The warplane’s ongoing evolution is a credit to American ingenuity – and an indictment of U.S. policymaking.
America’s oldest bomber is also America’s busiest bomber. Check your news feed, mil blogs or Pentagon press releases, and you’ll see a seemingly endless stream of stories featuring B-52 bombers reassuring our allies and signaling our adversaries.
In January, for instance, B-52s rotated into Guam for a forward-deployment mission geared toward training with allies and underscoring America’s commitment to a stable Indo-Pacific. In February, B-52s flew over Singapore and conducted exercises with the Philippine air force. In May, B-52s carried out exercises with the Swedish armed forces. In June, B-52s flying out of Britain rumbled over the Netherlands, Germany, the Baltics, Poland and into Eastern Europe, cruising just “a few dozen kilometers from Russian territory.” That same month, a package of B-52s thundered over the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and parts of South America. In July, a package of B-52s flew over the North Sea and Barents Sea, through Finnish airspace (a first), and then landed in Romania (another first). One of the bombers, as The National Interest reports, then sortied to the Middle East, flying over Greece, the Mediterranean, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Persian Gulf. In September, B-52s deployed to Poland to conduct exercises with air assets from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Britain.
All these missions, exercises and sorties are being carried out by an aircraft designed before President Dwight Eisenhower took the oath of office. In fact, Eisenhower, speaking at an event in 1953, pointed to the brand-new B-52 bomber and applauded the “vision … imagination … courage … perseverance” of its designers, ground crews, bombardiers, and pilots. The event, by the way, was a celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight.
More than 70 years later, America is still relying on the B-52 to defend its interests and deter its enemies. That puts the age of this ageless bomber in some perspective.
Multiple missions After serving as the workhorse of the Vietnam War, the B-52 contributed to Operation Desert Storm and Operation Allied Force in the 1990s, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom in the first decade of the 2000s, and anti-ISIS operations in the 2010s.
The ultra-versatile bomber has been tasked with multiple missions over those decades: carpet-bombing wide-area ground targets, carrying out precision strikes with satellite-guided munitions, standing ready to deliver nuclear weapons and to conduct maritime-strike operations, engaging in modern-day gunboat diplomacy by carrying out high-profile exercises.
Indeed, the B-52’s ability to signal – and deter – America’s enemies without delivering ordnance is arguably its most important mission.
In 1962, for example, after Soviet nuclear-missile bases were discovered in Cuba, President Kennedy ordered 90 nuclear-armed B-52s to begin round-the-clock orbits over the Atlantic.
Today, 46 nuclear-capable B-52s serve as a key element of America’s nuclear deterrent. With China expanding its nuclear capabilities and Russia threatening NATO allies, Congress has directed the Air Force to be prepared to restore nuclear-delivery capabilities onto additional B-52s.
As part of its “continuous bomber presence,” the Air Force has been flying B-52s above the South China Sea since 2004. B-52s fly through China’s air defense identification zone and over Beijing’s artificial islands to defend freedom of navigation and to reject Beijing’s illegal claims over international airspace and seaspace. Related, the B-52’s capability to deliver long-range anti-ship missiles – enabling the United States to hold Chinese warships at risk from a standoff distance – is of growing importance in the Indo-Pacific, where China’s naval power and anti-access/area-denial capabilities threaten U.S. and allied assets and interests.
No doubt with an eye on Beijing, the Pentagon ordered B-52s to make their first-ever landing in Indonesia in the summer of 2023. In the summer of 2024, the United States and Australia announced that the number of rotational deployments of B-52s to Australia will increase, as will the length of deployments: An airbase in Australia is being upgraded to house six B-52 bombers and refueling aircraft, Air & Space Forces Magazine reports.
In 2022, Washington rushed B-52s to Britain for lengthy forward-deployments as Russian forces lunged toward Kiev and tried to erase Ukraine. B-52s then sortied along the Ukraine-Romania border to remind Moscow that America was ready to defend its NATO allies. Flying from the United States and forward bases in Britain, B-52s continue to sortie through European airspace – and keep Putin’s military at bay.
B-52s are landing in and flying over South Korea and Japan to ward off North Korean mischief. Likewise, the Stratofortress is flying over Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf to support allies across the Middle East.
Even in this hemisphere – in fact, even in the continental United States -- B-52s are sending signals to our adversaries. Air-power experts describe the aforementioned deployment of B-52s over parts of Central and South America in June 2024 as “relatively rare.” In April 2024, B-52s landed at a civilian airfield in Louisiana to highlight the bomber’s “ability to operate in austere environments,” as the Air Force reported at the time.
The newest B-52 variant – the B-52J – will feature new engines, new radar systems, new cyber capabilities and new hypersonic weapons capabilities. It is expected to be operational in 2033.
In addition, air-power experts envision converting some B-52s into unmanned “arsenal planes” that, when networked with F-22s, F-35s and B-21s, will serve as “airborne magazines,” thus greatly expanding the striking power of smaller airframes.
Great-Grandpa’s plane There are 76 B-52s in the Air Force inventory. Their average age: 61.8 years. Pentagon planners expect to field the B-52, which first flew in 1952, beyond its 100th birthday.
Everything the B-52 is doing today – and is expected to do tomorrow – is evidence of American ingenuity and engineering, a testament to the plane’s design and durability, a credit to the hard work and creativity of the crews that keep the B-52 fleet airworthy.
“When we built the B-52, it was supposed to be a high-altitude nuclear bomber,” explains Lt. Gen. Andrew Gebara, deputy chief of staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration. “Then it became a low-altitude nuclear bomber. And then it became a high-altitude carpet bomber in Vietnam. And then it became a standoff cruise missile shooter in Desert Storm. And then it became a precision strike close air support platform in Afghanistan and Iraq. And now we're going to make it the first hypersonic shooter in the American inventory.”
For a warplane born early in the Jet Age to evolve through those eras and adapt to those different missions is indeed a credit to its design and durability, pilots and maintainers.
However, in another sense, relying for deterrence in 2024 on a bomber designed during the Korean War is something of an indictment of America’s policymaking process. This 72-year-old airframe is a reminder that generations of policymakers have, in effect, put off development, delayed recapitalization, shortchanged and short-circuited successor bombers, and ordered those who defend us to make do with planes flown by their grandfathers and great-grandfathers.
Antiques “If they were automobiles,” President Ronald Reagan said of America’s B-52 bombers in 1983, “they'd qualify as antiques. The 2 million patriotic Americans in the armed services deserve the best and most modern equipment to protect them and us.”
The B-52 is many things: an amazing feat of engineering, an expression of American creativity and practicality and adaptability, a workhorse of deterrence. However, it is anything but the “most modern equipment” policymakers and taxpayers could – and should – provide the patriotic Americans who protect us.
The lesson going forward: When (if?) the B-52 is ever retired, we should ensure that successor bombers are engineered with the same quality and creativity – and built in sufficient quantities – to meet the nation’s long-term defense needs.
- Landing Zone