The United States appears to be poised to reassert its nuclear footprint in the United Kingdom after nearly two decades of inactivity, according to a new watchdog report.
The Federation of American Scientists published a report Wednesday compiling evidence it says strongly suggests the U.S. Air Force is planning to bring nuclear weapons back to Royal Air Force Base Lakenheath, England.
“Even without weapons present, the addition of a large nuclear air base in northern Europe is a significant new development that would have been inconceivable just a decade-and-a-half ago,” the report said.
The federation, founded in 1945 by scientists who built the first Manhattan Project atomic bombs, is an independent organization that coalesces scientists and policy influencers to monitor and reduce future nuclear threats.
Scientists with the organization were tipped off that nuclear weapons might be returning to the United Kingdom after they combed through a fiscal 2023 NATO Security Investment Program document put together by President Joe Biden’s administration in April 2022. The federation discovered the United Kingdom was listed as a country set to receive upgrades to their “special weapons” storage site.
Lakenheath is the only base with the proper infrastructure to support a nuclear weapons program, thus identifying it as the source of the potential renaissance, the report says.
The federation pointed to recent developments in international affairs as a potential catalyst.
“The change appears to be a direct reaction to the worsening political and military relations with Russia, resulting from its invasions in 2014 and 2022 of Ukraine, frequent nuclear warnings, and Russian deployment of increasingly capable long-range conventional weapons,” the report said.
As proof of the potential program, the federation cited a U.S. Air Force budget document it first reported on in 2023, which described the addition of a dormitory at RAF Lakenheath to support an influx of new airmen arriving because of a “potential Surety Mission.” Surety refers to the security of a nuclear weapon, the report clarified.
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After the Federation of American Scientists released its 2023 report, the Defense Department revised the budget shortly after to not include mention of the United Kingdom or other NATO countries where U.S. nuclear weapons are forward-deployed — a move the organization took as a sign that meant its findings of a potential nuclear program were valid.
Satellite imagery also presented further proof of a new nuclear mission, according to the federation’s latest report.
“In addition to the construction of a new surety dormitory as mentioned above, upgrades to approximately 28 of the 33 protective aircraft shelters with underground WS3 vaults began in 2022,” the report said. “Updated tarmac infrastructure for two squadrons of F-35As was completed in 2023 as Lakenheath prepared to be the first USAF squadron in Europe equipped with the nuclear- capable F-35A.”
The report also found that a 2023 USAF Career Field and Education Training Plan for nuclear weapons specialists listed RAF Lakenheath as a potential location, a detail that had not existed in previous documents.
The report noted that no known nuclear weapons have been deployed to Lakenheath and clarified that the federation sees the burgeoning nuclear program as a backup plan, and not a move to deploy weapons imminently.
The U.S. Air Force assumed control of RAF Lakenheath in the late 1940s, deploying B-29 bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons to the base in response to the Cold War. The United States Strategic Air Command took control of Lakenheath in 1951, and nuclear-capable B-47s were housed at Lakenheath from 1953 to 1956.
But after the Cold War ended, the United Kingdom began to reduce its own nuclear weapons footprint, banishing all nonstrategic nuclear weapons by 1998 so that it only hosted nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines.
Lakenheath still held U.S. nuclear-capable aircraft and gravity bombs for many years, until the George W. Bush administration finally withdrew all nuclear weapons from the base, marking the first time since 1954 that there were zero nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom.
In Nov. 2024, the U.S. Air Force spotted several drones hovering over Lakenheath, which is the largest U.S. Air Force-operated base in the U.K. An investigation was immediately launched.
Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.
