces more easily than it could go back and renegotiate all of START.

According to the analysis in International Security by Michael Brown of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, there are alternatives to the B-2 that can do any job that the $530-million bomber can do and do it for far less. The alternatives, including new missiles for the Navy’s Trident submarine and the Midgetman also would be far less vulnerable to a surprise or accidental attack than would the B-2.

If Congress must spend scarce federal dollars on defense, it can find more worthy causes than the full fleet of Stealth bombers. As of now, two will be enough. One prime candidate for further spending would be new equipment for the smaller American force that will be required in Europe after a conventional arms-reduction treaty is negotiated, perhaps as early as next year.