Secrets and Subterfuge 

Having made its 02 December 2022 debut to the adulation of Northrop Grumman shareholders, the United States Air Force’s new B-21 Raider stealth bomber has been safely returned to the security of its California hanger. Security, however, is a nebulous and subjective construct, ever vulnerable to the escalating ambitions and wiles of those intent upon taking by force or subterfuge that which they cannot achieve by innovation and industry.

As the Raider and its keepers bask in the warm afterglow of an ostentatious rollout, China’s legions of high-tech, cyber-espionage brigands have taken to their keyboards for purpose of penetrating the veil of secrecy surrounding the B-21.

As the Buran and Tupelov Tu-160 instantiate the resolve and success with which the Soviet Union infiltrated and plagiarized America’s Space Shuttle and B-1 Lancer programs, so the People’s Liberation Army’s Y-20 cargo aircraft, Z-20 medium-lift helicopter, and CH-4 reconnaissance drone represent covert but conspicuous rip-offs of Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III, Sikorsky’s UH-60 Black Hawk, and General Atomics’s MQ-1 Predator.

That Beijing’s eyes are cast covetously upon the B-21 is, therefore, a moral certainty substantiated by ample historical precedent. To glean the secrets of the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft would be a boon of incalculable tactical value to China’s communist government, and answer tantalizing questions the likes of: Can the B-21 operate in the absence of pilots?

Throughout the bomber’s development, aviation industry pundits have speculated that the B-21 is capable of autonomous flight. Neither the USAF nor Northrop Grumman has spoken to the subject of the Raider’s crewing predilections—though a bias toward unmanned aerial operations is perceptible in the Air Force’s fiscal 2023 procurements and the predictions on which such were based.

The design of the B-21’s hidden Pratt & Whitney engines is also of salience to China’s political and military aspirations. Aerospace analysts posit the Raider’s thrust architecture comprises two highly-advanced powerplants—the intake-scheme, compressor arrangement, hot-section dynamics, and power-output of which remain abjectly unknown. Equally mysterious are the means by which the B-21’s engines are embedded within its airframe and thermally muffled. Glimpses of the bomber gleaned during its rollout—likely by design—afforded little opportunity to assess the machine and its systems comprehensively.

To the subject of the B-21’s engines, Congressman Rob Wittman (Republican, Virginia) remarked: "This is a very, very different design as far as airflow, and there have been some design challenges there.”

Also of interest to Beijing are the types of missions with which the Pentagon will task the B-21. The bomber’s obvious suitability to upholding America’s nuclear deterrence triad is complemented by advanced digital, cyber, and networking capabilities conducive to the attainment of a broader spectrum of tactical objectives.

China—after the fashion of an overeager thug loitering in the vicinity of an ATM—has betrayed its indecorous intentions toward the B-21. At the USAF’s Plant 42—a classified aircraft manufacturing facility adjacent California’s Palmdale Regional Airport (PMD)—individuals have been recorded walking their dogs around the facility’s concertina-wire perimeter at 4 a.m.. What’s more, small drones occasionally accidentally crash within the Plant 42 compound.

The readiness of U.S. intelligence agencies to counter the Chinese threat will no doubt be sternly tested as the B-21 proceeds through its flight-testing and evaluation phases. The immense secrecy and pedantic security by which the Raider is surrounded—though prioritized since the program’s inception—is challenged by the sheer number of subcontractors involved in the bomber’s development and manufacturing. Viewed through the lens of dollars, the sum value of ships sunk by loose lips in the 1940s represents only a fraction of the potential costs of a Chinese pilfering of sixth-generation aircraft technologies. Deprived of its stealthiness, a stealth bomber is little more than a black-hole into which American tax dollars rapidly and permanently vanish.

FMI: www.af.mil