As the saying goes, if your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.
In this case the metaphorical hammer is the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers, about 140 aircraft in all. Air & Space Forces Magazine’s John A. Tirpak wrote on Sept. 12 that the so-called Midnight Hammer bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities “underscored that the bomber is again assuming a central role in the application of American airpower, and that a shift in balance between bombers and short-range systems may be overdue.” That is, the Air Force’s combat fleet needs more bombers, and fewer shorter-range strike aircraft.
Tirpak points to several signs of the growing importance of the bombers, among them is the growing demand from combatant commanders for bombers in their theaters of operation. Since early 2024, “I have seen more activity and more demand signals for bombers than I have seen probably in the last, at least, 5 to 10 years,” said Gen. Thomas Bussiere, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, in a July interview. The demand for bombers is “unyielding,” he said. There is a growing “realization of the value and prominence of long-range strike and the ability to hold at risk anything on the planet at a time and place of our choosing,” Bussiere asserted.
The demand for bombers “to deter in peacetime—including bomber task forces—and conduct long-range strikes in war now far outstrips the capacity of the current force,” said Mark Gunzinger, director of future aerospace concepts and capability assessments at Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “And this demand is growing, even as the bomber force continues to shrink because of budget-driven retirements.”
The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough bombers. The bomber deployments, and the Western use of military power more generally, is actually aimed at stopping the coming into existence of the new paradigm signaled by the growth of the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and other structures of cooperative relationships in place of the geopolitical world of Anglo-American domination. The world in which Bussiere, Gunzinger and Tirpak live is going out of existence, but they don’t acknowledge that. And so, without diplomacy the “demand” for bombers keeps growing for now.
Last week, in fact, there were two examples of “strategic messaging” by the use of bombers. A B-2 bomber deployed participated in a “Quicksink exercise” during which it demonstrated the ability to sink a target ship with a precision guided bomb. The exercise was carried out in the Norwegian Sea, provocatively close to the Barents Sea where Russia’s Northern Fleet has been busy with its own exercises. Secondly, B-52 bombers have deployed to the U.K. for Cobra Warrior 2025, a multi-nation air combat exercise hosted by the Royal Air Force. According to the U.S. Air Force, the objective is to ensure readiness for integrated joint operations and develop skills relevant to future conflicts with near-peer adversaries.
