CSBA in the News

The battle over who will build the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation stealth bomber came to a close last week, but a new conflict is already developing at the Pentagon. A defense budget passed Friday has Congress and military planners seeking $5 billion in defense cuts, as the Air Force prepares to squeeze another costly development program into a Pentagon budget already packed with big-ticket weapons buys.

Last week, the U.S. Air Force announced the selection of Northrop Grumman to build the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), which will replace the aging B-52 and B-1 bomber aircraft fleets. Under the estimated $21 billion contract, the Air Force will acquire a total fleet of 100 new bombers. Over the next year, Northrop will begin the Engineering, Manufacturing and Development (EMD) phase of the contract where components will be gathered and eventually integrated to develop flying prototypes that can be used for test purposes to further mature the design of the aircraft before actual low rate production begins.

The staggering rate of change and the unacceptable time it takes the Pentagon to introduce weapon systems is leading to “a steady erosion of U.S. technological superiority” over peer competitors and non-state actors such as the Islamic State. Those were consensus views at a Tuesday hearing on the future of warfare before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The U.S. Navy’s fleet of Seawolf and Virginia-class attack submarines are by far the most advanced vessel of their kind in the world, however new technologies are emerging that might change their role for ever.

Cruising a Walmart in Clayton County, Georgia, with Sergeant Russell Haney of US Army recruiting, it would be easy to think most Americans are aching to serve Uncle Sam. Almost every teenager or 20-something he hails, in his cheery Tennessee drawl, amid the mounds of plastic buckets and cut-price tortilla chips, appears tempted by his offer. Lemeanfa, a 19-year-old former football star, says he is halfway sold on it; Dseanna, an 18-year-old shopper, says she is too, provided she won’t have to go to war. Serving in the coffee shop, Archel and Lily, a brother and sister from the US Virgin Islands, listen greedily to the education, training and other benefits the recruiting sergeant reels off. “You don’t want a job, you want a career!” he tells them, as a passer-by thrusts a packet of cookies into his hands, to thank him for his service.