Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
2/27/2015
Maj. Gen. Michael Fortney, Air Force Global Strike Command Director of Operations, last week said the Long-Range Strike Bomber will incorporate elements that will allow the aircraft to be nuclear-certified two years after conventional initial operating capacity (IOC), which is slated for the mid-2020s. “It’s going to be built with features and components allowing us to certify it for nuclear missions two years after conventional IOC,” Fortney said on Feb. 18 at the annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit.
Push for ‘Tailored’ Acquisition Policy Fizzles Out
A Feb. 24 Government Accountability Office report on DoD acquisition reform noted that originally, the LRSB program was allowed the flexibility to tailor many of the needed documents and reviews to suit its own acquisition process in lieu of following the department’s typical methodology. But the study notes that, over time, those flexibilities were scaled back. “A few program officials told us that trying to tailor by obtaining waivers for milestone requirements involves significant time and effort, and that it is often easier to simply complete the requirements rather than try to obtain waivers,” the report notes. The study reviewed the “tailoring” approach only in the LRSB and F-22 Increment 3.2B programs.
$2B Earmarked for LRS Capabilities
The unclassified portion of the LRSB’s Future Years’ Defense Program (FYDP) notes $2 billion programmed until 2020 for Long-Range Strike capabilities, including $1.2 billion for research and development on the bomber itself for FY 2016, more than the current appropriated amount of $913.7 million for the bomber. Funding for the aircraft is expected to steadily increase each year of the Future Years’ Defense Plan, peaking in FY 2020 at $3.4 billion. Aviation analysts, industry officials and politicians, including Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), have speculated whether the largely “black” program has moved out of the R&D phase. The Air Force is expected to award a contract this spring to either Northrop Grumman or a Boeing-Lockheed Martin team to build the LRSB.
Fortney’s address largely reaffirmed the Defense Department’s position about the high importance of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy and the stated need to modernize. He also highlighted the existing and planned nuclear capabilities of international actors. “When we speak of the future role for the U.S. nuclear arsenal and look at the strategic landscape, we see states that are seeking the capability, states that are modernizing the capability, states that are saying that are saying they’re reliant on that capability, doctrinally,” he said. “They’re exercising it, they’re testing it, and not all of these states see eye to eye with us.”
