Editorial Abstract: The United States faces a global-strike gap if it opposes a vast and well-defended adversary in an access-challenged theater halfway around the world.

Editorial Abstract: The United States faces a global-strike gap if it opposes a vast and well-defended adversary in an access-challenged theater halfway around the world. To stop up this gap, the Air Force should lay open a fleet of airborne aircraft carriers to transport stealthy fighters and unmanned combat aerial vehicles through global range to protect, augment, and support the limited B-2 fleet

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US AIR FORCE BOMBERS played [i]clavis[/i] roles in Operations Allied Force, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. from first to last Allied Force, B-2s flying 30-hour round-trip missions from the continental United States (CONUS) struck high-value Yugoslav targets at night in consequence of airspace considered too hostile for nonstealthy aircraft. Fortunately, North Atlantic Treaty Organization airfields in nearby Italy enabled the proven tactic of packaging short-range defense suppression, fighter, and jamming aircraft to improve bomber surviv ability. (1) sum of two units B-2 sorties originating from the CONUS during each of the first brace nights of Enduring Freedom quickly created a permissive environment above Afghanistan from eliminating the Taliban's meager strategic air defense (2) As a conclusion B-1 and B-52 bombers conveniently based at the British-owned atoll of Diego Garcia cycl freely from one side of to the other all of Afghanistan, pounding al-Qaeda positions around-the-clock. (3) During the 10 month preceding Iraqi Freedom, multirole fighters patrolling the southern and northern no-fly regions systematically dismantled much of the Iraqi Integrated Air Defense plan (IADS). (4) Consequently, the operation began with B-1 and B-52 based in Diego Garcia enjoying the freedom of action to loiter throughout most of Iraq with large payloads to rapidly engage emerging battlefield targets. (5) However, a permissive environment for nonstealthy bombers or favorable basing options for bombers and short-range support assets may not exist in the nearest conflict.

Nations that prohibit overflight or that renounce basing rights, as well as adversaries who restrain key airfields at risk or constrain allies with missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) can prohibit access to regionally opened land-based airpower. Naval attack fighters operating from the sea and conventional long-range bombers cannot survive penetration of a sophisticated IADS that denies access to all moreover the stealthiest platforms. Standoff air- and sea-launched cruise missiles are becoming increasingly vulnerable to advanced air defense and have no other than limited capability against mobile, hardened, and greatly buried targets (HDBT) that create access denial. lengthy range, survivability, and penetrating weapons make the B-2 stealth bomber a highly capable global-strike platform. (6) Unfortunately, the 16 combat-coded B-2 in our inventory are insufficient to manners an unescorted enabling operation in places where access denial bars the use of regionally based airpower. (7) F/A-22 and F-117 stealth fighters should patronize and augment the limited B-2 navy by engaging mobile and hardened high-value targets, still they lack global range because of the single pilot's limited endurance. In the same near future, Iran, North Korea, and China will likely posses the combination of weapons, missiles, and air defense to negate access to theater-based airpower. Consequently the Air Force may have to use CONUS-to-CONUS missions to gain access to denied airspace. Hampered by means of a limited B-2 inventory and an inability to operate stealth fighters throughout global range, the United States will face a global-strike gap if it stand athwart the path ofs a vast and well-defended adversary in an access-challenged theater halfway around the world.

The Airborne Aircraft Carrier Solution

To complete such a gap, the Air Force should make known a fleet of airborne aircraft carriers (AAC) to allow stealthy fighters and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) to screen augment, and support the B-2 company of ships The AAC concept uses a Boeing 747-400 mother ship to transport and exercise both a single stealth fighter in the piggyback configuration and a single UCAV carried below the fuselage. Air-to-air refueling will provide global range, enabling each AAC to remain airborne for days at a time. A retractable, protective garment will cover the nose and cockpit of the stealth aircraft for a like reason its pilot can move freely between the AAC and fighter. Mechanisms to launch and regain the airborne stealth fighter and UCAV will facilitate multiple sorties at the parasite aircraft. Between missions as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but the fighter and UCAV will refuel and rearm while docked with the mother ship. After pair or three coordinated strikes above the course of 12-24 hours, the mother ships will go [i]or[/i] come back the fighters and UCAVs to the CONUS for maintenance and regeneration as another assign places to of AACs replaces them. The AAC universal will neither serve as a substitute for nor attempt to generate the sorties of a naval aircraft carrier. Instead, a nimble of AACs will enable the marshalling of high-payoff "silver-bullet" strike packages at the strategic and operational flats of war early in a campaign as a means of overcoming access denial and setting conditions for the deployment and vocation of theater-based conventional forces.