Aw&ST:
New Strategy Would Cut F-35s, Boost Bombers and UAVs
Today’s U.S. power-projection forces, and those currently planned for the future, will not be able to operate effectively or efficiently against anti-access/area-denial (A2AD) weapons and doctrine being developed by China and other adversaries, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) that details a new approach to defense strategy known as Third Offset.
Instead, the Pentagon should immediately refocus its development efforts on a global surveillance and strike (GSS) system based on long-range, very stealthy aircraft—including the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) and a new family of unmanned combat air systems (UCAS)—and submarines. Tactical fighter, surface combatant and heavy land-force programs should be cut back, the report suggests, to pay the bills and rebalance the force.
The CSBA report carries far more weight than usual because it was drafted under the leadership of deputy defense secretary Robert Work (AW&ST March 31, p. 20) and his senior advisers, according to a source directly involved in its production. It is intended to launch a detailed discussion of a major change in national strategy, inside and outside the Pentagon. Author Robert Martinage, a former senior Pentagon official, “can neither confirm nor deny” the extent of Work’s involvement, he tells Aviation Week.
The CSBA paper details the roles of new and existing systems in the Third Offset strategy. It recommends a larger role for the Long-Range Strike Bomber, suggesting that the program could be “accelerated and expanded.” Along with the B-2 and another proposed new weapon, a boost-glide missile launched from submarines, it is the only system able to deal with hard and deeply buried targets in a medium- to high-threat environment. According to the paper, too, it has a stand-in airborne electronic attack capability and can perform high-volume precision strike missions............
Funding the new N-UCAS and MQ-X could call for “reduction in manned tactical aviation force structure” across all services and “scaled-back procurement of all F-35 variants—including possible cancellation of the F-35C, replaced with advanced Super Hornets and eventually N-UCAS.” In July 2011, during Work’s tenure as deputy Navy secretary, he directed the service to study alternatives to the F-35B/C.
The limits on the effectiveness of fighters—including the “semi-stealthy” F-35, so described to discriminate it from the wide-band, all-aspect stealth technology of the UAVs and LRS-B—include survivability and their dependence on tankers, which are vulnerable and difficult to protect. Martinage concurs with Aviation Week’s assessment of the Chengdu J-20 as an offensive counter-air fighter aimed at tankers and other air assets. “With an extended-range air-to-air missile the J-20 can push the tanker 800-900 mi. back. [U.S.] fighters can’t even make it to the beach.”...........