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| More than 100 U.S. nuclear bombs have been withdrawn from RAF Lakenheath, the forward base of the U.S. Air Force 48th Fighter Wing. Image: GoogleEarth |
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By Hans M. Kristensen
The United States has withdrawn nuclear weapons from the RAF Lakenheath air base 70 miles northeast of London, marking the end to more than 50 years of U.S. nuclear weapons deployment to the United Kingdom since the first nuclear bombs first arrived in September 1954.
The withdrawal, which has not been officially announced but confirmed by several sources, follows the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Ramstein Air Base in Germany in 2005 and Greece in 2001. The removal of nuclear weapons from three bases in two NATO countries in less than a decade undercuts the argument for continuing deployment in other European countries.
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Figure 1: |
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Withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from three European bases since 2001 means that two-thirds of the arsenal is now on the southern flank. |
Status of European Deployment
I have previously described that President Bill Clinton in November 2000 authorized the Pentagon to deploy 110 nuclear bombs at Lakenheath, part of a total of 480 nuclear bombs authorized for Europe at the time.
President George Bush updated the authorization in May 2004, which apparently ordered the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The withdrawal from Lakenheath might also have been authorized by the Bush directive, or by an update issued within the past three years. This reduction and consolidation in Europe was hinted by General James Jones, the NATO Supreme Commander at Europe at the time, when he stated in a testimony to a Belgian Senate committee: “The reduction will be significant. Good news is on the way.”
Last week I reported that security deficiencies found by the U.S. Air Force Blue Ribbon Review at “most” sites were likely to lead to further consolidation of the weapons, and that “significant changes” were rumored at Lakenheath.
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Table 1: |
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Derived from more extensive table. Click table or here to download the full table. |
The withdrawal from Lakenheath means that the U.S. nuclear weapons deployment overseas is down to only two U.S. Air Force bases (Aviano AB in Italy and Incirlik in Turkey) plus four other national European bases in Belgium, Germany, Holland and Italy, for a total of six bases in Europe. It is estimated that there are 150-240 B61 nuclear bombs left in Europe, two-thirds of which are based on NATO’s southern flank (see Table 1).
Some Implications
Why NATO and the United States have decided to keep these major withdrawals secret is a big puzzle. The explanation might simply be that “nuclear” always means secret, that it was done to prevent a public debate about the future of the rest of the weapons, or that the Bush administration just doesn’t like arms control. Whatever the reason, it is troubling because the reductions have occurred around the same time that Russian officials repeatedly have pointed to the U.S. weapons in Europe as a justification to reject limitations on Russia’s own tactical nuclear weapons.
In fact, at the very same time that preparations for the withdrawal from Ramstein and Lakenheath were underway, a U.S. State Department delegation visiting Moscow clashed with Russian officials about who had done enough to reduce its non-strategic nuclear weapons. General Jones’ “good news” could not be shared.
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Figure 2: |
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| While NATO boasts about its nuclear reductions since the Cold War, the Alliance is more timid about the reductions in recent years. Click on graph to see full-size version. |
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By keeping the withdrawals secret, NATO and the United States have missed huge opportunities to engage Russia directly and positively about reductions to their non-strategic nuclear weapons, and to improve their own nuclear image in the world in general.
The news about the withdrawal from Lakenheath comes at an inconvenient time for those who advocate continuing deployment of U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe. By following on the heels of the withdrawal from Ramstein Air Base in 2004-2005 and Greece in 2001, the Lakenheath withdrawal raises the obvious question at the remaining nuclear sites: If they can withdraw, why can’t we?
What is at stake is not whether NATO should be protected with nuclear weapons, but why it is still necessary to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. Japan and South Korea are also covered by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, but without tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Asia. The benefits from withdrawing the remaining non-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe far outweigh the costs, risks and political objectives of keeping them there. The only question is: who will make the first move?
Previous reports: USAF Report: “Most” Nuclear Sites in Europe do not Meet US Security Requirements (FAS, June 2008) | United States Removes Nuclear Weapons from German Base, Documents Indicate (FAS, July 2007) | U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe (NRDC, 2005)
June 26th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Great detective work, and we in the UK are pleased with this result. While you are right to point to the wasted opportunity, it is nevertheless very good news, and thanks to your exposure, we can make the most of it. Nevertheless, of all the US tactic nuclear weapons in Europe, those in Lakenheath were always the greatest anachronism, as US nuclear weapons were never needed to demonstrate UK commitment to NATO’s nuclear policy, as UK already has nuclear Trident forces linked in to NATO strategy. The bigger wins are to be had within Europe.
But as I said in the comment in the Guardian this morning, even the political reasoning for these weapons pales into insignificance for two reasons:
a) as far as NATO’s future cohesion is concerned, all eyes are focused on Afghanistan today, and any possible future actions like it.
b) Nuclear weapons are at best irrelevant to NATO’s future, and at worst an embarrassment that could create divisions between the allies as much as play a cohesive role. Earlier this week senior opposition politicians in Germany called for the removal of these weapons in response to your earlier exposure of the Blue Ribbon review.
The withdrawal of all the tactic nuclear weapons from Europe is a crucial example of how a unilateral action could put strong pressure on Russia to respond with their arsenal, that itself presents significant and unacceptable risk to Europe today, without undermining NATO’s deterrence policy one jot.
Keep up the good work!
Paul Ingram
BASIC
June 26th, 2008 at 11:00 am
It is interesting that the two recent withdrawals are of nuclear weapons allocated to the US Air Force rather than to local air forces. If this is what is happening, then could Aviano in Italy be next in line? It also stores weapons allocated to USAFE. Incirlik in Turkey might be more complicated politically.
With regard to Trident Replacement, former MoD Permanent Secretary Kevin Tebbit has questioned whether the NATO argument holds water any more:
“Where NATO fits into it all now is an interesting question. Preservation of NATO’s nuclear posture remains formally one of our reasons for possessing the deterrent. We say that we are still helping to defend countries who have forsworn nuclear weapons themselves, notably Germany. It is unclear how far we shall be able to emphasize this dimension as we go through the public debate in the next few years.”
Reply: The withdrawal from two USAF bases rather than national bases in Europe reflects a decision to reduce the posture in Europe without changing the principle of nuclear burden-sharing in the alliance. The deployment competes with scarce resources needed for real-world nonnuclear operations, so the U.S. Air Force would probably prefer that all weapons were withdrawn. But a small group of civil servants in the Belgian, German, Dutch and Italian governments - and here in Washington - are resisting. Aviano is probably the last U.S. base we’ll see weapons withdrawn from. In fact, the weapons at Ghedi Torre will probably be moved to Aviano soon - if it hasn’t already happened.
As for Incirlik, yep the picture is murky. There’s no permanent fighter wing there, but they continue receiving nuclear inspections. The national Turkish nuclear strike mission, however, probably was ended at around the same time Greece opted out of the NATO nuclear strike mission in 2001. HK
June 27th, 2008 at 1:59 am
My complements on this excellent piece. However, what really bothers me is the fact that the US and concerned European recipients, who are members of the NPT, therefore, have been in blatant violation of Article II of the NPT, George Bush and his Soviet counterpart’s secret agreement in 1967 notwithstanding. And what’s even more unacceptable is the Western allies’ maneuvers to deny Iran the right to nuclear technology for peaceful means as mandated in Article IV of that very same Treaty. This makes it quite obvious that the NPT - as far as Washington is concerned - is dead as a dodo and its only utility is to use it as a whipping instrument to serve Western individual or collective ‘national interests’. May I suggest that such a nuclear theology is self defeating as has been proven by my country, India. With your deep knowledge of how Washington functions it should be quite obvious to you as it is to me that the ‘Indo-US Nuclear Deal’ will never mature, and that notwithstanding, India will achieve its objectives, albeit over a larger time frame. Considering the undeclared demise of the NPT it would be in the Western interest to stop flogging a dead horse.
Reply: The majority of the NPT countries accepted the nuclear sharing mission for years during the Cold War, but now we’re in a new era and it is reasonable to reassess the acceptability of training non-nuclear NPT member countries in receiving and delivering U.S. nuclear weapons.
I don’t agree with your assessment that NPT is dead and it’s sole utility is to serve Western interests. It certainly has its flaws, but I think the NPT regime has played a huge role in stigmatizing and curtailing nuclear arms and proliferation. Each member state, whether it has nuclear weapons or not, has selfish national interests that its seeks to forward within the regime. You see NPT as an instrument for Western nuclear powers; I see it as a forum to challenge them.
Until 1998, India had a moral high-ground for criticizing the nuclear weapon states. But after choosing to follow them and become a full-fledged nuclear weapon state instead, that moral high-ground is gone. Rather than feeding India’s millions of poor, Indian leaders instead have chosen to spend billions of rupees to create a credible nuclear deterrent against Pakistan (although India already had conventional superiority) and an emerging strategic competition with China (although India had been existing just fine within range of Chinese missiles for decades). Unlike the nuclear arsenals of the Western nuclear weapon states in the NPT you criticize, the Indian nuclear arsenal is increasing.
My point is not to down India by saying this - all the nuclear powers certainly have their flaws, I guess I’m just a little confused about the objectives that India are pursuing. HK
June 29th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Very nice work, Hans. And a beautiful layout. Your blog has critical information attractively presented–a relative rarity in our field.
I had heard (maybe from you) that Secretary Rumsfeld had originated this policy of quietly removing short-range nuclear weapons from NATO bases. Some, particularly in Democratic circles, oppose unilateral reductions, arguing that we should get something for the withdrawals, like Russian reductions and transparency. What do you think the policy should be?
Reply: Thanks for the question and kind words. It is only because of the steadfast support from funders like the Ploughshares Fund that it is possible to do this work. Seriously, it takes years to get to this kind of information.
The quiet - or should I say timid - reductions have emerged under the last two presidents. The Clinton administration announced in 1994 that it would maintain the existing force level in Europe, but went on to withdraw nuclear weapons from national Turkish bases and Greece. Bush came in with a strong commitment to extended deterrence, only to withdraw nuclear weapons from several German bases and the United Kingdom.
As for getting something for something, that would make sense if the Russians wanted to trade. But my sense is that their pointing to the weapons in Europe has been a convenient excuse for hardliners - one we have handed them for nothing - who have little interest in negotiating anyway. It is not clear to me that a few hundred tactical nuclear bombs in Europe are that important to Russia to yield reductions and transparency on their side. Besides, the way NATO has already been reducing the weapons in Europe for years - more than 50 percent since 2000, for nothing - should tell Russia that it’s only a matter of time before they’re all gone anyway.
So I think those who argue that we shouldn’t withdraw from Europe without getting something in return are living in the past. Of course it would be good to get the Russians to reduce. But that’s what the argument used to be when we lived in a strategic competition with the Soviet Union. So to make a withdrawal dependent on Russian reciprocity now would, in my view, surrender the initiative and reinstate a concept of nuclear tit-for-tat in Europe that we left behind nearly two decades ago.
This is not about whether NATO should be defended - if necessary - with nuclear weapons or not, but whether U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe serve this role anymore. I can’t see that they do, and the little we get for them by far is outweighed by the costs and risks of having them there, not to mention the highly criticized practice of equipping and training four non-nuclear NPT countries in NATO to deliver U.S. nuclear weapons in times of war. I think our policy should be to finish the withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe that was begun - but not completed - in the early 1990s. HK
July 6th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Great article - wish we had more like this in our main stream media.
One disagreement.
You criticise the lack of publicity regarding the move. But in your own article you effectively demonstrate the probably reason for their policy.
Far from rejoicing in the fact that more nuclear weapons have left Europe and that the numbers are now at the lowest since the 1950s you use the move to justify criticism of the remaining weapons. If Bush etc had publicised the Lakenheath move - that is exactly how the anti-nuclear movement would have responded.
In the same way that the elected leaders have to take criticism for the unintended consequences of their action: so do unelected leaders of protest groups. If your response to this was not so predictable, it undoubtedly would have been publicised more.
All the same - great article.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Your accusation that the US and NATO missed an opportunity to engage with Russia on nuclear weapons reduction is quite naive. Nuclear talks have never been truly held in the open. Any reduction from one side or the other is closely monitored and discussed in great detail. I would be most surprised if the Russians haven’t given something in return.
By the way, all movement of nuclear weapons are kept secret to protect them from attack from the many unsavory characters that exist in today’s world.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[combined from two comments] I thought followers of this blog might be interested in reading how the British Government has formally responded to the nuclear withdrawal revelations, as demonstrated in the contemporary written Parliamentary answers set out below. However, some Members of Parliament have taken a much more positive reaction, publishing an Early Day Motion (EDM) marking the news. [An EDM acts like a formal political grafitti to gain attention of fellow Parliamentarians and the media.] Keep up the excellent atomic sleuthing, Hans. Dr David Lowry/UK
8 July 2008 : Column 1463W
RAF Lakenheath
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the United States withdrew from RAF Lakenheath the last of its nuclear weapons stored there. [216815]
Des Browne: It is both UK and NATO policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.
7 July 2008 : Column 1153W—continued
USA: Nuclear Weapons
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many US nuclear weapons are maintained at (a) RAF Lakenheath, (b) other UK mainland bases and (c) UK bases overseas; and if he will make a statement. [215792]
Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether all US nuclear weapons have been removed from the UK; and if he will make a statement. [215449]
Des Browne: NATO’s Strategic Concept (paragraph 63) states that, “nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO provide an essential political and military link between the European and the North American members of the Alliance. The Alliance will therefore maintain adequate nuclear forces in Europe.”
It is NATO and UK policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.
And here is a Parliamentary response:
Early Day Motion
EDM 1986 REMOVAL OF US TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS FROM THE UK08.07.2008
Corbyn, Jeremy
That this House welcomes the news that 110 US tactical nuclear weapons have been withdrawn from Lakenheath airbase in Suffolk; notes that there are now no US nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time since 1954; further notes that this move follows the withdrawal of similar weapons from Greece in 2001, and the April 2005 resolution passed by the Belgian Senate calling for the withdrawal of all US nuclear weapons in Europe; congratulates the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Lakenheath Action Group, which have tirelessly campaigned against US nuclear weapons at Lakenheath; is concerned that the weapons withdrawn from Lakenheath may be replaced by the installation of interceptor missiles as part of the US missile defence system; and calls on the Government to disregard the request by the former Prime Minister Tony Blair to the US in February 2007 to consider Britain as a possible location for US missile interceptors.
Signatures( 2)
Corbyn, Jeremy
Cryer, Ann
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
It’s about time….It’s ironic. The awful legacy of MAD left us with thousands of nuclear/atomic bombs, projects, missiles, etc etc that have to be dealt with. Unfortunately, we have much more to contend with (albeit both Russia and the US have substantially cut their ICBM/TBM forces since the end of the Cold War). Although I sincerely doubt the USAF will remove remaining B-61’s from Italy and Turkey…removing weapons from RAF Lakenheath is a huge step to denuclearization. The ONLY reason why we won’t see nukes removed from Italy and Turkey is primarily politics; the same type of “politics” that led to the abrogation of the ABM treaty—which was a HUGE mistake, IMO–for it breaks the balance of power (see MAD). Creating nuclear/atomic weapons was inevitable—but this Frankenstein of a weapon platform will not go away easily. We simply need to continue making progress with denuclearization. One day that will happen…but I know it won’t happen in MY life time…(or my son’s, or my grandchildren, etc etc).
Reply: Indeed it may take a long time; this morning the head of U.S. Strategic Command said that the United States needs to retain nuclear weapons “for at least the remainder of this century.” This statement - which extends the nuclear era further into the future than it has lasted so far - is at odds with Senator Obama’s nuclear policy proposal and the plan for elimination put forward by Kissinger, Nunn, Perry and Schultz. HK
August 12th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Well, this is interesting, but several years late. The USAF hasn’t been sending Nuclear Weapons Specialist to Lakenheath for years. About 2004 or 2005 if I remember correctly, the same time as Ramstein closed shop.
Reply: First, how do you know?
Second, we in the public inevitably are late because these matters are so secret. Moreover, as late as in May 2006, F-15Es of the 48 FW at Lakenheath conducted a nuclear weapons drop exercise at Nellis AFB in Nevada. So the timeline might have been a little later, or the wing retained a nuclear mission even after the weapons were withdrawn. HK