Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
1/16/2015
During what is expected to be his last official visit to a U.S. nuclear enterprise base as Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel on Jan. 13 told B-2 airmen serving at Whiteman AFB that the Air Force cannot afford to fall behind in nuclear modernization efforts and said work on the long-range strike bomber (LRSB) should continue. The Air Force last summer released a Request for Proposals for the estimated $80 billion LRSB planned to debut in the mid-2020s. “That process has to be done,” Hagel said. “We have begun.” The LRSB is expected to replace the B-2 after its planned retirement in the 2040s, and Hagel emphasized the need to invest in the follow-on. “The B-2’s a tremendous, tremendous plane, the best in the world,” Hagel said. “But [other countries’] modernization continues to push us out of our war capability. … [W]hen your sons and daughters come into this business, we will have failed them terribly, dangerously so, if we don’t make the investments now to start building out just as all of our fathers, our grandfathers and grandmothers did. That’s why we have a B-2 today, because we had the foresight to invest in it.”
‘Committing More Resources’
While at Whiteman, Hagel also highlighted recent reforms announced for the nuclear enterprise, and reiterated that he and his colleagues were “committing more resources” in the Defense Department budget to be submitted to Capitol Hill on Feb. 2. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James in her State of the Air Force speech Jan. 15 said she could not share much about the Obama Administration’s budget request until submittal, but reiterated that a key investment area would be the nuclear enterprise. Hagel on Nov. 14 announced DoD plans to increase funding for the U.S. nuclear enterprise by 10 percent over the next five years to help reform the nation’s aging nuclear deterrent, after the Pentagon requested $15 billion for the nuclear enterprise in Fiscal Year 2015.
Welsh Hopeful to Hit 80 to 100 LRSBs by Mid-2040s
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III said during the State of the Air Force event he hoped the U.S. would have its target number of 80 to 100 LRSBs by the mid-2040s. “We’ve stuck with that number for a very specific reason,” he said. “We believe that’s the number it takes, after doing some very significant operational analysis, to do nuclear deterrence and to do a large scale air campaign. You need that number of bombers to actually turn the number of sorties we have to fly.”
During a Jan. 14 event titled “Bending the Cost Curve” at the Atlantic Council in Washington, James said the Air Force had not changed any performance parameters for the LRSB, one of the service’s top three acquisition priorities. “[W]hen we roll out the FY 16 budget…the budget line will be similar to what you [see] in ‘15, projected into ‘16,” she said. “So you’re not going to see any big changes there. Of course we’re on track for our competition, but it remains a top priority. It is truly the future of our bomber force so we’re going to invest in it.” The FY 2015 appropriations bill approved the Obama Administration’s $913.7 million request for RDT&E on the LRS-B. “Our adversaries have to know and have to believe, and essentially have to trust that we have that deterrent capability, that in fact we had everything we say we have,” Hagel said at Whiteman. “And we’ll use it if we need to use it to defend this country and our allies.”
Hagel Touts FIP
During his Whiteman visit, Hagel also touted the Force Improvement Program, and signaled an increasing DoD focus on support of airmen while recognizing how airmen’s confidence in one another can help the nuclear mission. “I think sometimes some of those important points are not integrated enough into our overall scope, the overall health of our enterprise of what you do,” he said. “And I want you to be assured that we know that in Washington. Your leaders know that, your chiefs know that, the people that you have leading all of you know that, and I know you live it right here on this base here every day.”
