By Marina Malenic
A high-level working group will begin briefing options for future long-range strike to Pentagon officials next month, an Air Force official said last week.
“This process will take the better part of a year, but some major findings are expected to work their way up the food chain by next month,” the official told Defense Daily on condition of anonymity. “There will be a series of briefings, starting with that one.”
The working group, created by Defense Secretary Robert Gates late last year, will provide analysis on what combination of long-range strike capabilities is needed for the next 30 years, according to the source. The group includes representatives from the Defense Department’s policy office, the office of cost assessment and program evaluation (CAPE), the services and the Joint Staff.
The initial meeting of the group, led by Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter, was held on March 1.
While the group’s analysis will affect the Pentagon’s overall FY 2012 budget and longer-term spending blueprints, there will also be immediate ramifications for two existing groups of programs–conventional strategic weapons and the Air Force’s next-generation bomber, the source said.
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 designed to deliver a conventional weapon against a target within one hour, anywhere in the world.
On the bomber, working group members are examining how the current and future fleets can be integrated into a portfolio of capabilities.
“A future bomber platform is being looked at as part of a family of systems,” the source said. “PGS also plays into that. It’s a question of how much do you need of each type of capability.”
The Pentagon envisions development of several new weapons capable of everything from long-range and prompt global strike to electronic attack and persistent surveillance, Air Force officials have said. Carter said earlier this month that his office has begun studying the industrial base and “apportionment of missions and function” to various companies.
The United States will likely develop a new bomber aircraft over the next decade, top Air Force officials have said. But Defense Secretary Robert 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.
Gates suspended the Air Force’s next-generation bomber development effort 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 bomber and nuclear cruise missile industrial base sustainment. The FY ’12 request is expected to include substantial bomber seed money.