By Nathan Hodge
February 2, 2010 | 11:30 am
Courtesy Of Wired Blog Network
Last year, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates schwacked the Air Force’s plans to develop a new stealth bomber that would enter service in 2018. Now, it looks like the spirit of Gen. Curtis “bombs away” LeMay lives on: Over the next five years, the Pentagon will be pouring $4 billion into “long-range strike” options, including a next-generation bomber.
In a press conference yesterday, Gates said the newly unveiled Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) renewed emphasis on the military’s need to counter “disruptive, high-tech capabilities” developed by future adversaries. Nuclear weapons have long been the primary deterrent against such threats, but the Defense Department also wants non-nuclear options for reaching targets over long distances, and on very short notice.
Gates said investment in a next-gen bomber would be part of a $4 billion package that would also include the development of a conventional, global strike capability – perhaps based on land, or launched from submarines. Briefing reporters after the unveiling of the QDR, Pentagon policy chief Michele Flournoy said the whole thing would begin with a study of options, but cash might start flowing into development as early as Fiscal Year 2012.
“One of the insights that came out of this QDR was that we needed to take a much more in-depth look at the full range of capabilities for long-range ISR [intelligence surveillance reconnaissance] and precision-strike, and the whole question of a follow-on strategic bomber,” Flournoy said. “And so one of the things we decided in the QDR is that we weren’t ready to make definitive long-term programmatic decisions; that we wanted to make some investments that would keep technological opportunities going, but we wanted to take some time to get this right and to study it in much more depth. So you will see that study ongoing this coming year, with the aim of putting real dollars into the program in — starting in ‘12.”
Equipping submarines with new, longer-range conventional missiles might be part of the menu of options. Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, director, force structure, resources and assessment on the Joint Staff, said the department was “considering whether or not submarine-based, initial strike would be appropriate.”
Prompt global strike, Stanley said, was “principally about deterrence.” But nukes, he added, “play a role still. Our ability to defeat ballistic missiles, the ballistic-missile defense capabilities of this department, play a role in deterrence. So all of those things taken together give us a deterrent posture that we can deter an adversary.”
Of course, none of this should be particularly surprising to Danger Room readers. As we noted earlier, the Pentagon has plenty of what we called “zombie weapons projects“: Programs that get terminated, yet never really go away. Last year, for instance, Air Force thinkers forwarded a number of ideas for saving the next-gen bomber, including something called a nuclear-dedicated unmanned combat aerial vehicle, or ND-UCAV, a robotic plane that might be based on the Navy’s X-47B carrier-capable drone, pictured here.
Refitting subs with conventionally-armed Trident missiles for some hot global strike action is another one of those ideas that refuses to go away. Sounds like a nice, practical idea, right? Well, Noah has written extensively about the risks of modifying Tridents for the global strike mission — and the enormous controversy the idea has generated. As he noted, making it easier for the president to launch a (conventional) intercontinental ballistic missile attack is not necessarily a good thing. That’s why Congress has blocked or severely restricted the conventional Trident program, over and over again.
For starters, you had better be sure that no one mistakes it for a nuclear attack. And your intel needs to be rock-solid. “Our ability to nail down that kind of quality information is patchy, at best,” he wrote in Popular Mechanics. “On March 19, 2003, the United States launched 40 cruise missiles at three locations outside Baghdad in hopes of killing Saddam Hussein and other senior military officials. It turned out the former Iraqi leader wasn’t in any of the locations; the strikes killed at least a dozen people, although it’s not clear if they were civilians or leadership targets.”
[PHOTO: Guy Norris/ARES]
ALSO:
- Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes …
- Insurgents Intercept Drone Video in King-Size Security Breach …
- Air Force Completes Killer Micro-Drone Project
- Pentagon Master Plan: Super-Size My Drone Fleet
- It’s Not a Nuke, Vlad. We Promise!
- Ballistic Missiles vs. Al-Qaeda?
- Missile Mania Just Won’t Die (Updated)
- $100 Million for Worldwide, Instant Strike Weapon
Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/air-forces-zombie-bomber-back-from-the-grave/#ixzz0eQvbSDGL
No comments:
Post a Comment