There is a B-21.
Northrop Grumman captureThe new B-21 Raider stealth bomber was unveiled in a ceremony at the Air Force's secretive Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
The first Boeing F-15C Eagle fighters belonging to the 18th Wing of the US Air Force left a base in Japan a day earlier.
The 18th Wing F-15s are scheduled to leave Okinawa over the next two years. The six U.S. Air National Guard squadrons fly F-15Cs. Storage in Arizona will be used by others.
Both events are related. In the event of a war with China, the service is relying on the B-21s to do most of the heavy fighting.
The change from fighters to bombers isn't irreversible. Alaska-based F-22s arrived around the same time as the first F-15s, so the Air Force plans to keep rotating them through Kadena.
The F-16s that fly from Misawa Air Force Base in northern Japan are part of the USAF wing. The U.S. Navy usually has at least one aircraft carrier and assault ship in the western Pacific, each with its own fighters.
The Pentagon isn't counting on those fighters to win a war. The F-15C is the longest-range fighter in the United States, but it can only fly on internal fuel.
The main Air Force base for operations in the western Pacific is located close to Taiwan and the same distance from mainland China as the west. The only base in the region that can project fighters into the air space around Taiwan is Kadena.
The problem for U.S. forces is that after two decades of relentless modernization, the PLA now has thousands of missiles that can hit Kadena.
In the early hours of a war, it is likely that the PLA would aim to destroy Kadena. The 18th Wing can survive with Hardened aircraft shelters. There are no defensive measures that can stop Kadena from taking so many hits.
Pentagon planners are aware of this. They want to pull U.S. air power away from China to bases beyond the range of most of the missiles. The main USAF bomber hub is Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. The airfield in Darwin, Australia is close to China.
All of the air bases have one thing in common: they are too far away from China to project fighter aircraft into combat around Taiwan.
There is no chance of sustaining an air campaign over the western Pacific. Fighter escort is required for long-range bombers that don't need it. That would mean stealth bombers.
There are only 20 B-2 stealth bombers in the inventory. Too little for a large campaign. The current bomber fleet consists of non-stealthy B-1s and B-2s.
The center is for strategic and international studies.
The B-21 has a radar-scattering shape and has an unre fueled range of 6,000 miles. It's not clear whether the Air Force can produce the bombers quickly or at an acceptable cost.
The Air Force wanted to produce enough new stealth bombers to replace the B-2s and B-1s in the next two decades and then expand the bomber fleet to at least 175 total airframes over the next 10 years.
The Air Force should double the bomber inventory with up to 200 B-21s replacing the B-1s and B-2s.
With a network of bases outside the range of most of China's missiles, the USAF's main contribution to any war with China could be the Raider force.
Rolling out the bomber is the beginning of a journey. The B-21 needs to be tested and scaled up to keep the unit cost low.
The Pentagon used to plan to acquire 132 B-2s. Today's tiny force of essentially priceless stealth bombers is the result of deep cuts that only increased the per-plane cost.
The Air Force wants the B-21 to cost $750 million, but it could end up being a failure. It would be a disaster for the U.S. strategy in the Pacific. The Raider program is needed by the Pentagon.
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