Preface
I wrote this in late September 2023, and updated it on 27 January 2024. The questioner likely was motivated by the Russia - Ukraine war. Um Russian Special Military Operation. Invasion of Ukraine by Russia? You get the idea.
Has the U.S. recently moved nuclear bombs to the UK?
No, the United States hasn’t moved nuclear weapons to the UK. Well, not yet and even if we eventually do, not for awhile. More on that in a moment. First, a bit about why it might not even be necessary.
The UK already has nuclear weapons
England developed nuclear bombs in 1953, and has been able to deliver them on submarines since 1969. That is to say, the UK already has nuclear weapons on its nuclear-powered submarines. According to the sometimes lefty or maybe just contrarian Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (the cheery people with the Doomsday Clock), 120 of the UK’s stockpile of 225 nuclear warheads are operationally available.
UK as nuclear monad?
No, I'm not referring to monads in Haskell, nor in APL!
The UK is the only “nuclear weapons state” which has a single nuclear platform: Four Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). To be precise, the SSBNs are the nuclear platform and the submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) are the nuclear delivery system.
The UK limits its SSBNs to carrying no more than 40 nuclear warheads at a time. Prior to 2010, each submarine carried 48 nuclear warheads. The reduction from 48 to 40 was probably a strategic decision rather than a tactical one, i.e. there is still room for the extra warheads.
The nuclear warheads are named Holbrook. All 120 have the same name. More on that in a moment too.
Only one of the four submarines is at sea at any time. Two stay in port, while a fourth undergoes routine maintenance and repairs. This is why it makes sense to have 120 operational warheads (SLBMs): 40 go with the one submarine at sea. 40 remain on each of the two submarines anchored at dock but ready to be deployed if needed. Since the fourth submarine is undergoing maintenance, it wouldn’t do to have nuclear warheads on board! So, 40 x 3 = 120
Nuclear triad
In contrast to the UK, the US has a nuclear triad. That means that the US can dispatch nuclear warheads in three different ways: by Polaris submarine, by airplane, and by land.
“Land” doesn’t mean putting a nuclear bomb on a flatbed truck and just driving it up to wherever needs to be bombed, shoving it over the side, then driving away and detonating remotely from a safe distance. Instead, nuclear-tipped ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) get the nukes where they are needed. ICBMs are launched from one continent, travel quite low, though always above ground, to hit a target on another continent. ICBMs can be conventional too, i.e.have non-nuclear bombs. There are a few genuine and many CGI videos of ICBMs in action (most are courtesy of defense contractors). All depictions are impressive.
ICBMs are distinctly different from nuclear bomb delivery by airplane. In the latter case, the planes are flown to the destination, then the nuclear missiles are dropped from a height and detonate slightly above their targets.
US nukes in the UK
There is is an active movement opposed to situating any US nuclear missiles in the UK. I do wonder if the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CNDUK), pictured below near RAF Lakenheath, is aware that there are already UK nuclear weapons in the UK.
Perhaps they only want British nukes?
Would that be frowned upon by Prime Minister Keir Starmer as unacceptably nationalist sentiment? I'm not sure, and I'm not being facetious.
For example, consider a recent statement by French President Emmanuel Macron. In his speech of 5 March 2025, Macron said:
Our nuclear deterrence protects us. It is thorough, sovereign and French from start to finish, since 1964...
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| CNDUK No US Nukes Day of Action demonstrators |
In a very real sense, the US has had nuclear weapons in the UK for awhile. According to The Bulletin, emphasis mine,
The United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent relies heavily on American nuclear infrastructure, to the point where its own independence has long been in question. The UK does not own its own missiles, but has title to SLBMs from a pool of missiles shared with the US Navy.
Also, the UK's SLBMs (Holbrooks) are supposed to be very similar to the US W76-0 warhead.
According to an article published by the Council on Foreign Relations, as of March 2023, the UK doesn’t host US nuclear weapons because the UK has their own. Presumably the 120 Holbrooks have been in the UK all along, regardless of whether they are borrowed, leased, or otherwise shared with the U.S.
The US had nuclear missiles in the UK, until they were removed in 2008 according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). FAS runs their operations under the aegis of George Mason University, a branch of the University of Virginia.
Why does CNDUK suspect that US nukes might return to the UK?
There were rumors circulating in late 2023 that the US might choose to deploy some of its nuclear weapons in the UK.
Why might that be? According to CNDUK, A ‘sure’ thing: more proof US nukes are coming to Britain:
"...plans to store the new B61-12 at Lakenheath airbase are gathering pace. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) said that US Air Force budget documents dated March 2023 “strongly imply” that Washington is in the process of re-establishing its nuclear weapons presence in Britain for the first time in 15 years… The documents [were] published as part of the USAF 2024 budgetary justification package....”
FAS gets a lot of their information by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. They use them to infer what might be planned by the Department of Defense and other US government organizations in the near future.
Disreputable pseudo-journalist Max Blumenthal (for more of his activities and those of his father, a Hillary Clinton confidante about Benghazi, Sidney Blumenthal, see here) presumably got ahold of our US Air Force 2024 budget from FAS and passed it along to CNDUK.
The Surety Dormitory
FAS has examined images from Google Earth, and suspects that modernization construction is in progress at RAF Lakenheath for F-35A aircraft, including a “surety dormitory and other infrastructure”. What is a surety dormitory?!
“Surety” is a term commonly used within the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to refer to the capability to keep nuclear weapons safe, secure, and under positive control.
Is the surety dormitory for the nuclear missiles?
Does each Holbrook get his own bed? Sadly, I do not think that is the intended purpose of the dorm. Holbrooks are not B61–12 guided nuclear bombs. B61–12s are launched from airplanes not nuclear submarines.
FAS also says, in the same article, "Increasing Evidence that the US Air Force’s Nuclear Mission May Be Returning to UK Soil",
The new requirement is 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 and the bed down of the two F-35 squadrons, there is a significant deficiency in the amount of unaccompanied housing available for E4s and below at Royal Air Force Lakenheath” [emphasis added].
I didn’t add the emphasis. FAS did. See the image below, which I got from the FAS website. That's where Max Blumenthal got it too.
CNDUK and Russia need not worry: This isn’t happening any time soon. FAS says that construction of the facility if scheduled wouldn't be ready until February 2026.
Is a dorm for 144 E4 airmen expected to cost $50 million in US taxpayer dollars?!
I really hope the $50 million includes the cost of modernizing the Weapons Storage and Security Systems (WS3) contained within the Protective Aircraft Shelters used to house the bombs, not just the cost of building a dorm for 144 unmarried (“unaccompanied”) USAF servicemen.
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| Click to view larger image of the proposed surety dorm, via FAS |
FAS does acknowledge two things that would be contrary to any anticipated hosting of US nuclear weapons in the UK.
First, in December 2021, Reuters asked NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg whether NATO would be stationing nuclear weapons in Poland. Stoltenberg said no, that NATO has no plans of doing that nor of stationing any nuclear weapons anywhere that NATO doesn’t have them already.
Second, FAS itself notes that preparing infrastructure at RAF Lakenheath might be to allow for the possibility of putting nuclear weapons there in the future [emphasis mine this time!] FAS also observes that “the budget language of a “potential Surety mission” indicates that no formal deployment decision has been made.”
Interviewing Jeneral Jens [sic]
This is part of the transcript, available in English, Ukrainian, and Russian, of the interview with former NATO General Stoltenberg in which he said there were no plans to station more nuclear weapons. Reuters Global News Editor Mark Bendeich does a really good job! There’s audio mp3 too. Stoltenberg was NOT thrilled when Bendeich asked him this:
Mr Putin has just said that the reason . . . he cannot de-escalate is because there are 120,000 or more Ukrainian troops on the other side of the border. Is he right?
I also enjoyed the following exchange:
MARK BENDEICH: OK. we’ve only got a few minutes left. I just want to put two more questions to you. Your mandate is due to expire next year. Do you think it will be time, then, for a woman to lead NATO?NATO SECRETARY JENERAL JENS STOLTENBERG: I have to make many decisions as Secretary General of NATO and I’m totally focused on my task as Secretary General of NATO now. And . . . but one of the few . . . one of the decisions I’m not going to make and not be involved in is who’s going to be my successor.
MARK BENDEICH: OK, you don’t have a personal view?
NATO SECRETARY JENERAL JENS STOLTENBERG: When you are Secretary General of NATO you don’t have personal views on those issues.
Accidental nuclear explosion!
Here’s a hilarious and horrific side note I found while writing this.
Remember those Weapons Storage and Security Systems (WS3) contained within the Protective Aircraft Shelters used to house B61–12 bombs? The ones that are NOT named Holbrook!
From a source which I will not disclose, I read the following along with the accompanying photo:
…there is a fleet of Weapons Maintenance Trucks (WMTs) dispersed to NATO bases to provide on-site maintenance of the nuclear bombs. Because this maintenance program occasionally disassembles weapons inside the Protective Aircraft Shelter, the U.S. Air Force discovered in 1997 that the procedure created a risk of inadvertent nuclear explosion if a disassembled weapon was struck by lightning.
Caption: “A U.S. Air Force safety review determined in 1997 that lightning could cause an accidental nuclear explosion during service of B61 nuclear bombs in NATO’s protective aircraft shelters.”
No wonder the CNDUK people are uneasy about having these things nearby! RAF Lakenheath is about 80 miles north of London.
Times change
I found the closing of the FAS article, about the US Air Force’s nuclear mission possibly “returning to UK soil” to be ESPECIALLY amusing!
In the midst of a genuine nuclear crisis with Russia, a portion of U.S. nuclear weapons could be redistributed from more vulnerable eastern bases to RAF Lakenheath.
A key underlying theme since the end of the Cold War has been that Russia didn’t want NATO to expand eastward, as it didn’t want NATO nuclear weapons on its doorstep, aimed at Moscow from, say, Helsinki or Luhansk Oblast.
Recall too the 1962 Cuban missile crisis: NATO placed nuclear weapons at airfields near Inclik in Turkey. The USSR responded by setting up some of their nuclear missiles in Cuba, about 150 miles from the U.S. mainland. After a few tense days, Khrushchev agreed to take his nuclear missiles home, and President Kennedy took our nuclear bombs home too.
Given the fuss over Ukraine wanting to join NATO and Russia wanting a buffer zone between itself and western Europe, I laughed while contemplating that quoted scenario. If things got tense with Russian nukes and Ukraine, NATO/USA would evacuate our nuclear bombs from vulnerable bases in Germany, Italy, and Turkey to the relative safety of the UK!
The Arms Control Association, self-describing as “the authoritative source on arms control since 1971”, provides this helpful infographic of the global distribution of nuclear warhead inventories.
Comments on my answer
“There is quite an active campaign against situating any US nuclear missiles in the UK”
The similar campaign from the 1970s through 1991 was organised by KGB, using the usual useful idiots. The present one is almost certainly organised by FSB, using the same kind of useful idiots as the old campaign."
Western Europeans have been complaining about the USA and our terrible, bellicose, imperialist ways for decades. The 1970s through 1991 and even longer! 1991 is the year the USSR collapsed. It seems ironic to me now that they (well, some western Europeans) want our presence and assistance when we were reviled for so long. In the past, even as recently as 2010 or so, only Poland seemed appreciative.
Makes sense that neither the USSR nor Russia would want US nuclear missiles to be in the UK. And that in both cases, the KGB would be used as opinion or social media-type ‘influencers’! Although… it doesn’t take much extra time for a nuclear bomb to travel from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Moscow than from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, UK to Moscow. An additional minute or two, maybe less, as a a Great Circle route would make it even easier from North Dakota? I don’t fully understand deterrence obviously.
You live in Germany and have spent the past two years at a location or locations north of the Arctic Circle! Very cool! Sometimes I read an online news publication, The Barents Observer. They are up near Murmansk. And the Arctic Circle too! Given that you live in Germany, maybe you might be able to answer a question. I know how anti-nuclear energy Germany is. I *LOVE* nuclear energy. It is the best, the most clean and sustainable source for generating electricity. People here in the US don’t like it either, sadly. So, this is my question: Given that Germany has decommissioned all of its nuclear power plants, would they refuse to permit U.S. nuclear bombs on their territory too, even under aegis of NATO? I am not being a troll. I’m curious.
Here’s a somewhat amusing news article for your entertainment, in exchange for indulging my curiosity (I hope). Norwegian consul filmed insulting Russians at hotel via the local dot no.
Response
Not very big, but very noisy Western European groups have been complaining about the USA and its terrible, bellicose, imperialist ways for decades. Even in the 1970s when the Soviet propaganda was at it highest, they were at most 1 in 15.
Re: US nukes in Germany. In 1958, the Bundestag, the German parliament, approved the deployment of US nuclear weapons, despite some pacifist protests among the population. The Pershing II mobile, intermediate-range ballistic missile was deployed in West Germany from 1983 as a response to the Soviet Union's deployment of of SS20 4 nuclear warheads missiles instead of the older SS4. Officially, 20 US-nuclear weapons are stationed in Büchel, Germany. There may well be more, and they are probably moving around.
I don’t LOVE nuclear fission energy, although it is one of the best, most clean and sustainable source for generating electricity, but also very expensive. Let’s hope for workable fusion energy in the near future. That will fill the world’s energy demands and solve the problems with radioactive waste from fission energy.
It’s important to note that US nuclear weapons are PRESUMED to be here or there, but the government never says so. Official policy is to neither confirm nor deny. I assume this is the case for most if not all nuclear powers.
My reply:
Yes, of course. You are entirely correct. I wrote this in some part to be entertaining. I am a woman. I am whimsical. I sort of anthropomorphized the Holbrooks despite realizing that they are nuclear bombs. No one knows where nuclear bombs are kept. They are like Trident submarines, silently vigilantly stalking… [oops, maybe they are Polaris submarines]
John Francis a nice comment
I don’t know why, but I always assumed you were a man. And yes you are right of course, nobody knows where the nukes are, and if you think you do I’ll bet they are dummy nukes a false target! Why would we have nuclear submarines stealthily swimming around and at the same time nuclear missiles on land and GPS to tell of their precise location. It would be rather foolish to let our enemy know where our weapons are to say the least!
The nukes were home grown so to speak and their scientists were even heavily responsible for the plutonium ‘Thin Man' bomb dropped on Nagasaki, in their Manhattan Project contribution (negated somewhat by Klaus Fuchs treachery who was part of the UK team).
*Yes, Fat Man was plutonium. That guy is correct. According to the National Museum of the USAF regarding Fat Man:My reply: Who was Klaus Fuchs? Was Fat Man a plutonium bomb? What was the name of the other atomic bomb we dropped on either Nagasaki or Hiroshima? (I nearly typed "Fukushima" by mistake eek!)
"A "Fat Man" bomb was dropped over Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945, near the end of World War II. Released by the B-29 Bockscar, the 10,000-pound weapon was detonated at an altitude of approximately 1,800 feet over the city. The bomb had an explosive force (yield) of about 20,000 tons of TNT, about the same as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Because of Nagasaki's hilly terrain, however, the damage was somewhat less extensive than of the relatively flat Hiroshima."Fat Man" was an implosion-type weapon using plutonium. A subcritical sphere of plutonium was placed in the center of a hollow sphere of high explosive (HE). Numerous detonators located on the surface of the HE were fired simultaneously to produce a powerful inward pressure on the capsule, squeezing it and increasing its density. This resulted in a supercritical condition and a nuclear explosion."
*Hmmm, the B-29 Bockscar was a B-29 Superfortress. Fat Man weighed 10,000 pounds and used plutonium. Little Boy used uranium. Klaus Fuchs helped the USSR develop atomic bombs, maybe by spying on the U.K.
Sources for Russia SMO/Invasion of Ukraine
Regarding that conflict, I highly recommend Center for Strategic and International Studies online at CSIS.org for original and informative news analysis in English.
CSIS is a U.S.-domiciled think tank that doesn't denigrate America yet isn't Deep Neocon Country like the Institute for the Study of War. (ISW is run by Victoria Nuland and Donald Kagen's son and daughter-in-law; every donation shows as pop-up when visiting the website, with the donor's name and typical $5 or $10 amount.)
CSIS articles and studies are analytical and fact-based. Viewpoint is neither right-wing nor Commie. Much of my knowledge about Russia and Ukraine has been informed by CSIS, as well as the linked references that CSIS authors use as sources.
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