Bomber Surge: The Air Force Needs 288 New B-21 Raider Stealth Bombers

David Axe

Security,

Wow. 

For the CSBA plan to become reality, the Air Force would have to request, and Congress would have to approve, potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending over the next few years.

The U.S. Air Force should cut some types of fighters and more than double its fleet of long-range stealth bombers in order to better do battle with Russian and Chinese forces, one influential think tank advised.

(This first appeared last month.)

Those are just two recommendations in a study that Congress in 2018 commissioned from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The CSBA report briefly appeared on the U.S. Defense Department's website before someone removed it. Defense News reporter Valerie Insinna summarized the report in a March 20, 2019 story.

The report recommends the Air Force double down on stealthy, long-range aircraft and cut back on non-stealthy, short-range planes, while also growing the drone fleet at the expense of big, old, manned surveillance planes.

The CSBA report overlaps with the Air Force's own 2018 proposal to grow the force from 312 to 386 operational squadrons in order to meet "the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition with China and Russia."

"The Air Force’s imperative is to compete, deter and win this competition by fielding a force that is lethal, resilient, rapidly adapting and integrates seamlessly with the joint force, allies and partners," the flying branch stated.

But while the Air Force proposal and the CSBA report champion the same stealthy and long-range systems, the think tank recommends a much bigger overall fleet.