US deploys fifty F-35 nuclear bomb carriers to Britain - The Telegraph
F-35 fighter jets (Photo: af.mil)
The United States of America will deploy two squadrons of fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets, capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, to the Lakenheath base in Suffolk, UK, by the end of this year including 54 aircraft, according to The Telegraph.
"The F-35s will be based in the UK. They have arrived and will move by the end of this year, if not sometime in 2024," an anonymous source told the agency.
The Ministry of Defence declined to comment on whether US nuclear warheads have been or will be stationed in Britain.
These jet aircraft are intended for conducting tactical nuclear bombing missions and can perform air-to-air tasks and gather reconnaissance data. Recently, official documents mentioned the possibility of US nuclear weapons returning to British soil.
According to the documents, the US Congress received a budget request of $50 million from the US Air Force to construct a "guaranteed dormitory" at the American airbase. The term "guarantee" is used in US military jargon to denote objects related to nuclear weapons.
The agency mentions explicitly that up until 2008, 110 US nuclear bombs were stored in the UK. When the threat of war decreased to a critical level, a decision was made to remove them. Now, tension is rising once again.
The potential return of US nuclear weapons to the territory of the UK has been termed by experts as evidence that the West has entered a new Cold War.
Nuclear weapons
According to research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), nine nuclear-armed states - the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel - continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals and have slightly expanded their new nuclear warhead deployments in 2022.
Out of the global total stockpile of approximately 12,512 warheads as of January 2023, around 9,576 were held in military stocks for potential use - 86 more than in January 2022.
Among these, approximately 3,844 warheads were deployed on missiles and aircraft, and about 2,000 - nearly all of which belonged to Russia or the US - were in a state of high operational alert, meaning they were loaded on missiles or stored at airbases for nuclear bomber aircraft.
The report states that Russia and the US possess nearly 90% of all nuclear weapons.
