After nearly two years of continual presence the U.S. suddenly ended its deployment of bombers to Guam a strategic and important US military base in the Pacific Ocean
on April 16th the remaining B-52 bombers left the island after being stationed there since 2004 the seeming end of the US Air Force's continuous bomber presence comes at a time where China has really ramped up military operations in the Pacific including the recent carrier deployment also relevant may be the growing deployment of what is called the Guam killer ballistic missile the DF-26 by China so what is going on ?
these bombers have long served as a deterrent in the region against China and North Korea the B-52s can carry both conventional and nuclear armed long-range cruise missiles that combined with the aircraft's already long-range gives it the ability to hit any target in North Korea or China without refueling, it's an incredible capability that these bombers offer something that many other nations including China are try to match China has taken its old H-6 bomber and upgraded at several times including adding the ability to launch the siege A-10 a long-range cruise missile, these cruise missiles allow these bombers to launch from well outside the range of air defenses and possibly even outside the range of interceptor aircraft but the problem is they are slow
these large strategic bombers are typically subsonic and carry subsonic cruise missiles so over a huge theater like that of the western Pacific it could take too long for these bombers to carry out their mission modern warfare is moving faster and faster especially with things like hypersonic weapons and the increasing use of conventional ballistic missiles and China has been rapidly producing both their DF-26 missile has been labeled the Guam killer for its ability to reach the island the flight time of such a missile is around 20 minutes this is way too fast for the U.S. to be able to scramble bombers and take off meaning they could be destroyed on the ground
so there are rumors that the removing of these permanently station bombers on Guam is in response to this and things like this do happen during times of increased tensions frontline bases are the most at risk and aircraft will often be pulled back away from the front to a more defended location to avoid being lost in a surprise attack, while what is called the continuous bomber presence has ended deployments of U.S. bombers to Guam hasn't on May 1st two weeks after the B-52s left 3 B-1B bombers arrived in Guam however they're calling this a temporary deployment not permanent so if conflict ever broke out the U.S. risks not being in a position to be able to respond if there were a conflict where say China invaded Taiwan all other US bases in the region like those in Japan and South Korea are well within the range of hundreds and possibly thousands of Chinese ballistic missiles
even the threat of attack could be enough to shut down those bases China could tell the governments of Japan and South Korea that if they allow US aircraft to operate from their countries then China would declare war on them and attack them as well the only US bases which could remain viable for the U.S. to defend against China would be those located in their own territory like Guam and while the threat from Chinese DF 26 missiles Israel China has much less of them than other shorter range missiles their accuracy also isn't as high somewhere around 200 meters CEP with the 1500 kilogram warhead it will do damage to a large area
but that might not be enough to destroy specific targets like bombers on the ramp the runway fuel depots etc also the u.s. does have a Thaad ballistic missile defense system on Guam, so it's unlikely that the continuous bomber presence program was ended solely due to this threat it's also possible that the u.s. is shifting around assets to deploy new weapon systems like their own conventional ballistic missiles last December we saw the u.s. test launch a new intermediate range ballistic missile after leaving the INF treaty they are likely to eventually be deployed to the region to counter China and North Korea facing them in South Korea or Japan have inherent political problems so Guam is a good bet
this however is still likely several years away the hypersonic AGM-183 which has now been announced will be carried by the B-1B will not be operational until 2022 so in the meantime rotating B-1B bombers armed with land attack cruise missiles like AGM-158 JASSM and the new anti-ship missile LRASM will have to do with the USS Roosevelt out of commission the Lincoln and Reagan undergoing maintenance and the Nimitz still preparing before being deployed again the U.S. currently does not have any active operational aircraft carriers in the Pacific so the ending of the continuous bomber presence comes at a strange time and will be interesting to see the next moves.
