By Marina Malenic
As officials continue analyzing the Defense Department’s needs and options for a next-generation long-range strike portfolio, one top official said last week that the non- nuclear mission will be the primary focus for any new bomber program that emerges from the review.
“This is focused largely, principally, almost exclusively, on the conventional mission,” Principal Deputy Defense Undersecretary James Miller told reporters during a June 4 lunch in Washington.
The legacy fleet of U.S. nuclear capable bombers has been off alert for many years, Miller noted, and fleet-size reductions are being examined.
“We’re looking at reducing the number that are nuclear capable and converting them to conventional only,” he said. “We’ll have sixty or fewer of the nuclear capable.”
However, he reiterated the administration’s decision in last year’s Nuclear Posture Review to retain the nuclear triad of bombers, ICBMs and submarines indefinitely.
The Defense Department is studying what combination of new and legacy long-range strike capabilities are needed for the next 30 years. While the analysis will affect the Pentagon’s overall Fiscal 2012 budget and longer-term spending blueprints, there will be immediate ramifications for two existing groups of programs–conventional strategic weapons and the next-generation bomber.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates suspended the Air Force’s bomber development plans over a year ago, asking service officials to better flesh out ideas before proceeding. The president’s FY ’11 defense spending request includes $5.7 million for industrial base sustainment, and the FY ’12 request is expected to include substantial bomber seed money.
The United States will likely develop a new bomber aircraft over the next decade, top Air Force officials have said. But Gates and others have made it clear that any such venture would be far more modest than the United States’ last foray into such aircraft development with the Northrop Grumman [NOC] B- 2 stealth bomber.
Miller reiterated the department’s budgetary goals.
“For the bomber, we are looking at more affordable options,” he said. He added that officials are examining how the current and future fleets can be integrated into a portfolio of capabilities.
The Pentagon envisions development of several new weapons capable of everything from long-range and prompt global strike to electronic attack and persistent surveillance, Miller said. DoD officials earlier this year said they are also studying the industrial base and “apportionment of missions and function” to various companies (Defense Daily, March 30).
Miller said that recommendations for prompt global strike will be made soon, with gaming and analysis having been completed recently.
“I’m not prepared to say what the conclusions are at this point,” he added.
The department is meanwhile readying initial tests of Army and Air Force prototypes of a “prompt global strike” (PGS) weapon this summer at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. PGS is expected to deliver a conventional weapon against a target within one hour, anywhere in the world.