What if the U.S. Air Force Never Built the B-2 Stealth Bomber?

What if the Air Force Never Built the B-2 bomber? - The holiday film "It's a Wonderful Life" – which for a while due to a clerical error involving its copyright resulted in almost nonstop showings in the late 1980s and early 1990s on local TV stations – told the story of a man who gave up on his personal dreams and contemplated suicide until his guardian angel showed him what the world would be like if he didn't exist.

In the spirit of that film, we can wonder what the world may have been like with the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit – a bomber that due to its high costs saw its production run cut from a planned 132 to just 21.

B-2: It's Much More Than a Wonderful Bomber

A world without the B-2 Spirit likely wouldn't be all that different from the world of today – but arguably, the United States Air Force would have found its role in numerous conflicts.

Though the B-2 was primarily designed as a nuclear bomber – and continues to serve as part of the United States' nuclear triad – the Spirit was first used in combat to drop conventional non-nuclear ordnance in the Kosovo War in 1999.

What is notable about the B-2 Spirit is that during most of its combat operations, the aircraft flew out of Whiteman Air Force Base (AFB), Missouri. During Operation Allied Force over the skies of the former Yugoslavia, in which the Spirits were responsible for destroying 33 percent of all Serbian targets in the first eight weeks, those missions were flown non-stop to Kosovo and back.

It is doubtful that the Rockwell B-1B Lancer or Boeing B-52 Stratofortress aircraft could have conducted the bombing operations in the same way.

In support of Operation Enduring Freedom beginning in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and New York City's World Trade Center, the B-2 went on to fly some of its longest missions to date — traveling from Whiteman AFB to Afghanistan and back. That required the two-person crew to spend upwards of 20 hours in the cockpit.

Certainly, their guardian angels earned their wings while watching over them!

Then as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, B-2 Spirits flew 22 sorties from forward operation locations, yet 27 sorties were still conducted from Whiteman AFB. In total, the B-2s delivered more than 1.5 million pounds of munitions during that air campaign.

More recently, three B-2s flew later missions on the first night of Operation Odyssey Dawn, attacking high-priority Libyan targets in March 2011.

We Wouldn't Have the Bomber We Need

The B-2 Spirit was quite controversial due to its high costs, even before the end of the Cold War dramatically reduced the need for a stealth aircraft that could strike deep in an adversary's territory.

The twenty-one B-2s that were produced had an average cost of $2.13 billion in 1997 dollars – but as noted, the aircraft has proven invaluable. While the Cold War ended, the threat to American freedom hasn't subsided.

It is now America's near-peer adversaries, including Russia and China that pose the greatest danger to the nation, and each is building more advanced bombers. The U.S. Air Force's B-2 Spirit remains a capable warbird today, but more importantly, it allowed the United States to have a lead in developing the next generation of long-range strategic bombers.

Paving the Way for the B-21 Raider

It was just a year ago that the U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman officially unveiled another flying wing, the B-21 Raider — an aircraft that is now on track to enter service by the end of the decade. Current plans call for the Raider to replace the B-1 and B-2 bombers by the early 2030s, while it will operate alongside the B-52 fleet until that Cold War-era warbird is finally retired by the late 2040s or early 2050s.

The B-21 Raider took its maiden flight just last month, and there is no denying that the development of the B-2 aided Northrop Grumman's efforts to reduce the cost and even the development time of the B-21 Raider. At the same time, the B-21 should still be seen as a significant leap forward in the evolutionary sense. The raider certainly has some B-2 DNA — including its unique stealth features such as its low-observability airframe design and utilization of radar-absorbent materials (RAMs) – while it is the bomber that will be able to take a fight to an enemy anywhere in the world.

It could be argued that the B-2 Spirit will serve as America's guardian angel as a flying wing until the B-21 Raider is ready to fill that role.

Author Experience and Expertise

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.

All images are Creative Commons.