Congress Debates Modifying B-52 for Nuclear Attack Capability

By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News

The venerable B-52 is prominently featured in the current budget battles on Capitol Hill.

The House and Senate defense spending bills for fiscal 2025 call for the Air Force to modify about 30 of the aging bombers to make them capable once again of carrying nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, the House version of the measure wants the secretary of the Air Force to look into ways of improving crew comforts aboard the plane, which is sometimes used for missions that stretch well beyond 24 hours.

It’s still early in the budget process and uncertain if either proposal will end up in the final version of the spending bill.

The call for adding modifying some B-52s so they could once again carry nuclear weapons has to do with the New START treaty, the nuclear arms reduction pact the US and Russia agreed on in 2010. Under its terms, the nuclear weapons capabilities of 30 of those Stratofortresses were removed as both sides promised to reduce their arsenals to 1,550 deployed warheads.

In 2021, Moscow and Washington agreed to extend the treaty for five years. Russia suspended its participation in 2023 in the midst of rising tensions over the invasion of Ukraine, but still promised to stay within the treaty’s numerical limits.

The House measure would require the Air Force to begin modifying the bombers within a month after the treaty expires in 2026.