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Air Force’s New Stealth Bomber Will Replace B-1s and B-2s While Older B-52s Keep Flying
The U.S. Air Force plans to phase out its B-1B and B-2 bomber fleets as the new B-21 bomber, currently being built in Palmdale by Northrop Grumman Corp., becomes operational in the mid-2020s. Mark Gunzinger, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the move to phase out the B-1Bs and B-2s is likely budget-driven. The Air Force needs to modernize and reinvest in a number of its key assets, including its fighter jets, bomber forces and unmanned systems, and that is a "daunting challenge."
Analysis
Turkey Is Out of Control. Time for the U.S. to Say So.
There’s a real danger of a clash between U.S. and Turkish forces. The administration should make clear that it won’t tolerate any more bad behavior—now.
In the News
Will the Air Force Really Buy a New Light Attack Aircraft?
Among those who believe the Air Force is sincere in its desire to purchase an OA-X is Mark Gunzinger, a former B-52 pilot and air power analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “Yes, I think they are serious,” Gunzinger told The National Interest. “It makes sense for the missions they would use it for as well as from a cost and force management perspective. There also appears to be significant support on the Hill, but a never-ending series of CRs [continuing resolutions] could disrupt its timing.... As well as other programs, for that matter.”
In the News
No ‘Automaticity,’ But Yes To Low Yield Nukes: NPR
“After decades of nuclear weapons being consigned to the margins of national security, it is important for senior political and military leaders to re-acquaint themselves with nuclear capabilities, both ours and those of competitors,” Mahnken said.
In the News
Chinese Regime Races for Naval Supremacy, Building 8 Cruisers While US Builds None
On the other hand, the PLAN’s burgeoning surface fleet is predicted to alter the naval balance in maritime Asia, said a 2017 report co-authored by James R. Holmes of the U.S. Naval War College and Toshi Yoshihara, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). The report said that China’s rapid production of advanced warships in recent years, such as the Type 055 cruisers, is not a coincidence and was almost certainly “designed, developed, and procured” many years in advance…“China has laid the basis for a competition that will be measured in decades,” write Holmes and Yoshihara. “The United States and its allies must accept reality: they face a long-term rivalry at sea against a tough, determined, imaginative competitor.”
In the News
‘Swarm’ Strikes Are the U.S. Military’s Worst Fear
“I think non-kinetic solutions are very promising,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments airpower analyst Mark Gunzinger, a former U.S. Air Force B-52 pilot, told The National Interest. “Trying to create a ‘steel wall’ might be of some help, and by that, I mean rapid-firing guns. Targeting these guns against multiple drones that are dispersed and may be attacking from multiple quadrants would be a significant problem, of course. For a high-power RF defense, you could probably swivel an emitter quite rapidly to different quadrants to place multiple threats within its beam width.”