The US could house some of its nuclear weapons in Britain for the first time in nearly 20 years. Satellite images revealed that around 22 disused nuclear bunkers at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk have been significantly upgraded recently. The findings, published in a Federation of American Scientists (FAS) report, “that the United States Air Force (USAF) is re-establishing its nuclear mission on UK soil for the first time in nearly two decades”.
The FAS added: “[It] appears to be a direct reaction to the worsening political and military relations with Russia, resulting from its invasions of Ukraine, frequent nuclear warnings and Russian deployment of increasingly capable long-range conventional weapons.” The report suggests the decision to reinstate RAF Lakenheath’s nuclear capability was made in 2021 and gained support following the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war.
The bunkers are each able to house four nuclear weapons, however if it’s unclear whether this will go ahead under Donald Trump, as the plans were okayed under Joe Biden.
The FAS said there were “no known public indications that nuclear weapons have been deployed to Lakenheath” and that weapons could be transfered to the facility from more vulnerable locations in the event of a crisis.
It added that new tarmac was put down in 2023 and an ultra-secure “surety dormitory” is being built for airmen.
The bunkers being upgraded were devloped in the 1980s, and less than a decade later there were 33 of them able to store 132 nuclear weapons.
With the end of the Cold War nuclear arsenals were gradually reduced, with the last US weapons leaving Lakenheath – and British soil – in 2008, when George W Bush was in the White House.
A careers plan for nuclear weapons specialists outlined by USAF also listed RAF Lakenheath as a location for possible assignment in 2023, the report said.
The base was also one of the sites that received the first nuclear weapons in Europe in 1954.
After the Cold War, these stockpiles were steadily reduced until the last of them left Lakenheath in 2008. However, it remains the largest base operated by USAF in the UK, and one of the largest in Europe.
