Latest news with #Vanguard-class
Canada News.Net
2 days ago
- Business
- Canada News.Net
UK to Acquire F-35A Jets to Reinforce Nuclear Deterrent
The United Kingdom has announced plans to purchase 12 F-35A fighter jets from the United States-aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The move marks the most significant expansion of Britain's nuclear capabilities in a generation, as the country prepares to diversify its deterrent beyond its longstanding reliance on nuclear-armed submarines. At present, the UK's nuclear posture is based solely on its fleet of four Vanguard-class submarines. With the new acquisition, for the first time since the post-Cold War defence cutbacks of the 1990s, the Royal Air Force will once again play a direct role in the nation's nuclear strategy. The announcement was timed to coincide with the NATO summit held in the Netherlands. Prime Minister Keir Starmer framed the decision as a dual message: an enhancement of national security, and a reaffirmation of the UK's steadfast role in NATO at a time when nuclear risks are on the rise. ?In a time of growing global instability, we must recognize that peace can no longer be taken for granted,? Starmer said. ?This investment reflects my government's clear commitment to our national defence.? He underscored the UK's unwavering loyalty to the NATO alliance and its shared responsibility to safeguard the Euro-Atlantic region in the years ahead. The F-35A aircraft are part of NATO's dual-capable aircraft (DCA) programme, designed to support the deployment of US nuclear bombs in Europe. Only a handful of alliance members-such as Germany and Belgium-currently possess the necessary jets and trained crews to fulfill this role. Britain's decision to join their ranks significantly strengthens NATO's collective deterrence. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte offered a warm endorsement of the plan, calling it a ?robust and welcome? contribution from the UK. While the exact timeline for delivery of the F-35As has yet to be confirmed, the British government has stated that the aircraft will be based at RAF Marham in Norfolk-already a hub for the UK's existing fleet of F-35B stealth fighters. This development also comes amid a broader push by European NATO members to ramp up defence budgets. Concerns over Russian aggression, paired with uncertainty surrounding the long-term US military commitment to Europe, have accelerated discussions about self-reliance within the alliance. A key point on the summit's agenda was a proposed pledge for NATO members to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, a target promoted in part to satisfy US President Donald Trump's repeated demands for greater European burden-sharing. Though widely supported by some members, the proposal has met resistance. Spain has criticized the goal as unrealistic, while Belgium has indicated it is unlikely to meet the threshold. Against this backdrop, Britain's commitment to acquiring nuclear-capable aircraft is not just about hardware-it signals a broader strategic shift and a determination to maintain a strong and flexible deterrent in a more dangerous world.
Spectator
3 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Why does Starmer want to grow Britain's nuclear arsenal?
The government published its National Security Strategy 2025 earlier this week, a strange pushmi-pullyu document building on some policy reviews and anticipating others. It is disappointing and unfocused. The national security strategy was accompanied by an announcement perhaps just as significant: the government will buy at least 12 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning strike fighters which are 'dual capable', that is, they can deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons. These aircraft will give the Royal Air Force a nuclear role for the first time since 1998, and the UK's nuclear capacity will no longer be reliant on the Royal Navy's Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines. Keir Starmer has a peculiar and unsettling enthusiasm for the UK's nuclear deterrent This is significant in all sorts of ways: militarily, conceptually and in terms of doctrine and planning. There are currently nine states with nuclear weapons and the UK is alone in having a single method of delivery, the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile. By buying F-35As capable of carrying B61-12 tactical nuclear bombs, Britain can join Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey in contributing to Nato's nuclear sharing arrangement. Here is the detail, however, and its attendant devil. Nato currently has around 100 of these bombs: they are all owned by the United States and could only be used with the permission of the alliance's Nuclear Planning Group and the American president. There is no suggestion that the UK is likely to develop its own tactical nuclear weapons. Its F-35s would join similar aircraft from Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, as well as ageing F-16 Fighting Falcons from Belgium and Turkey, in being available to conduct nuclear strikes. The new aircraft will operate from RAF Marham in Norfolk; the existing fleet of F-35Bs are also based at Marham but deploy operationally on the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, which the new F-35As cannot do. (The F-35A is also incompatible with the RAF's Voyager tanker aircraft so will be unable to refuel in-flight.) The government is not acquiring a sovereign capability here. The aircraft can be used for non-nuclear roles as well, of course, but it would be odd to choose to buy a small number of a different variant from the rest of the force if it was not intended for a specific purpose. We are buying into a nuclear club: helping our allies, certainly, but also paying for a better table, at a cost of around £80 million per aircraft. These are secondary issues. The more concerning argument is that Nato is strengthening its tactical nuclear capability in order, presumably, to provide a stronger deterrent against Russian or other aggression. President Vladimir Putin has threatened repeatedly to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and the logic seems to be that we must be able to match him. Downing Street described the plan to buy the F-35A aircraft as 'the biggest strengthening of the UK's nuclear posture in a generation'. This is self-evidently true: our policy since at least the end of the Cold War has been to provide leadership on non-proliferation, maintaining a minimum credible deterrence and ruling out using Trident as a first-strike weapon. Now, without any visible heart-searching or hesitancy, the government has decided that the geopolitical situation requires more, not fewer, nuclear weapons, so that it can deliver, in Starmer's words, 'peace through strength'. There is an argument that low-yield tactical nuclear weapons are de-escalatory, providing more options for varying circumstances and preventing the immediate resort to more powerful warheads. I am sceptical. Surely it is just as possible that tactical weapons would lower the nuclear threshold, which lies less between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons and more between conventional and nuclear warfare. Smaller tactical weapons are in some ways intended to make 'going nuclear' more, not less, likely. This is all theoretical. A nuclear weapon has not been used in anger for nearly 80 years, since the 21-kiloton 'Fat Man' bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. (The maximum yield of a merely tactical B61-12 bomb is sixteen times that of 'Fat Man'.) What targets would we deem justifiable for tactical weapons? Armoured formations, warships, military installations, infrastructure? What casualties would we see as regrettable but necessary? And once the nuclear threshold is crossed, how do we get back? Keir Starmer has a peculiar and unsettling enthusiasm for the UK's nuclear deterrent. He brandishes its power and necessity with such muscularity that it sometimes feels like overcompensation for Labour's unilateralism which was set aside nearly 40 years ago. The lead author of the Strategic Defence Review, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, told Parliament's defence committee that acquiring tactical nuclear weapons was not absent from its recommendations by chance. The fact that it's not there indicates that we weren't terribly enthusiastic about it. When I was defence secretary the last time round, I got rid of the free-fall bombs. To modify a catchphrase from the 2010 general election, which feels like a lifetime ago, I agree with George.
News18
3 days ago
- Business
- News18
UK Had No Jets To Drop Nukes For Almost 20 Years, 12 F-35As From US Will Change That
This move marks a significant change in the UK's nuclear capabilities. For over two decades, the country's nuclear deterrent has been delivered solely by its four Vanguard-class submarines, which carry Trident missiles. The new jets would give Britain an air-based nuclear option for the first time since the late 1990s, when the RAF retired its last nuclear-capable aircraft following the end of the Cold War era. Britain's shift in nuclear strategy points to growing concerns over Russia and Europe's continued dependence on US weapons to keep Moscow in check. With fears of a more inward-looking Trump presidency, some European countries are now rethinking how to strengthen their own nuclear defences. The UK's new F-35A fighter jets will be added to NATO's nuclear mission in Europe. Countries like Germany and the Netherlands already fly jets that can carry US nuclear bombs, but any use of these weapons would need approval from both the US president and NATO. For now, the UK does not plan to build its own air-launched nuclear missiles, officials speaking to the Wall Street Journal said. 'This is a robust British contribution to the alliance," NATO's secretary-general Mark Rutte was quoted as saying by the newspaper. The UK's plan to buy Lockheed Martin's F-35A fighter jets was announced alongside a pledge to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, in coordination with NATO allies. The move is also seen as an attempt to address pressure from former US President Donald Trump, who has long criticised European nations for not doing enough to fund their own security.
Business Insider
4 days ago
- Politics
- Business Insider
The UK is bringing nuclear bombs back to its air force, a Cold War-era practice that it shut down in the 1990s
The UK is buying 12 F-35As that can carry nuclear weapons, and it's making it clear that it's buying the American aircraft for that capability. "The purchase represents the biggest strengthening of the UK's nuclear posture in a generation," UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer 's office wrote in a statement on Tuesday evening. The move will bring back the Royal Air Force 's ability to conduct nuclear strikes, a capability that the UK decommissioned in 1998 when it withdrew its own air-dropped nuclear bomb from service. Since then, the UK's only official method of launching a nuclear attack has been from its Vanguard-class submarines. Every other nuclear-armed nation has at least two of the three typical methods of launching an attack: by air, land, or sea. The US, Russia, and China are known to possess all three, what's known as the nuclear triad. In his office's statement, Starmer said his government was re-establishing the air-based leg of its nuclear forces amid an "era of radical uncertainty." "The UK's commitment to NATO is unquestionable, as is the Alliance's contribution to keeping the UK safe and secure, but we must all step up to protect the Euro-Atlantic area for generations to come," he said. Starmer's office said the new fighters will be stationed at RAF Marham in eastern England. The UK is already on schedule to receive 138 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, and the F-35As announced on Tuesday are coming from the next batch of this order. British forces already have roughly three dozen of the fighter jets, though these are the F-35B, a variant that can land vertically and take off with an extremely short runway. The F-35A, the baseline version of the aircraft, was the only variant to be certified to carry nuclear weapons. In March 2024, the stealth fighter was certified to carry the B61-12, an American 800-pound nuclear bomb. The B61-12 is a gravity weapon, meaning it's dropped from above and has no propulsion system. Starmer's office said it made its decision to purchase the F-35As after a review of UK defenses urged it to boost its deterrence posture. "The Strategic Defence Review recognised that the UK is confronting a new era of threat, including rising nuclear risk," the statement reads. Global fears of a nuclear arms race While the UK and France have their own nuclear programs, Western European nuclear deterrence relies heavily on the US through American missiles stationed on the continent. NATO, which is gathering its leaders at a summit in the Hague on Tuesday and Wednesday, has also been pushing member states to build up the alliance's fleet of dual-capable aircraft, or warplanes that can drop both conventional and nuclear bombs. The UK's decision comes amid fears of a full-blown nuclear arms race between the three largest nuclear powers, and as tensions among them continue to worsen. The US and Russia, which own close to an estimated 83% of the world's nuclear warheads, are both undertaking wide-scale modernizations of their nuclear weapons and launch systems. China has not publicly admitted to an expansion, but international observers say that it's rapidly building up its arsenal by at least 100 warheads a year from 2023 to 2025. By that rate, it could reach 1,550 warheads — the deployment limit kept by the US and Russia — by 2035. The UK has an estimated 225 nuclear warheads, but has said it intends to increase its stockpile to 260. It's also developing a new submarine, the Dreadnought, to replace its four Vanguard-class nuclear submarines.
Japan Times
23-03-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Keir Starmer on Putin, Trump and Europe's challenge: ‘We've known this moment was coming'
With a staccato burst, a horn sounded in the control room of the HMS Vanguard, sending the crew of the nuclear-armed Royal Navy submarine to battle stations. The voice of the commanding officer crackled over the intercom. "Set condition 1SQ,' he said, ordering its battery of ballistic missiles to be readied for launch. It was just a drill, conducted last Monday for a visiting VIP, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. But Starmer had reason to pay close attention when he was shown where the submarine's launch key is stored: The prime minister is the only person in the United Kingdom authorized to order a nuclear strike. "You're looking for the ideal conditions?' Starmer asked softly, as the captain explained how the Vanguard must be maneuvered to the right depth to launch its Trident missiles. Starmer leaned forward in the captain's chair, the blue glow from a bank of screens reflected in his eyeglasses. Later, after he had climbed a 32-foot ladder to the submarine's deck, Starmer reflected on its nearly seven-month-long mission. Prowling silently in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, it is designed to deter a nuclear conflict with Russia (at least one of the four Vanguard-class submarines is always on patrol). At a time when Europe's capacity to defend itself has come under criticism, not least from President Donald Trump, Starmer said these mighty boats were an ironclad symbol of Britain's commitment to NATO. "Twenty-four hours, 365 days, year after year after year, for 55 years,' Starmer told me after we had cast off and the Vanguard steamed toward its home port in Scotland. "It has kept the peace for a very long time.' Back on a tugboat, taking us to shore in the Firth of Clyde, Starmer sat alone, staring out a window at the gathering clouds. It has been a defining, if sobering, few weeks for the 62-year-old leader: Swept into power eight months ago on a tide of discontent about the cost of living, he now finds himself fighting to avert a rupture of the post-World War II alliance between Europe and the United States. "In our heart of hearts, we've known this moment was coming from just over three years ago, when Russian tanks rolled across the border' of Ukraine, Starmer said of Europe's heightened vulnerability and the strains in the NATO alliance. "We have to treat this as a galvanizing moment and seize the initiative.' The crisis has transformed Starmer, turning a methodical, unflashy human rights lawyer and Labour Party politician into something akin to a wartime leader. With debates over welfare reform and the economy largely eclipsed for now by fears about Britain's national security, Starmer invoked Winston Churchill and, in a nod to his party, Clement Attlee, the first postwar Labour prime minister, as he described Britain's singular role in a more fractured West. "Many people are urging us to choose between the U.S. and Europe,' he said in one of three conversations last week. "Churchill didn't do it. Attlee didn't do it. It'd be a big mistake, in my view, to choose now.' Pausing for a moment, Starmer added, "I do think that President Trump has a point when he says there needs to be a greater burden borne by European countries for the collective self-defense of Europe.' The immediate question is whether Britain and Europe will play a meaningful role in Trump's negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. To ensure that they do, Starmer is trying to assemble a multinational military force that he calls a coalition of the willing. The goal, he says, is to keep Ukraine's skies, ports and borders secure after any peace settlement. Behind Starmer's whirlwind of diplomacy is an even more elusive goal: persuading Trump of the value of NATO. | Pool / via REUTERS "I don't trust Putin,' Starmer said. "I'm sure Putin would try to insist that Ukraine should be defenseless after a deal because that gives him what he wants, which is the opportunity to go in again.' Britain faces hurdles on every front: Russia has rejected the idea of a NATO peacekeeping force. Trump has yet to offer security guarantees, which Starmer says are crucial before countries will commit troops. Aside from Britain and France, no other European country has done so, even as Starmer led the first military planning meeting for the coalition Thursday. Senior British military and defense officials said they expected that ultimately, multiple countries would contribute planes, ships or troops to the effort. But regardless of the political and diplomatic uncertainties, Starmer said he felt he had little choice but to get ahead of the pack. "If we only move at the pace of the most cautious,' he said, "then we're going to move very slowly and we're not going to be in the position we need to be in.' Behind Starmer's whirlwind of diplomacy is an even more elusive goal: persuading Trump of the value of NATO, the 75-year-old alliance that the president disparages as a club of free riders, sheltering under a U.S. security umbrella but failing to pay their fair share. Unlike French President Emmanuel Macron or Germany's incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, Starmer has not called for Europe to chart an independent course from the United States on security. He insists that the "special relationship' is unshakable and that, in any case, British and U.S. forces are deeply intertwined. (The United States supplies the Trident missiles on British submarines.) Starmer has painstakingly cultivated Trump, phoning him every few days and turning up at the White House last month with a signed invitation from King Charles III for a state visit to Britain. The prime minister said Trump told him how much he treasured his meetings with Queen Elizabeth II. The two men could hardly be less alike: Starmer, disciplined and reserved, with leftwing political roots; Trump, impulsive and expansive, with habits and instincts that shade into the regal. Yet they seem to have established a rapport. Trump occasionally calls him on his cellphone, one of Starmer's aides said, to discuss favorite topics such as Trump's golf resorts in Scotland. "On a person-to-person basis, I think we have a good relationship,' Starmer said of Trump, whom he first met over dinner in Trump Tower last fall. "I like and respect him. I understand what he's trying to achieve.' As for Trump's actions — from imposing a 25% tariff on British steel to berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — Starmer said he recognized that the president had generated "quite a degree of disorientation.' The right response, he said, was not to get provoked by it. "On the day in which the Oval Office meeting between President Trump and President Zelenskyy didn't go particularly well, we were under pressure to come out very critically with, you know, flowery adjectives to describe how others felt,' Starmer recalled. "I took the view that it was better to pick up the phone and talk to both sides to try and get them back on the same page.' Starmer dispatched his national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, to coach Zelenskyy on how he could mend fences with Trump. In multiple sessions, two senior British officials said, they crafted language to mitigate Zelenskyy's anxieties about a ceasefire in which the Russians would keep shooting. Starmer then phoned Trump to relay the progress in Kyiv and lay the groundwork for a call between him and Zelenskyy. When the presidents spoke again, Zelenskyy threw his support behind Trump's peacemaking effort. Starmer meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Feb. 27. | Pool / via REUTERS In offering himself as a bridge, Starmer is trying to reclaim a role that Britain played for decades before it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. It showed, he said, that after a period in which Britain had been "disinterested' and "absent' from the world stage, "we're back, if you like.' But there are limits to Britain's role in a post-Brexit world: The EU said it would exclude British weapons manufacturers from a defense fund worth €150 billion ($162 billion), unless Britain signs a security partnership agreement with Brussels. Britain, analysts say, will find it harder to act as a bridge if Trump spares it from more sweeping tariffs that he has vowed to impose on the EU. For now, Starmer's statesmanship has buoyed his poll ratings and won him praise across the political spectrum. After a fitful start, in which he was dogged by a torpid economy, Starmer said the crisis "had injected an urgency' into his government. How long that will last is anyone's guess. Britain's economy continues to sputter and Starmer has faced a backlash over decisions such as cutting payments to help retirees with winter heating costs. The benefits of being a statesman, analysts say, can be evanescent if domestic woes keep piling up. Even the fire at an electrical substation in London on Friday, which shut down Heathrow Airport and threw travel plans for tens of thousands into chaos, is a reminder of how events can temporarily swamp a government's agenda. Painful trade-offs loom, further down the road. Starmer has pledged to increase military spending to 2.5% of Britain's gross domestic product by 2027, financed with a cut to overseas development aid. It is not clear how Britain will pay for a promised further increase to 3% of GDP within a decade. "We've all enjoyed the peace dividend,' Starmer said, noting that Europe is moving into a darker era. "I don't want to veer into scaremongering,' he said, but he added, "We need to think about defense and security in a more immediate way.' Three days after the submarine visit, Starmer took part in a keel-laying ceremony for a new fleet of ballistic missile submarines, being built at a shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, in northwest England. Four Dreadnought-class vessels, each almost the length of St. Paul's Cathedral, are scheduled to go into service in the early 2030s, at an estimated cost of 41 billion pounds ($53 billion). Standing in the cavernous factory, with the aft section of a submarine towering above him, Starmer expressed pride in this statement of British might. But it was also a reminder of the stretched state of its military. The Vanguard-class submarines being replaced by the Dreadnoughts are nearly 30 years old — "pretty old kit,' in Starmer's words — which necessitates prolonged maintenance periods. That has extended the patrols for the other vessels in the fleet and put acute pressure on their roughly 130-person crews. The strain was on display during Starmer's visit to the Vanguard, which set a Royal Navy record for longest patrol. Sailors said the food, excellent at first, deteriorated as the submarine's provisions dwindled. Four were returning to spouses who had had babies while they were away. Others lost family members, only learning the news from the captain on the eve of their return. "It is with huge respect to the team' that they survived seven months at sea, Starmer said after stepping gingerly off the submarine's weathered deck. "But we shouldn't be celebrating it.' "This has doubled my resolve to ensure we go further and faster in our capabilities,' he said, "to make sure they are not put in that position again.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times © 2025 The New York Times Company
