From Fordow to Fujian: U.S. Stealth Bombers Signal a New Era of Strategic Air Power

OTTAWA— As reported by The Bureau on Sunday, U.S. B‑2 stealth bombers launched precision strikes on Iran’s hardened nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Arak, inflicting catastrophic damage on key components of Tehran’s atomic infrastructure. The mission marked the first direct U.S. military intervention inside the Islamic Republic, a core member of the so‑called CRINK authoritarian axis — China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea — formed in opposition to NATO powers.

On Monday, Iran launched a retaliatory military attack on an American base in Qatar — the largest U.S. installation in the Middle East. But according to Iranian officials cited by The New York Times, the strike was performative, aimed at creating the appearance of reprisal while offering an off‑ramp for de‑escalation following the U.S. bombing of three critical nuclear sites. The officials reportedly said Tehran had given advance notice of the attack to minimize casualties. “Iran needed to be seen striking back at the United States,” the report said, “but in a way that allowed all sides an exit ramp.”

As the global response unfolds, a more consequential front may be emerging — not in the Middle East, but in East Asia.

The Bureau’s analysis — grounded in U.S. airpower doctrine and recent strategic literature, including The Boiling Moat (Naval Institute Press, 2024), edited by former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger — suggests the Iran operation may amount to more than a regional strike.

For U.S. war planners, who have pivoted toward Beijing since the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency, the decision almost certainly reflected a broader framework of strategic signaling — aimed not only at Moscow, but more pointedly at Beijing.

Within this line of analysis, the Fordow strike — though principally aimed at nuclear nonproliferation — also served as a proof of concept: a rare combat demonstration by a world power of airborne devastation capable of penetrating and destroying deeply buried infrastructure without escalating to ground operations.

This is precisely the class of advanced strike capability — delivered by long-range B-2 stealth bombers and soon to be augmented by the next-generation B-21 Raider, expected to enter service in 2026 — that U.S. forces could employ to counter the PLA Navy in a Taiwan invasion scenario, potentially devastating naval ports in Fujian as Chinese warships move to encircle the island.

In several chapters of The Boiling Moat, Robert Haddick — a senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies — argues that the United States must exploit its asymmetric advantage in aerospace power, including stealth bombers and precision munitions, rather than attempt to match China ship-for-ship.

He warns that China’s naval production outpaces the U.S. by a staggering 232 to 1, rendering any traditional maritime mobilization race unwinnable. But in the air domain, he writes, the United States can still dominate.

“This describes a mobilization program tailored to the military strategy and war‑fighting concept most appropriate for attacking the PLA’s centers of gravity exposed in the amphibious assault and blockade scenarios,” Haddick writes.

His prescription: expand production of stealth bombers, long-range munitions like the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), and avoid expending resources or incurring social risk on mass ground-force mobilization — a strategy he argues would be infeasible in a Taiwan contingency.

Sunday’s B‑2 strikes — operating with tanker support — hit Fordow, a site tunneled into a mountain and guarded by some of Iran’s most sophisticated air defenses, albeit degraded by Israel’s established aerial superiority. The munitions likely included the GBU‑57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000‑pound weapon specifically designed to destroy deeply buried targets.

And there is more to come. The B‑21 Raider, expected to reach operational status by 2026, builds on the B‑2’s capabilities with a smaller radar signature and hypersonic payload options. It is purpose‑built to operate in area‑denial environments like the Taiwan Strait and to survive the PLA’s integrated air defense systems.

This calculus is supported by the 2022 wargame conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which examined a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. The simulations — run 24 times — underscored how stealth bombers equipped with long‑range munitions like LRASM can rapidly dismantle PLA naval and amphibious formations before they reach their objectives.

As tensions mount in the Indo‑Pacific and Taiwan faces escalating gray‑zone pressure from Beijing, the message embedded in the Iran operation is not subtle: the United States retains the capability and will to destroy key nodes of military power in a single night — and is preparing to do so again if necessary.

In his chapter, Haddick urges U.S. and allied leaders to use this prewar phase — before open conflict over Taiwan erupts — to expand strategic production capacity, deepen engineering pipelines, broaden supply chains, and accelerate the integration of new defense innovators. The goal, he argues, is not merely to match China's mobilization, but to preempt it with a credible, visible strategy for victory.

“Perhaps the most effective deterrent action U.S. and allied leaders can take is to plainly communicate and visibly display to CCP leaders that they are doing so,” Haddick writes. “That would go a long way toward convincing China’s leaders that they do not possess useful military options for seizing Taiwan.”

Arguably, Washington has already started.

Still, some analysts caution that the Iran operation could divert U.S. focus and resources from the Indo‑Pacific. Beijing-based South China Morning Post journalist Luna Sun has reported that American involvement in the Middle East risks diluting Washington’s strategic bandwidth in Asia. According to these analysts, the deployment of military assets and diplomatic capital to Iran could delay progress on U.S.–China tariff negotiations and deepen America’s reliance on critical minerals and rare earths — sectors where China maintains significant global leverage. One expert, cited in the report, described the current moment as a strategic window of opportunity for Beijing.