Why the New Bomber is a Good Investment

Should the bomber go the way of the battleship? That is what T.X. Hammes recently suggested here at War on the Rocks (“Rethinking Deep Strike in the 21st Century”).

Hammes urged policymakers to abandon the U.S. Air Force’s Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) program. Recalling procurement debacles like the B-2 and F-35 programs, Hammes argued that policymakers and planners should avoid the risk of another such acquisition fiasco and instead give standoff missiles and the emerging technology of autonomous drones a chance.

Hammes compared the Air Force’s effort to field another manned bomber with the Navy’s attempt after World War I to hold on to the battleship, only to see that increasingly costly platform surpassed by a new technology, swarms of aircraft.

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