The US is upgrading facilities at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk to enable nuclear weapons to be stationed on British soil for the first time in 15 years.
The move comes amid a surge in rhetoric from senior British and American military officials about the increasing prospect of war with Russia, the second largest atomic weapon power after the US.
Documents on the US department of defence procurement website seen by the Daily Telegraph outline plans for a “nuclear mission” that will take place “imminently” at the base where nuclear warheads were housed during the Cold War.
The Pentagon documents show it has ordered equipment for the base including ballistic shields to protect from attacks on “high value assets”. Construction on new accommodation for American troops working on the site is set to start in June.
Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, is expected to visit the US soon for talks.
General Sir Richard Shirreff, Nato’s deputy supreme commander from 2011 to 2014, said in a letter to The Times this week that it is time to “think the unthinkable” and consider bringing back conscription in order to deter Russia from all-out war.
Carlos Del Toro, the US secretary of the navy, said on Thursday that “sacrifices” had been made in the British Army and the UK needed to ask itself if it should be strengthened. Downing Street responded by defending UK defence spending as “the largest in Europe”.
General Sir Patrick Sanders, chief of the general staff, said in a speech on Wednesday that civilians needed to be trained and equipped to fight in a “citizen army” against a country such as Russia.
US nuclear weapons first arrived in the UK in 1954. They were housed at RAF Lakenheath, RAF Molesworth and RAF Greenham Common.
The UK’s nuclear arsenal — the submarine-launched Trident missiles — are entirely sea-based. The US had a “nuclear triad” of bombs that can be launched from the sea, air and land.
US nuclear-capable cruise missiles were last stationed in the UK in 1991 but it was not until 2007 that a number of gravity bombs, or the B61 nuclear bomb, were taken off British soil.
The air force’s 2024 budgetary justification package released in March last year included plans to build a “surety dormitory” at RAF Lakenheath.
The “surety dormitory” was also briefly mentioned in Pentagon testimony to Congress and is a term within the US defence and energy departments to describe a site that is capable of keeping nuclear weapons safe, secure and under positive control.
Those documents contained plans to “construct a 144-bed dormitory to house the increase in enlisted personnel as the result of the potential surety mission,” with the “influx of airmen due to the arrival of the potential surety mission”.
When they became public, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman warned there would be “counter measures” if US nuclear weapons returned to the UK.
Pentagon documents, made public in November, revealed that the UK had been added to a list of former nuclear weapons storage locations that were being upgraded. RAF Lakenheath was the base earmarked for the work.
At the time Pentagon officials confirmed that the base was being upgraded but declined to say whether any decision had been made about storing air-launched nuclear bombs at the site.
The Pentagon last night played down the significance of its upgrading work at Lakenheath.
“The United States routinely upgrades its military facilities in allied nations,” said a US Department of Defense spokesman.
“Unclassified administrative budget documents often accompany such activities. These documents are not predictive of, nor are they intended to disclose any specific posture or basing details. It is US policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence or absence of nuclear weapons at any general or specific location.”
However, the required hardened storage facilities have been completed at Lakenheath where the F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft are based. They are nuclear-capable aircraft.
If Lakenheath is to return as a nuclear base, the US will be sending the upgraded version of the nuclear gravity bomb that was stored at the site until 2008. The new bomb is called B61-12.
The F-35s are part of the US 48th Fighter Wing at Lakenheath and Kathleen Hicks, the US deputy defence secretary, visited in November.
She “toured infrastructure improvements designed to improve base resilience and support for the base’s F-35 squadron,” said Eric Pahon, the Pentagon spokesman, at the time. “She also received a briefing on the Air Force Repair Enhancement programme, designed to aggressively mitigate maintenance shortfalls and ensure sustained combat capabilities,” he said.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “It remains a longstanding UK and Nato policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.”
