Even though the Air Force is consolidating all of its bombers—present and future—into Air Force Global Strike Command, they’ll still be part of the combat air forces, said Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh. “The folks in the B-1 [community] believe they are part of the combat air forces. That doesn’t change,” said Welsh during a speech in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. It “doesn’t make any sense” to keep the B-1s and new Long-Range Strike Bomber out of AFGSC, he said. “Getting all the bombers in one command, so you can do training, doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures, new system development, test programs, new sensors, new weapons in a concentrated way, just makes a lot of sense,” said Welsh. “I think this just makes common sense. And we’re trying to make that the standard wherever we can,” he said.
The rate of building B-21 bombers would speed up if the fiscal 2026 defense budget passes. But it remains unclear how much capacity would be added, and whether the Air Force would simply build the bombers faster, or buy more.