25 April 2015

How America's Bombers Could Become Even More Deadly

April 23, 2015

The US Air Force announced this week that it will be consolidating all its heavy bombers in its Global Strike Command. This realignment will be culturally significant, as it will provide a single organizational home to all big bomber crews, including those of the forthcoming Long-Range Strike Bombers (LRS-Bs). While the requirements of the LRS-B are a public mystery, technological trends point to an expansive mission set. With that art of the possible emerging, the organizational heft of this new ‘Bomber Command’ may then spur some really new thinking, which the USAF genuinely needs for dealing with the mounting threat from China.

Let’s start with the org chart. GSC was (re)established in 2009, when Air Force Headquarters combined the nuclear-capable B-52Hs and B-2As of the 8th Air Force with the Minuteman III missiles of the 20th Air Force. But the de-nuclearized B-1Bs stayed behind as part of the 12th Air Force of Air Combat Command, where they had resided since 1992, when ACC was formed from the the merger of the Cold War Tactical and Strategic Air Commands. 

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