The decision means that Britain’s air force will have a nuclear role for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
In an announcement timed to this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, Britain said it would buy 12 F-35A stealth fighter-bombers, enabling the country’s military to once again have the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons from the air.
The new planes, once delivered, can carry both conventional and nuclear bombs. For now, Britain has only one leg of the triad of nuclear weapons delivery systems: Trident submarines that can fire cruise missiles. Adding air capability, as the French also have, will make it easier for Britain to act in the case of a crisis. Neither country has any land-based nuclear weapons.
Britain also said on Tuesday that it would join NATO’s airborne nuclear mission, with allied aircraft being equipped with American B61 bombs stockpiled in Europe. The new planes reintroduce “a nuclear role” for Britain’s air force “for the first time since the U.K. retired its sovereign air-launched nuclear weapons following the end of the Cold War,” the government said.
Downing Street called it “the biggest strengthening of the U.K.’s nuclear posture in a generation.” It also strengthens the European pillar of NATO at a time of persistent doubts over the American commitment to use nuclear weapons to defend Europe in the case of a Russian attack.
Seven NATO members, including Germany and Italy, have dual-capable aircraft stored on European soil that can carry American B61 nuclear warheads.
Britain already operates F-35B jets that can operate from aircraft carriers, but they are not equipped to drop nuclear warheads.
