Stealth Bomber Plays a Key Role in U.S. Military Strategy : No Cold War relic, the B-2 offers the most cost-effective, reliable means of responding immediately to a regional crisis anywhere in the world.

Although we are at peace and public attention is largely focused on domestic affairs, the United States is now making important long-term decisions about national security.

This pattern is not new. In the 1930s, the Vinson-Trammel Act preserved the U.S. shipbuilding industry and provided for the modernization of the U.S. Navy by means of sustained low-rate production. Without it, the United States might not have had the ships required to hold the line in the Pacific after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

A similar choice faces the nation today concerning its long-range bomber force. Congress has included $125 million in the 1995 defense budget to review U.S. bomber requirements and preserve the industrial base of the B-2 stealth bomber for another year. That industrial base includes 20 key suppliers in the San Fernando Valley.

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According to the appropriations conference bill approved by the Senate and the House, “Independent studies have concluded that the 20 B-2 aircraft now on order are simply not enough to provide a militarily significant and cost-effective long-range conventional bomber force.” Congress and other government agencies have ordered that at least six studies of current and future military requirements be completed by next summer before the nation loses its only bomber-production capability.

The debate over U.S. bomber capability and the future of the B-2 began in September, 1993, when the Pentagon’s Bottom-Up Review, the first comprehensive post-Cold War review of U.S. military force needs, called for maintaining sufficient forces to fight and win two major regional conflicts simultaneously. The review stated a need for a total bomber force of up to 184 by the end of the century. The currently funded force is lower than this level, and attrition and retirements in coming years will drive the numbers even lower. The last of the currently funded 20 B-2s is to be delivered in 1998.

As the world’s only remaining superpower, the United States retains a variety of important global interests and responsibilities. American forces operate under unique constraints, however. The U.S. public has a low tolerance for casualties (including innocent enemy civilians) and little patience for extended or ambiguous conflicts.

Rather than a relic of the Cold War, as some critics suggest, the B-2 remains a key element of U.S. military strategy.

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Foreign bases are closing, and troops are coming home. Only bombers can respond within hours to rapidly developing regional conflicts. Analysts from the RAND Corp. told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the B-2 is “the only practical option for countering a sudden armored invasion in a distant part of the world during the crucial early days of a future conflict.” Gen. Mike Loh, commander of the Air Force’s Air Combat Command, summarizes the B-2’s role as “the centerpiece of an emerging national security strategy that places increasing importance on projecting immediate, responsive power from the U.S. to a regional crisis anywhere in the world.”

The B-2, with six times the range and eight times the payload of the F-117 stealth fighter used so extensively in Desert Storm, offers a more cost-effective means of accomplishing a variety of missions than a wide range of alternatives.

A B-2 requires only two pilots and costs less to operate than other means of power projection such as aircraft carriers or Army divisions. Further, the B-2’s large payload allows it to do the work of many smaller attack aircraft, and its stealthy characteristics mean that it does not require an armada of support aircraft. The Air Force has shown that two B-2s can do the job of 75 conventional aircraft, putting four crew members at risk instead of 132.

The B-2 is performing well. Just last month the Air Force called the reliability of the four operational B-2s at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri “astounding.” The 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman has been able to fly 114 of 120 planned sorties--an efficiency rate of 95%--during the one year the B-2 has been in service. During that year, these four aircraft flew more than 380 hours.

The B-2 has been certified by the secretaries of both the Defense Department and the Air Force as meeting or exceeding its stealth requirements. It is the most survivable aircraft in the Air Force inventory. And in more than 2,200 hours of flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base, the B-2 has demonstrated exceptional capability--meeting its requirements.

The B-2 not only works well, but the program is within budget. The Air Force is on record as stating that the program’s cost limit of $44.6 billion is sufficient to complete the current acquisition of 20 aircraft.

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At the Air Force’s request, Northrop Grumman, the B-2’s primary contractor, submitted a proposal in early November that would commit the company to produce another 20 B-2s for a fixed price of $570 million per aircraft at a sustained low rate production of three per year. The proposal was requested as part of the secretary of defense’s assessment of near- and long-term bomber requirements.

A decision on continued production of the B-2 must come in 1995 if the maximum return is to be realized on the investment already made. Reconstituting a bomber production base in the future would cost more time and money than extending current production. It took 15 years and a $24-billion investment in technology, skilled personnel, facilities and equipment to design the B-2 and deliver the first operational aircraft to the Air Force.

Will there be more B-2s? That question will be answered in 1995 by the secretary of defense and, ultimately, Congress, after the results of the various studies have been evaluated. Careful consideration of the role that long-range, stealthy B-2s should play in emerging U.S. defense strategy is a prudent step, because this decision will affect the nation’s security as much as 25 years into the future.