The U.S. Manned Bomber and Strategic Deterrence in the 1990s

The US. Manned Bomber and Strategic Deterrence i n the 1990s Michael E. Brown I Policy-makers in the United States are again debating the future of the strategic triad. How to modernize the manned bomber force has become a central question in this debate. Modernization decisions have to be made with care because new weapons stay in the force structure for a long time: the last B-52 was delivered to the U.S. Air Force in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis almost thirty years ago. In making decisions about new weapons, therefore, it is important to anticipate strategic trends as well as life-cycle costs. Unfortunately, the bomber modernization debate in the United States today has yet to focus on two critical issues: the long-term pre-launch survivability and cost effectiveness of the B-1B and B-2 bombers.' Bomber pre-launch survivability problems have received relatively little attention in recent years. Most analysts believe that the U.S. strategicbomber force is not vulnerable to a Soviet surprise attack, because the Soviet Union The author would like to thank Hans Binnendijk, Bruce Blair, Chris Bowie, Stanley Brown, Andy Butfoy, Ian Carter, Ivo Daalder, Don Daniel, Lynn Davis, Renee de Nevers, Bonita Dombey, Mike Dziedzic, FranGois Heisbourg, Louise Hodgden, Don Kerr, Jim McCoy, John Mearsheimer, Emerson Niou, Jim Quinlivan, Mitchell Reiss, Nick Wheeler, Dean Wilkening, and Mike Williams for their invaluable assistance. None bears any responsibility for the arguments expressed herein. Michael E. Brown is Senior Research Fellow in U.S. Security Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London. He is the author of Flying Blind: Decision Making in the U.S. Strategic Bomber Program (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming). 1. The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) modernization debate, on the other hand, has focused on the pre-launch survivability of the rail garrison MX and the cost-effectiveness of the road-mobile Midgetman, also known as the small intercontinental ballistic missile (SICBM).For an overview of this debate, see Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989, Hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 100th Cong., 1st sess., February-April 1987, Part 4, pp. 1885-2059; "Policy Focus: The ICBM Land-Basing Controversy ," International Security, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall 1987), pp. 152-202; M X Rail Garrison and Small ICBM: A Program Review, Report of the House Armed Services Committee, 100th Cong., 1st sess., March 1988; Barry E. Fridling and John R. Harvey, "On the Wrong Track? An Assessment of MX Rail Garrison Basing," Internationaf Security, Vol. 13, NO.3 (Winter 1988/89), pp. 113-141; and R. Jeffrey Smith, "Putting Missiles on the Road-and the Rails," Washington Post, April 24, 1989, p. 1. International Security, Fall 1989 (Vol. 14, No. 2) 0 1989by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. International Security 14:2 I 6 would have to mass ”large numbers of submarines near U.S. coasts” in order to hold American bombers at risk.*The United States, it is said, would detect Soviet submarine movements and place most of its bombers on a higher or ”generated” alert before the attack actually began. Current thinking holds that this would “ensure the survivability of the bulk of the bomber f ~ r c e . ” ~ Most analysts believe, moreover, that large numbers of American bombers would survive a Soviet first strike even if it was not preceded by hours of strategic warning: even in an ”ungenerated” situation, roughly 30 percent of the bomber force would be on runway alert, fully armed and ready to take off within minutes after being notified that an attack had been l a ~ n c h e d . ~ Bomber survival rates would be bolstered by the fact that the Soviet Union would find it difficult to launch a coordinated attack on American bomber bases and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos, given the forces it fields today.5 The cost-effectiveness issue has not been raised in the bomber modernization debate because the manned bomber currently makes some unique contributions to the U.S. deterrent posture. Direct comparisons with the ICBM and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM)legs...