Abstract
During NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, B-2 stealth bombers undertook daily missions in an operation called “Noble Anvil.” Details are sparse–most news coverage described how pilots took off from Whiteman Air Force base, 60 miles southeast of Kansas City, flew 15-and-a-half hour missions, bombed their targets, and returned home to mow the lawn the next afternoon.
After more than two months of bombing, the day-in-day-out use of the B-2–and its B-1 cousin–was the only militarily significant technological development of an otherwise miserable war. Modern intercontinental bombers had joined a prolonged “smart” war; the era of unmanned cruise missiles had been eclipsed; America was launching bombers from its own soil.
In the early hours of the bombing campaign, two B-2s made their combat debut as the first planes to penetrate Yugoslav airspace, dropping 32 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) at targets a dozen miles away.
By day 74 of Operation Allied Force, 25 heavy B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers had flown some 250 combat sorties, delivering 2,400 tons of explosives, a third of the ordnance dropped by the entire force of 350 nato fighters and bombers.
Weapons promoters described the B-2s' performance with predictable hyperbole. Lt. Gen. Michael Short, the air war commander, said in an e-mail interview: “Extraordinary accuracy through the weather, high altitude, and stealthy.” Short practically gushes over the B-2s' “incredible missions.”
Because of secrecy and the utter inability of the Pentagon to tell a cogent air-war story, it was virtually impossible to verify Short's assertions. Moreover, the glowing rhetoric backfired at times. Two days before B-2s bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Brig. Gen. Leroy Barnidge, Jr., the Missouri wing commander, crowed that his bombers had caused “zero collateral damage.”
Still, there was no question that the heavy bombers had supplanted F-117 stealth fighters and cruise missiles as the weapons du jour. Enthusiasts hardly wasted a moment before arguing that the Yugoslav experience showed that more two-billion-dollar B-2s (or even a new B-3 bomber!) were needed.
Beyond the battle of bombers versus short-range fighters that rages within the air force and Congress, clearly Allied Force introduced a new tool for American gunboat diplomats.
Given that the United States has fired almost 800 cruise missiles since the bombing of “terrorist” targets last year, this may have been a matter of necessity. Dollar for dollar, enough cash has been launched at Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and Yugoslavia in the form of cruise missiles to buy more than 50,000 JDAMs. Fifty-thousand JDAMs can hit a lot of targets.
Compared with firing million-dollar cruise missiles, some will undoubtedly see the coming of age of B-1 and B-2 bombers as increasing the likelihood that political leaders in Washington will pull the trigger with greater frequency.
But I prefer to see more hopeful consequences in the use of these giant war machines.
First is the move away from cruise missiles. If manned bombers introduce even the slightest hesitation in using force because pilots are put at risk, then shedding the unmanned, no-human-cost missiles will be an enormous step forward.
Second is the nuclear implication of using the modern bombers in conventional combat. As Congress debates appropriating more billions for new bombers, it should first recognize that the United States could significantly enhance its conventional warfighting capabilities by merely stripping all heavy bombers of their nuclear responsibilities.
And as for the “need” for even more bombers: the United States now possesses a force of close to 200 B-1s, B-2s, and B-52s. Less than 15 percent of them were engaged in the Yugoslav war.
Finally, there is that question of waging war from American soil. “There's not a target on the planet that we can't hit,” says General Barnidge. It probably hasn't dawned on the good general that sooner or later someone is going to hit back.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we shouldn't use weapons operating from our own soil merely because it might put us in a potential enemy's sights.
But the use of such intercontinental weapons just might make Americans more hesitant to sign up for future policy-driven war-making ventures. In that, B-2s are wonderfully sobering machines.