The Ministry of Defence has addressed concerns regarding the potential impact of a US Air Force in Europe – United Kingdom (USAFE-UK) drawdown, confirming that decisions on the deployment of US forces remain a matter for the US Administration.
Responding to a parliamentary question from Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, Defence Minister Luke Pollard stated that “decisions on the deployment of US forces are for the US Administration.”
However, he reaffirmed that the UK values the continued presence of US forces, adding that “we welcome the continued presence of United States forces in the UK, their engagement with the local communities in which they are based and the role they play in contributing to European defence, security and deterrence.”
While the UK government has not publicly confirmed any discussions on mitigating the potential economic effects of a USAFE-UK drawdown, American bases in the UK have long been an economic driver for surrounding communities. With ongoing uncertainty over US global force posture, the future of these bases remains a key strategic and economic issue for the UK.
A bit of context
The United States has reportedly informed its allies that it will not take part in any new military exercises in Europe beyond those already scheduled for 2025, according to Swedish media reports. This decision is expected to affect several planned drills in Sweden that were still in the early stages of development. Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has shifted American security priorities towards China and the Indo-Pacific, reducing focus on Europe.
His administration has unsettled allies by halting military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, excluding European nations from peace talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia, and increasing pressure on NATO members to boost defence spending.
In response, European nations have begun preparing for a future where the US may no longer be a reliable security partner. EU member states have agreed to allocate up to 800 billion euros (£687 billion) for defence, marking an unprecedented investment in military capabilities. The US has traditionally carried out regular joint exercises with European allies to strengthen cooperation and assess troop readiness, but its decision to scale back participation signals a shift in transatlantic defence dynamics.
The whole not taking part in European exercises bit of the above feels significant.
I agree, I think we are all round better off if US forces just withdraw from Europe and the USA removes itself from NATO’s European command structure. We simply can’t afford to have a country at the core of NATO that may not show up. European NATO won’t stand on its one feet as long as the USA is around.
Having the USA in NATO’s political framework still makes sense as Europe and North America United serves as an important deterrent factor to anyone else.
Plus added benefit that we never have to listen to any Trumpers tell us again how America guards Europe. Really interesting aspect to this is where the USA finds the money to build new basing for 100,000 forces back in the USA.
The nation IC in the European there has always been US.
So it would mean a re-jig of the command structures.
Personally I’m still happy the US is based in this country. 3 or 4 fighter squadrons plus I think there is a full tanker refuel wing in the UK and so on.. Anything up to 12,000 US personnel based here and as the article says.. Benefits the local communities around the bases. I think after Trump has gone in 4 years time.. ‘Fingers crossed’ we need to see how things settle down with a new president in the White house. Could then veer back to the European allies, or may not, could be somewhere in the middle in future. Adjustments may well need to be made. Will see..
They’ll probably just discharge most of them.
Obviously without any VA benefits.
It’s my understanding that it was Sweden, about a month ago, after all the Greenland and Canada stuff kicked off, who started declining future shared forums until they better understood which direction the US was heading. They have deep concerns about the T & P relationship.
There is a military, and an intelligence side to this.
RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath involve pure military power and would have the greatest economic impact. I’d expect, hope, we would make use of these excellent facilities ourselves.
Interestingly, considering many have the US about to pull out, or already gone, the SSA facility at Lakenheath has been upgraded and may now host free fall nuclear bombs again.
RAF Fairford has no permanent aircraft, and has been updated for B2 operations. You’d hope it was kept by MoD as a secondary for Brize, as well as the RIAT.
Wider panic, or actual desire, for the US to leave NATO by some posters here must be tempered by what Trump might come up against from his own DoD to actually enact it. as their own vested interests involve them keeping installations in Europe.
We shall see.
RAF Alconbury is a smaller support installation, and most of the original station is already an industrial estate. The “Magic Mountain” nuclear bunker remains.
Likewise RAF Molesworth, a smaller location, possibly difficult to dispose of by MoD considering what is said to be there.
RAF Croughton is an important cog in US intelligence operations, fat chance they get up and leave that.
Likewise RAF Barford St John, which is a satellite of Croughton.
RAF Feltwell is an interesting one.
RAF Welford could return to MoD DM group and be used for ourselves. It is one of the biggest munitions sites in Europe, used to support bombers out of Fairford, and has its own M4 slip access eastbound, signposted as “Works”
RAF Blenheim Crescent is minor one and would probably be built on.
In addition, there are US personnel at RAF Menwith Hill, RAF Wyton, MoD Digby, GCHQ Bude, and others.
DARC at Brawdy can be forgotten about as well.
If the US takes its people out of Digby, Wyton, Menwith Hill, and vacates Barford St John, Croughton, they hamstring themselves as much as damage wider 5 Eyes Intelligence activities, with these places involvement in such things as Stateroom, Crossbow, Airhandler, and others.
I cannot see it.
If they did leave NATO, I’d hope to see HMG insist that the US remove themselves from those latter sites as well.
They cannot have their cake and eat it, conducting the usual worldwide spying operations while removing themselves militarily. As Menwith Hill, especially, is a vital cog in their SIGINT, Satellite, Space Warning, HF, and internet monitoring machine, as well as being connected to the UK fibre optic telephone system, that leaves them fewer sites non European sites to cover its loss, such as Sugar Grove and Pine Gap.
GCHQ Bude is another vital node in their machine, despite it being a GCHQ facility.
I agree, if they want out of NATO they can give up everything else. Serves the UK little purpose being in any form of alliance with the USA if the USA has no interest in defending the North Atlantic.
Which is why I still do not see it happening.
Remember, it would take more than Trump’s term in office (that’s if he goes?) to draw down Mildenhall and Lakenheath meaning a change in the White House could result in a reversal of some measure. Britain is not an EU member, which may protect us against most anti-EU thinking in Trump’s cabinet. Another factor could be the RN and US Navy’s increasing interoperability, which could corral other military interests between both parties.
I don’t think anyone in the cabinet cares much about the UK being out the EU, it’s America first and everyone else is a foreigner.
Great informative assessment. Under those developments I agree we have to end our lapdog compliance and start playing hardball. Until then I think we have to bite our tongue a little (even its uncertainty gives Putin pause for thought) as we urgently with Europe generally build up our defence capabilities, fill holes like satellite intelligence and nuclear elements/flexibility and build out a command structure within NATO that can be European in nature as and when the time comes to need it. I fear this move away from Europe will continue beyond this Administration (whatever the details, words or nuance) so we need to build up self reliance but a quick change as threatened by Agent Orange who while Congress will likely prevent from leaving NATO will simply gut it from within, could encourage Putin to strike while the irons hot and he believes Europe is ill prepared to resit. Ukraine has given us breathing space, we mustn’t waste that and this does give us (Europe) the opportunity with others to stand strong eventually against an increasingly unstable and declining US. If the US is pushing allies into the hands of BRICs which seems inevitable then they only have themselves to blame as their friends, nominal friends like Egypt, Philippines, Saudi Arabia et al who they think they can manipulate and economic partners look elsewhere and leave them as a powerless if self flagellating beached whale.
Sadly, I agree. We have become far too reliant on the US, to our detriment.
Agreed, I’ve felt we could do with re-balancing our relationship with the US on all fronts for some time- political, economic, and military. Trump seems to be forcing a decision on Westminster- appease Trump and our “Special Relationship” with the US becomes utterly unbalanced, or re-structure it and focus some of our attention elsewhere. Obviously, my preference would be the latter, will have to see if Starmer et al have the stomach for it.
I’m not saying we stop everything altogether, that would be daft. Just reduce the level of outright reliance on the military front.
Same goes for trade; outside of the EU we don’t have the size to be negotiating a decent deal with the US, it will always be in their favour; we’d be better focussing our efforts on Europe (not advocating a return into the EU, just for the record), Commonwealth/ Ex-Commonwealth, and maybe some BRICS.
Impressive amount of detail there Daniele..
As always, the man with the detail!
I’d agree, their operations in the UK are too valuable for them to give up completely- they need a staging area on the eastern side of the Atlantic regardless of their pivot to the Indo-Pacific. Aside from anything else, closing the bases here would also affect the operations in Africa- not just Europe.
I’d expect to see closures of US bases in mainland Europe before we see any change in the force structure here in the UK.
And, as you say, if they scale back their commitment to NATO, then their privileged use of our bases also gets scaled back.
Personally I can’t see that happening.
These places take ages to wind down , by which time another administration will be in and given that Trump has pretty much mugged off a lot of his non die hard voters , I think it will go to the Democrats.
Assuming they actually have another election, of course.
Very good post M8, but perhaps there is a more pragmatic future arrangement to be discussed than the stark “One out, all out” approach. We are dealing with a Transactional President who prides himself on making “the Art of the deal”, the problem is he’s actually not very good at it.
Thing is the US needs us or their own defence is at risk, so unlike Ukraine we do actually have some very big cards of our own to play, we just need to not under or over playboyr hand.
His track record of making good deals is quite frankly appalling, in his 1st Presidency he tried to bully Iran (resulting in them tying up with Russia & China), got nowhere with “Rocketman”(built more bombs and bigger rockerts) and handed Afghanistan to the Taliban (utter humiliation of the USA).
The simple fact is that we in Europe have actually been living the dream and relying on the US to stump up and defend us and some countries have been effectively rubbing their noses in it by seeing just how little they get away with.
He gave NATO a very clear and precise warning and Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada ignored him (the last 3 still are), they gambled that he wouldn’t get re elected and lost.
We in Europe (excluding Turkey and Ukraine) have 580 million people and 20 x the GDP of Russia. So quite reasonably the US has had enough. so we need to move on and we need to get on with it PDQ.
However just because the actual US armed forces move back home (which will cost the US a fortune by the way) it doesn’t mean we have to ditch all cooperation and not still have a mutually advantageous relationship. It just needs to change !
We in Europe and Canada have the real estate and the US has the hardware for effective global intelligence gathering and one is no use without the other. Satellites are importantly but having radar, SIGINT etc etc on the ground is still vital. Without our real estate the US would be effectively half blind !
You just need to think about the importance to the US of Cyprus (Middle East and Israel), Gibraltar (Subs), Ascension island, Diego Garcia and most importantly the Ace in the hole the BMEWS that are in UK, Canada and Greenland.
My point is that we do have Cards to play and the game is to get a realistic deal, access to our real estate in exchange for access to the data and in the case of the U.K. the mutual defence treaty !
Long term if all of Europe agreed to 2.5% of GDP thats about £680 billion pa which is a big enough budget to :-
a) Defend ourselves properly (France and UK get extra funding for the Nuclear umbrella).
b) Start to acquire our own Satellites etc for intel, comms etc etc.
And no I don’t want to go back into the EU.
I do think Europe should harmonise and be realistic, same bullets, some big centrally funded projects (Space, GBAD, ABM, Rail interconnects, SOSUS type and a contribution to France / UK for an expanded CASD, tactical Nucs.). But I reckon long term we will end up with 3/4 Defence Industry National groupings).
IMHO UK and France should bite the bullet and really harmonise our missile industry around building MBDA up, after all Germany has pretty well stitched Land Warfare up.
Spot on. This is why the legacy of empire, our overseas bases, were of such use to the US.
As you list, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Ascension ( with GPS too and NASA stuff as well as the intell ) and Diego Garcia.
On BMEWS, I understand the US pay for the kit, we provide the staff. Menwith is also involved in this.
When you say mutual defence treaty, do you mean us and the US? In principle I’m for that, if NATO goes away- but I’m always wary of bargaining with much bigger players. You’re right, we do have cards to play, but the US is massive and have more. Trying to get a balanced deal may be impossible.
As far as Europe goes, I’m pro a European defence agreement- which I believe is being negotiated at the moment. However, I did read that our participation in it did get sideswiped by some additional conditions surrounding fishing rights- which I hope our negotiators were able to robustly dump in the bin on very obvious grounds of “nothing to do with the subject”.
When it comes to defence industrial, I broadly agree with you- although I think there’s scope for our involvement in some of the land warfare stuff. We’re a big enough player that we can keep a finger in most pies, even if sometimes it’s domestic manufacture of a design. We also have to be pragmatic and accept that France will never fully give up on its own domestic industry. That said, I think we should integrate in with MBDA and extend into EuroSAM too- SAMP/T needs to be rolled out in to the British Army and further afield.
N.A.T.O. was always an American show. European nations have purchased vast amounts of American equipment and technology for decades. If the American right wants to wipe their feet on Europe so be it. Time to take back control.
MEGA
Make Europe Great Again 😀
Make Elon Go Away 😀