As the US Air Force shifts focus to fighting contested airspace, the B-1B Lancer’s average stealth features make it less suitable for modern near-peer conflicts.
After decades of long-range, supersonic service, the B-1B Lancer is slated for retirement. Despite remaining a relatively effective deep-penetration bomber, the B-1B’s days are numbered. The primary factors behind the aircraft’s retirement are a combination of age, cost, mission redundancy, and the US Air Force’s strategic pivot towards future threat environments, i..e, contested airspace against near-peer adversaries, which typically demands better stealth characteristics.
The B-1B Is a Cold War Relic
After a politically tumultuous inception, the B-1B entered service in the 1980s, under the guise of being a replacement for the thirty-year-old B-52 Stratofortress. The B-52 is now slated to serve into the 2050s, well beyond the B-1 B’s service life.
The B-1B was designed to counter Soviet air defenses with high-speed, low-level penetration of enemy airspace, paired with the ability to deliver a large conventional payload. While the B-1B was originally configured for nuclear missions, the aircraft was eventually converted to a strictly conventional configuration in the 1990s, following the signing of arms control treaties between the United States and Russia. In the post-9/11 era, the B-1B became the US Air Force’s workhorse strategic bomber, flying thousands of sorties over Iraq and Afghanistan. The B-1B was heavily relied upon due to its ability to deliver heavy ordnance and loiter for extended periods.
However, the B-1B’s heyday has come to an end; the aircraft has become increasingly expensive and difficult to maintain. Of the 100 B-1Bs originally built, fewer than 60 remain in service, many of which are in poor condition. The entire fleet has been pushed beyond the parameters for which the aircraft were originally designed. Decades of forever wars, particularly in desert climates, have led to significant structural fatigue in the B-1B fleet, which has endured sustained combat operations at high speeds and low altitudes.
Furthermore, the B-1B’s distinctive swing-wing design is a complex mechanical system, which further compounds the aircraft’s maintenance burden, making the B-1B one of the most labor-intensive and expensive aircraft in the US Air Force inventory. The result has been a steady decline in mission-ready rates; reports indicate that fewer than half of the B-1B fleet is mission-ready at any given time.
The Air Force’s B-21 Lancer Can Do What the B-1B Can’t
Strategically, the B-1B is no longer the optimal choice for the US Air Force. As the United States shifts from conflicts in permissive airspace, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, to conflicts in contested airspace like China and Russia, whose air defense systems have become more sophisticated, the B-1 B will not be sufficient to penetrate near-peer air defenses. The aircraft is slated to be replaced by the B-21 Raider, which was explicitly designed to penetrate such airspace—even where sophisticated detection measures are in place. The shift away from the B-1B represents a significant change in America’s strategic philosophy—away from speed and power, and towards stealth.
The B-1B was an effective aircraft for the United States during its unipolar moment. However, against rising peers with modern defense systems, the B-1B is outdated.
About the Author: Harrison Kass
Harrison Kass is a Senior Defense and National Security Writer at The National Interest. Kass is an attorney and former political candidate who joined the US Air Force as a pilot trainee before being medically discharged. He focuses on military strategy, aerospace, and global security affairs. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global Journalism and International Relations from NYU
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
