Bombers Away

A few days ago, the most powerful superpower in the world evacuated 12 of the most powerful aircraft in its military from the base of a strong ally because of the threat of a drone attack from a country we’ve been repeatedly told has been completely defeated. NYT (Gift Article): Potential Iranian Drone Attack Led to Exit of U.S. Aircraft From British Air Base. “The rushed order to withdraw the [12 B-1] bombers was highly unusual: Such moves are rarely made so quickly from an allied air base in a peacetime country thousands of miles from a combat zone. Indeed, the need to move the bombers from the base was deemed so urgent that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being deployed to support their flights to the United States.” While small devices have been used to defeat larger enemies since David aimed his slingshot at Goliath, it would have been hard to imagine, even just a few years ago, a drone threat chasing B-1 bombers off of an American base. But times and tech have changed, and as Anne Applebaum recently remarked, “Nobody is prepared for the world of drone warfare that is coming, in fact is already here.” It doesn’t inspire great confidence that preparing for these rapid changes is currently in the hands of a commander in chief who rambles about letting Iran take out a city such as Los Angeles or San Diego, and a testosterone-obsessed secretary of defense who’s more obsessed with winning the culture war than the real war he’s supposed to be managing. From Ukraine to the Middle East to the American B-1 bomber heavy tarmac of a British Airbase, we are in the middle of a serious and urgent global military inflection point, and we have exactly the wrong people in charge.