To ensure readiness, the United States military must build a bomber fleet that can handle multiple threats in different parts of the world, the commander of the Eighth Air Force said during an August 2025 discussion about the evolving role of the U.S. strategic bomber force.
“I can never assume that any single strike is going to be enough,” U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Jason Armagost said during a webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “We have to be ready and postured and capable of generating very quickly for a range of opportunities across the platforms to bring the long-range global capability of mass to problem sets.”
The Eighth Air Force is one of two active-duty numbered air forces in Air Force Global Strike Command. Its mission is to conduct indefinite strategic deterrence operations leveraging the force’s bomber and airborne nuclear command and control forces. Armagost is also commander of the Joint-Global Strike Operations Center.
While development of smaller, uncrewed aerial systems has garnered a lot of attention in recent defense budgets, maintaining a modern bomber fleet is crucial for targeting hardened, buried targets, Armagost said.
“How do you bring to bear the mass required because a hard and deeply buried target problem set is not solvable with a grenade off a drone. It’s just not,” he said. “The most important thing to remember about long-range air power, about bomber air powers, are really the first principles inherent to those capabilities, which is range, payload and access. The offensive nature … when it comes to bombers is central to the ability to deter through strength and to be able to hold at risk targets any place on the globe at any time. Find them, fix them and finish them.”
U.S. Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, U.S. Strategic Command Commander, along with other U.S. generals, has called for an increase in the number of new bombers as part of the military’s nuclear modernization. Gen. Cotton in March 2025 called for an increase in acquisition of B-21 Raiders, which are currently in development, from 100 to 145. “The production rate that was agreed upon was, I think, in [a previous] geopolitical environment,” Gen. Cotton said during a March 2025 defense industry conference, according to National Defense magazine. “That’s a little different than the geopolitical environment that we will face for decades to come.”
The B-21 is part of the overall modernization of the nuclear triad, which includes new intercontinental ballistic missiles under the Sentinel program, the U.S. Navy’s Columbia-class submarine and command and control systems. “Our posture must align with today’s reality, where nuclear weapons are foundational to adversaries’ strategies,” Gen. Cotton said during a November 2024 fireside chat hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Our adversaries must know that our nuclear command and control and other capabilities that provide decision advantage are at the ready 24/7, 365 and cannot be compromised or defeated.”
Combatant commanders have expressed an interest in enhancing the strategic presence of bombers as well as combined exercises across the joint force and with Allies and Partners, Armagost said.
“The ability to integrate and communicate and plan with our Allies and Partners … that is inherently a deterrent to the adversaries we face,” he said. “When you have overwhelming capability to penetrate and hold at risk these targets around the world, that brings an unbelievable deterrent value. No doubt about it.”