Election ’96 Endgame: There’s Still Time– and An Urgent Need — to Address Security Policy Issues

(Washington, D.C.): The almost
complete absence of discussion of foreign
and defense policy in the course of the
1996 Presidential campaign is more than a
lost opportunity — it is a serious
disservice to the American people. There
is, after all, a distinct possibility
that they will be confronted over the
next four years with one or more crises
that will threaten vital U.S. interests,
and perhaps the American homeland itself.
It should be the solemn
responsibility of those who hope to
occupy the White House during the period
ahead to educate the public about the
dangers posed by such international
flashpoints, and to lay out what they
intend to do to prevent them from
eventuating and how they propose to deal
with them should they arise.

‘The Gathering Storm’

Take, for example, four ominous
developments: Syrian forces
are massing near Israel’s northern
border, a provocative step that could
suggest preparations for an attack and
invites Israeli preemption. Iran
is acquiring submarines, fast patrol
boats, advanced attack helicopters,
missiles and weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) that would give it a plausible
capability to deny — or selectively
restrict — access to the Persian Gulf to
foreign shipping. A war of words now
inflaming relations between Japan
and China over islands both
claim could prove the catalyst for
clashes that would make Beijing’s recent
intimidation of Taiwan seem like a day at
the beach. And the CIA has just concluded
that the unraveling political situation
in Russia may result in
a breakdown of military order and
discipline, possibly giving rise to an
increased danger that mutinous units
might threaten, or even execute,
unauthorized launches of nuclear-armed
missiles at the United States.

These developments have at least two
things in common: First, they
could require the United States to be
able to bring military power to bear
quickly, discriminately and decisively —
quite possibly without the support or
permission of others and, ideally,
without putting large numbers of American
personnel in harm’s way.
President Clinton’s recent, grossly
inadequate response to Iraqi aggression
in the Kurdish “safe haven”
was, in part, due to the limitations
inherent in using unmanned sea- and
air-launched cruise missiles to perform
such a power projection function.

Enter the B-2: Fortunately,
the U.S. Air Force recently conducted an
exercise that suggests the impressive
contribution the B-2 Stealth bomber can
make to projecting American power
effectively over intercontinental
distances, without support from friendly
nations, without an armada of supporting
aircraft and without exposing significant
numbers of Americans to hostile fire. On
8 October 1996, three B-2’s flew
from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri
to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, where
they dropped 16 precision-guided 2,000
pound GATS/GAM bombs on 16 targets
from an altitude of 40,000 feet.
The GATS/GAM system (which stands for
Global Positioning Satellite-Aided
Targeting System/GPS-Aided Munition)
modifies a standard Mark-84 conventional
bomb with a GPS receiver and inertial
navigation unit to create an inexpensive
and highly lethal weapon. According to
the Pentagon, every one
of the 16 GATS/GAM bombs dropped by the
B-2s hit its 8-by-20 foot targets.

This exercise demonstrates the
inherent ability of the B-2 bomber to
perform tasks other than the nuclear
strikes for which it was initially
principally intended. It is this
flexibility that critics of the B-2 —
who regularly refer to the aircraft as a
“relic of the Cold War” whose
mission has “evaporated” —
fail to appreciate or acknowledge.

The Case for More B-2s: The
second thing the four aforementioned
scenarios have in common is that none
of them was contemplated in a study
intended to help determine the number of
B-2 bombers the United States will
require in the years ahead. This
Heavy Bomber Force Study (HBFS) was
produced for the Pentagon in May 1995 by
the Institute for Defense Analyses. The
HBFS concluded that the Nation’s future
defense needs could be satisfied with the
then-planned force of 20 B-2s. href=”96-D108.html#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾
It has been routinely cited by those
opposed to bipartisan congressional
efforts to procure additional B-2
bombers.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

As the Center for Security Policy
noted at the time href=”96-D108.html#N_2_”>⁽²⁾,
the questionable assumptions upon which
this study was based call seriously into
question the validity of its findings.
The HBFS not only assumed that the sole
threats for which the bomber force needed
to be sized were the possibility of two,
nearly simultaneous major regional
conflicts (MRC) involving Iraq
and North Korea. It went
on to project that the United States
could count on having fourteen
days of warning before the
initiation of hostilities by the
aggressor in the first MRC, giving the
U.S. time to move tactical aircraft and
other forces into the theater of battle.
The HBFS also assumes that there will be bases
“in theater” from
which tactical aircraft will be able to
operate, and that the heavy
bombers will be able to move, or
“swing” from one MRC to the
other.

Happily, an important analytical
rebuttal to the assumptions — and,
therefore, to the resulting conclusions
— of the Heavy Bomber Force Study has
recently been produced by the respected
National Institute for Public Policy
(NIPP). This report, authored by Kurt
Guthe and entitled A Precisely-Guided
Analytic Bomb: The Defense Department’s
Heavy Bomber Force Study href=”96-D108.html#N_3_”>⁽³⁾,
establishes why the HBFS, and assertions
based upon it, should not be
used to guide future U.S. bomber force
structure decisions.

The following are among the key NIPP
findings that support the Center
for Security Policy’s long-standing
conviction that the United States will
require considerably more than
21 B-2s: href=”96-D108.html#N_4_”>⁽⁴⁾

• “…the HBFS is so
  narrow in scope and defective in
  approach that it fails to
  recognize the real utility heavy
  bombers, especially the B-2, will
  have in the emerging security
  environment. The deficiencies of
  the HBFS, in combination, yield
  an underestimate of the number of
  B-2s necessary for future
  conflicts….Ending B-2
  production at 21 aircraft on the
  basis of the HBFS would leave the
  United States with a small and
  aging bomber force during an era
  in which the value of long-range
  air power almost certainly will
  grow.”

• “Despite the significant
  uncertainties that attend the
  emerging post-Cold War security
  environment, [the HBFS]
  concentrates on just two
  adversaries and one type of war,
  excluding other potential enemies
  and conflicts. [For
  example], the HBFS:
• “Discounts
  surprise attack,
  a standard gambit of
  modern aggressors.
• “Predicts
  the United States readily
  and with relative
  impunity can amass huge
  expeditionary forces near
  the borders of enemies
  possessing WMD and
  missiles.
• “Expects
  one-half to two-thirds of
  deployed bombers, in
  a feat untried in wartime,
  to break off from
  grueling combat in one
  MRC, rapidly deploy to
  another theater, and
  conduct sustained
  operations to blunt an
  armored invasion.
• “Uses
  questionable methods to
  compare the levels of
  effectiveness among
  bombers, tactical strike
  aircraft and precision
  guided munitions while
  failing to discuss the
  trade-offs between
  bombers and other major
  force elements.
  [And]
• “Neglects to
  account for non-trivial
  peacetime attrition
  in the planned bomber
  force and the
  high cost of a few
  thousand, yet-unbuilt
  stealthy tactical
  aircraft.

“In all, these faults
make the HBFS a poor basis for
deciding the size of the B-2
force.”

• “…Different and
  equally or more plausible
  assumptions about the nature of
  future conflicts and U.S.
  capabilities for fighting those
  wars produce a greater demand for
  heavy bombers.
  Conditions that could increase
  demand include:
1. new adversaries [besides
   North Korea and Iraq];
2. unexpected areas
   of conflict;
3. short- or
   no-warning attacks
   against allies;
4. delays in
   responding to warning;
5. reluctance of
   decision-makers to move
   forces to theaters under
   the shadow of WMD;
6. lack of fighter
   escorts for non-stealthy
   bombers;
7. lengthy overseas
   buildups of U.S. air,
   ground and naval forces;
8. conflicts in
   regions where bases are
   lacking and many targets
   are beyond the range of
   tactical strike aircraft;
9. bases vulnerable
   to nuclear, chemical, or
   biological attack;
10. truly simultaneous
    regional conflicts;
    and
11. difficulties in
    swinging bombers between
    conflicts.”
    (Emphasis added
    throughout.)

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy
believes that the next President of the
United States is going to have to reckon
with circumstances that, like those
immediately above, are far more difficult
to contend with than the stylized two,
nearly simultaneous MRC scenario
addressed by the Heavy Bomber Force
Study. Since a large and flexible B-2
force may well prove indispensable
to the next President’s efforts to deter
— and, in the event deterrence fails —
to respond effectively to such
contingencies, it is incumbent on
the candidates to engage directly and
thoroughly about the wisdom of
terminating production at just 21 of
these aircraft.

Frankly, it is inconceivable that any
other nation on earth blessed with the
resources of the United States, charged
with the global responsibilities of this
Nation and facing the world-wide
challenges that lie ahead would
voluntarily decide to liquidate its
capacity to produce B-2 bombers. America
should not do so either — certainly not
without a serious and informed debate at
the highest levels of the body politic.

– 30 –

1. Earlier this
year, in a transparent bid to curry favor
with California aerospace workers without
committing to an increased B-2 buy,
President Clinton ordered a B-2 used as a
test article to be given full operational
capability, giving rise to a new planned
total inventory of 21 bombers.

2. See Garbage
In, Garbage Out: Unwarranted Assumptions
Skew I.D.A. Study’s Findings; U.S. Still
Needs More Bombers ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=95-D_34″>No. 95-D 34,
17 May 1995).

3. This NIPP study
is to be published in the January-March
1997 edition of Comparative Strategy.

4. See The
Case for Continued Production of the B-2
Bomber: Center Roundtable Shows Why the
U.S. Can’t Afford to Stop Now
(No. 94-P
64, 24 June 1994) and
When Seven SecDefs Speak, Will Congress
Listen? New Voices Join Center’s Call for
More B-2 Bombers ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=95-D_01″>No. 95-D 01,
6 January 1995).