Nixon launched it, Carter killed it and Reagan resurrected it. In its infancy, the Air Force’s B-1 bomber was a quick and dirty military metaphor — Republicans wanted to buy weapons to defend the nation from the Soviet Union, and Democrats didn’t. Now it could become a different kind of symbol: the Air Force is thinking of retiring its total 66-plane B-1 fleet to hit budget targets set by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Top Air Force officials met behind closed doors late last week to determine if permanently grounding the B-1 fleet makes sense.
No decision has yet been announced, and there’s always a chance the service is bluffing. After all, news of the B-1 early retirement first cropped up in a blog maintained by Air Force magazine, an independent publication whose interests still tend to be pretty much in sync with those of the Air Force itself.
But the fact that the topic is even up for discussion is significant for three reasons. First of all, the idea that the B-1’s future is in doubt highlights just how tight Air Force leaders believe military budgets are going to get. “The gusher [of post 9/11 defense spending] has been turned off,” Gates warned last month, “and will stay off for a good period of time.” Secondly, the Air Force seems to be trying to take the initiative in resetting budget priorities, instead of having them imposed from above by Gates or the White House. Finally, the notion that the B-1’s fate is in play suggests just how quickly air warfare is changing.
The history of the B-1 Lancer since it went operational in 1986 captures air warfare in a nutshell. It was designed for nuclear war with the Soviet Union, but that mission evaporated with the Cold War’s end. Even though the Pentagon still maintains its so-called “nuclear triad” capable of delivering nuclear warheads via submarines, land-based missiles and bombers, the B-1 fleet no longer has that mission
