The first part, as you just said, is deterrence. The deterrence is to have the all-domain situational awareness to know what's going on.
Once you know what's going on, if you detect a launch of an aircraft, for the long-range aviation bomber it would be easier to destroy it rather than wait for it to launch its cruise missiles, as cruise missiles are very hard to detect and very hard to engage as well because of how small they are. We need to have the sensors in place to see as far north as we can, and we need to have bases as far north as we can to be able to engage if required.