Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
11/7/2014
Responding to proposals by arms control advocates calling for a 10-year delay of the long-range strike bomber, a top Air Force official this week cited the inefficiency of delaying projects and called for officials to move more quickly to modernize nuclear bombers. “At the end of the day, we just have to get on with getting on,” said Lt. Gen. Stephen L. Hoog, the service’s assistant vice chief of staff. “We’ve got to get on with recapitalizing because of all the flexibility it gives you. The B-52 is an incredible, flexible airplane. We get it. But slippage to the right 10 years is how we got to where we are today.”
Speaking in Arlington, Va., as part of the Air Force Association breakfast series, Hoog tied bombers to the prominence of air power across both the Air Force and Navy, but underscored a curious situation in which the Navy procures more aircraft than the Air Force. “How is that?” Hoog said. “How is it that their aviation budget is bigger than the Air Force’s is? Because everybody’s thinking, ‘Just delay it another 10 years.’” He said no one can predict the net effect of delaying construction on new aircraft. “Look at the people who might be the contenders across the world in 10 to 15 years and see what they’re investing in,” Hoog said. “If you want to see what the enemy fears, go look at what they’re investing in and what they’re trying to counter, and that will probably give you a pretty good idea about where the real challenges lie ahead. And I think anyone who’s watched the U.S. and our allies fight for the last 20 or 30 years realizes that if you can keep the allies of the U.S. out of air superiority, all the things that follow suddenly become difficult to impossible.”
Although current nuclear forces could most likely operate another 10 years, modernization must begin at some point, Hoog said. “You want an Air Force that can go defeat an adversary, not just in 2023, but into the future,” he said, adding that budget discussions eat up time that could otherwise be used toward modernization. “To go through the process takes you longer than it does to bend the iron,” he said.
Reserving Funding
The Air Force has carved out funding for the nuclear enterprise under Budget Control Act funding levels and “has more” in the president’s budget, Hoog said, declining to discuss exact figures. “At the end of the day, it’s a [Defense Department] issue, i.e. how much is the DoD going to value the nuclear enterprise at large?” Hoog said. “So we’ve carved out resources. We know there’s a need for more, and they’re making the case to our leadership and [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] about if we have the next available dollar, where we would put it in the nuclear enterprise to shore it up.”
Hoog: Air Force ‘Keen’ on LRSO and B61; F-35 Nuclear Capability on Track
While Hoog said the Air Force is “keen” on the value of both the long-range standoff weapon and the B61 gravity bomb, he declined to provide an update on the forthcoming decision of whether to scrap plans for the LRSO amid budget constraints, while highlighting “timing” vis a vis the fiscal environment as the key factor in deciding the future of the air-launched cruise missile replacement. Hoog also confirmed that plans to make the F-35 nuclear-capable were on track. “That’s interested some of our key allies. The question is timing on when it needs to be IOC [initial operating capability] in that capacity: Is it an [Increment] 4 thing or an Inc. 4.5 event?” he said, referring to the phases of construction. Block 4 software will expand the target area around the F-35. Currently, Block 4A (Increment 4) is expected to be completed in 2021, with Block 4B (Increment 4.5) planned for 2023. Block 4B will also entail making the aircraft nuclear-capable.
NS&D Monitor reported on Oct. 10 that Andrew Weber, then assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical & biological defense programs, said the Obama Administration was “taking a hard look” at whether it needs to replace the ALCM and whether the bomber leg of the triad could be preserved exclusively by the B61. A decision has not been announced.
