International security

America vs Russia - Nuclear-Armed Bombers

In the previous articles “These Russian Nukes Are Better Than America’s” and “U.S. vs Russia: Struggling for Undersea Nuclear Supremacy” we reviewed the strategic nuclear balance between Russia and the United States in the context of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ISBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), respectively. We have also examined in detail the issue of the total number of strategic carriers and nuclear warheads in the arsenals of these countries and their compliance with the New Start Treaty, which reduces the number of carriers to seven hundred and the number of warheads to 1,550.

In this article, we will address the last component of nuclear forces left: strategic bombers. In the U.S. and Russian arsenals, bombers make the least share of strategic nuclear forces—5.5 percent of the warheads owned by Washington (eighty-five bombers, each equaling one warhead according to the New Start Treaty) and around 3 percent of those owned by Russia (approximately fifty bombers in service).

Let us now turn our attention to the parties’ strategic aviation in more detail, and compare the efficiency of their current weapons.