A wargame conducted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies suggested that a stand-in, penetrating force of the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bomber for strategic attack were key to blunting a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, is advising the Air Force to buy at least 150 B-21s, according to a report on rebuilding American airpower released by the institute on Thursday.
The B-21 is designed to have the dual capability of carrying both conventional and nuclear weapons, which the National Nuclear Security Administration is responsible for producing and maintaining. As of October 2024, the 2025 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan said the B61-12 life extension program, which completed its last production unit in December 2024, is continuing to certify the B-21 to carry the gravity bomb.
In the wargame set in 2035, two Air Force “blue” teams—one with no F-47s and 28 B-21s and the other with 40 F-47s and 85 B-21s—competed against a “red” “Chinese” team. The “Doolittle” team’s lack of F-47s and its smaller number of B-21s forced it to use up its stock of long-range weapons, as Chinese forces were able to knock out theater airfields, whereas the better-equipped “Mitchell” team was able to conduct strategic attack and counter-air missions inside China that destroyed Chinese airfields and missile sites and disrupted Chinese command and control and anti-satellite attacks.
The report said that future Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft, including drones for air-to-air and other missions, are “additive and complementary capabilities but do not replace requirements for advanced piloted aircraft.”
“The USAF must develop a better understanding of strategic attack target sets that would have the greatest effect on China’s operations and decision-making,” the report said. “Players quickly realized this was a serious gap in planning for U.S. strategic strikes against China in a defense-of-Taiwan scenario.”
The report added that “[d]uring the Cold War, the Air Force, DoD, and other U.S. national security organizations dedicated thousands of analysts to assessing the Soviet Union’s centers of gravity. A similar level of effort is needed to bolster deterrence in the Pacific and prepare U.S. forces to conduct strategic attacks and other operations to defeat Chinese aggression should deterrence fail.”
Last August, the Air Force released its doctrine of Strategic Attack.
The doctrine is “to compel an adversary to change their strategy to the defense, but then also force their systems’ failure on their strategy,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Jason Armagost, the deputy commander of Air Force Global Strike Command said in a discussion on the Mitchell report. “That strategic attack approach is a really important part of the conversation because it has to arrive from a place of resiliency and optionality, and that doesn’t come from building single nodal attack ‘blue forces’ that invite counter-strategic attack.”
The Mitchell study also advised ramping up weapons’ inventories, including next generation mid-range munitions.
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily first published a version of this story.