THE CASE FOR CONTINUED PRODUCTION OF THE B-2 BOMBER: CENTER ROUNDTABLE SHOWS WHY U.S. CAN’T AFFORD TO STOP NOW

(Washington, D.C.): On the eve of an
historic Senate debate on the future of a
critical defense program — the B-2
“Stealth” bomber — the Center
for Security Policy released a href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-P_64at1″>six-page summary
of its 8 June 1994 Roundtable on the
Future of the Manned Bomber Force. The
summary offers powerful arguments for
preserving the option to procure
additional B-2s as recommended by the
Senate Armed Services Committee in its
action on the FY1995 Defense
authorization bill.

Participants in the Center’s
Roundtable were a number of the most
thoughtful and experienced national
security decision-makers in the country
including: former Secretaries of Defense James
Schlesinger and Caspar
Weinberger; the present
Commander of the Air Combat Command, Gen.
John M. Loh; former Secretary of
the Navy and Defense Department
Comptroller Sean O’Keefe;
former Under Secretaries of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz and Donald
Hicks; and former Under
Secretary of State William
Schneider. Also present were
senior representatives of the
Congressional Budget Office and the
Defense Budget Project.

The Clinton Administration opposes the
Senate Armed Services Committee’s
decision to preserve the option of
building additional B-2s (at a cost of
$150 million in FY1995). The following
are among the reasons for rejecting the
Administration position and an amendment
to the Defense authorization bill
reflecting it which will be offered next
week by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI):

• The emerging dangers to
  U.S. security interests dictate
  that America be able to project
  power credibly, effectively and
  quickly. The
  contraction of the Nation’s
  forward-based defenses only
  increases the value of long-range
  manned bombers inherently capable
  of performing such missions.
• The Clinton Administration’s own
  Bottom-Up Review recognized the
  importance of manned bombers to
  the feasibility of its defense
  strategy: It determined that 100
  bombers would be a key ingredient
  in defeating hostile forces in
  the first of two anticipated
  “Major Regional
  Conflicts.” They would then
  be rapidly shifted to interdict
  the enemy and set the stage for
  victory in the second one. To
  maintain such capability, the
  Defense Department determined
  that a total inventory of some 184
  aircraft would be required.

The present budget does not
provide for that size force to be
retained, however. Instead,
it permits only 107
manned bombers to remain in the
active inventory. And it
shuts down the only production
capacity in United States that
would allow additional bombers to
be built to augment those force
levels, or even to sustain them
in the face of attrition.

• There is no strategic
  rationale for capping the B-2 at
  20 aircraft. To the
  contrary, strategic
  considerations argue powerfully
  for continuing production.

The Center for Security Policy urges
the Senate to permit further study and
debate on this immensely important
national security issue by endorsing its
Armed Services Committee’s wise
recommendation that the option be
preserved to build additional B-2
aircraft.