A significant surge in United States Air Force aerial refuelling tankers crossing the Atlantic has prompted scrutiny from defence analysts and observers, amid heightened tensions in the Middle East.
On Sunday night, an unusually large formation of American aerial refuelling aircraft — including over two dozen KC-135 Stratotankers and KC-46 Pegasus tankers — was observed transiting eastbound from North America at cruising altitudes consistent with strategic repositioning. The volume and pattern of these flights suggest a deliberate deployment of refuelling assets, rather than routine training or ferrying operations.
This mass movement does not appear to be linked to any currently scheduled multinational air exercise such as Atlantic Trident, leading many to assess it as a pre-positioning effort in support of future operations or rapid response plans. While the precise destination of the tankers remains unconfirmed, many were observed heading toward European airspace or potentially onward to Middle Eastern bases used by US and NATO forces.
The movement comes at a time of sustained regional instability. The United States has already deployed naval and air defence assets to the region in support of Israel, including AEGIS-equipped destroyers and THAAD anti-missile systems. A large-scale deployment of aerial refuelling aircraft could provide the capability to extend the range and endurance of US strike platforms, or rapidly support the forward movement of fighters, bombers, or ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) aircraft.
Aerial refuelling is a core component of modern military power projection, enabling combat aircraft to operate far from their home bases without compromising payload or loiter time. Both the KC-135 and KC-46 are capable of transferring tens of thousands of pounds of fuel mid-flight to a wide variety of receivers, including fighters, bombers, surveillance aircraft, and other tankers in complex relay operations.
While no official explanation has been offered for the large-scale movement, the strategic flexibility provided by such a tanker surge could be central to US contingency planning in the event of further escalation in the region.
At present, no accompanying strike aircraft have been detected on open-source tracking platforms, although this does not preclude undisclosed operations or aircraft operating without visible transponders.
The nature and timing of the tanker deployment remain notable and point to a high level of operational readiness. Whether the flights are part of deterrence posture, routine rotation, or preparation for specific missions will become clearer in the days ahead.
We can but hope.
Iran needs regime change.
Iran does but when has the west meddling ever resulted in a positive regime change.
The only way to get a positive change is to engage with them and build their economy so the people of Iran demand change
Bombing them just results in feeding the anger towards the west and results in a regime that is even more headlined.
Kosovo
Kosovo wasn’t a regime change. It was in support of the breakaway government
“ The only way to get a positive change is to engage with them”
The regime hanged a teenage girl from a crane because she was raped. We have no business engaging with the regime and should continue to military means to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. Eventually the current regime will collapse and we can then reset relations.
There is no engaging with the current regime, they are fanatical religious zealots and a significant threat to our way of life.
So how well have the current approach worked over the last 40 years?
No one is saying they are an ideal nation and no one is saying we agree with how they act but peace is the best solution. Just look at northern Ireland, a deal with terrorists worked.
Good luck trying to negotiate with religious zealots.
They wont listen to anyone who does not follow the Shia interpretation of the. Quran.
Northern Ireland is a frozen conflict that is perpetually closer to reigniting than most people seem to realise. Engaging with the Iranian regime to ‘build their economy’ will improve the affluence of the people, thus increasing their confidence in their own government. This is hardly likely to lead them to demand change.
The problem is the sheer amount of differences between the Western Democracy’s and Extremist Shia Iran, comparing this to the NI conflict is just nonsense.
NI both sides are Christian and oddly enough there are a lot of things the Ulster Protestants and Catholics agree on such as abortion ! It also helped that both side have the same basic heritage because both derive from Scottish and Irish intermingling.
As opposed to complete opposite views on Democracy, Religion, Human rights, female equality, freedom of speech, religious freedom, LGBT tolerance and a complete xenophobic hatred of Israel.
Where is the common ground ?
Neither is likely to create regime change, the regime is unpopular due to the terrible economy and economic insecurity, build up their economy and the regime becomes more popular not less. We tried it in Russia over a 20+ year period that worked out well in just building them up to be as dangerous as before.
Fair point in Russia but history has shown time and time again the way to reach western democratic views is growth of the middle class. Cuba/Iran/Syria/north Korea/etc have all shown that isolation just drives the reverse.
There just isn’t any short term solutions, it takes time to encourage a country to become more friendly to the west, but if you create a trade reliance it tends to work.
Trade reliance was Muti Merkels idea on how to tame naughty bears, and has had no constraint for the killer of the crimlin rather gave him energy leverage to corrupt Europe. Looking at you Germany, Slovakia and Hungary.
Shared interest has to start from shared values so out of the question with iran DPRK and RF.
Yes that went so well before.
Regime change doesn’t work unless it’s done by the native population of a country. Enforce it externally and it always fails.
Agreed, you can massage it at best but little more.
So we didn’t effect a regime change in Hitler’s Germany then? Or Japan? That was just an uprising by the native population?
Regime change was not the reason why we went to war with Germany and Japan. We went to war with them because they invaded allied nations, colonies, etc.
War aims changed mid-way through to unconditional surrender and destruction of the regime.
Regime change in Germany and Japan followed a period in which about 10% of Germany’s and 3% of Japan’s population were killed, their militaries were nearly destroyed, and much infrastructure was destroyed. (German death toll five times that of Gaza, for example.) Moreover, the allied regime change had an additional “carrot or stick” approach — Germans and to a lesser extent Japanese knew that if they did not cooperate with the Western allies, they would face far worse under the USSR.
Regime in Germany and Japan was also accompanied by enforced social change and reeducation (especially in Germany) but also in Japan this included the United States taking control of the educational system and enforcing curriculum changes, banning extreme religious factions (e.g., emperor worship), and so on. This was accompanied by economic rebuilding and a promise of a place in the western alliance. In Japan in particular it was successful in converting a highly militaristic population to one where peace was considered a virtue. Approaches differed somewhat: Japan was generally oriented toward pacifism, while the fire bombing and atomic bombing and large percentage of military deaths allowed politicians and public to take a general anti-war stance (war is bad rather than we were bad). In Germany, the holocaust meant that germans in general took on more war guilt (we were bad) although anti-war sentiment was also strong, but the west did need Germany to be willing to be sufficiently militaristic to stand up to the Soviets. Both approaches were highly successful, even though some nationalist elements lingered in both societies.
Very little like this has been achieved since, largely because it is hugely expensive in blood (you needed to totally defeat the enemy with major civilian casualites), treasure (Marshall plan etc.,) and requires a great deal of patience as well as strong self confidence that the values you are imposing on the defeated state are just (arguably the modern west do not believe in absolute morality any more).
So far, the combination of total defeat in war, major civilian casualties, social reconstruction and economic rebuilding has not been practiced in other conflicts, though some totalitarian regimes have attempted it along their borders (e.g., China in Tibet).
We don’t do regime change, you could end up with someone twice as worse.
It’s for the people of Iran to decide.
Not with the UK involved. There is no direct British national interest. We should stay well out of it.
Indeed but we just know that Mr ‘bring peace to the World’ will through utter stupidity and incompetence not to mention the temptation of personal land deals bring anything but conflict and risk to the Middle East and use us as cannon fodder along the way. Both the present Iranian threat and Oct 7 were seriously stoked by decisions Trump made during his first term. I fear what new ones he is setting in motion during his far more catastrophic and self serving second one. This is a man who thinks he can manipulate wars to gain himself a peace prize for heaven sake.
Nuclear non proliferation is a UK national interest in general and especially in the hands of a regime that’s a state sponsor of terrorism and publicly states intent to destroy sovereign democratic nations.
Given the cost and risk of confronting terrorism the regime is already unacceptable. Add in their record on human rights, and they must end.
It does, but we should not get involved in it. Let them deal with it themselves.
I thought that are to be Zero wars under Trump ?
This is Trump 2.0 with added catheter bag and dementia, even he doesn’t know what he is going to do tomorrow.
Same trump that would have the Ukraine war ended in 24 hours or would have new trade deals done with 200 nations in 40 days. Or the same one that now has the nickname TACO, I suspect the later
Yeah that was yesterday, today apparently peace is only achieved by creating and manipulating wars. Failed in Ukraine so now he thinks if he stokes this one and then is seen as putting a halt to it he gets a Peace Prize and his place in History and post Presidential influence is assured. Hey he may even stay out of prison.
Now he has tried prototype versions of this approach in part already recently, ie in the Indo/Pakistan conflict which he tried to claim he brought to an end and in so doing endangered relations with India and their westward movement as a result as they claim he played no part. Then there is the LA debacle when he illegally sent in the National Guard and Marines under the lie of ‘invasion’ and ‘insurrection’ when it was mostly peaceful demonstrations protected under the Constitution and yes some mild violence that was well under the control of the Lapd and totally inflamed in the first place by Miller sending ICE into Home Depot and then inflamed after Trumps troops hit the streets. This is all about taking focus away from his terrible Presidency and falling support and where that goes now it’s on a World scale with no sensible advisors just sycophants around him this time around, is scary to contemplate..
Trump may achieve what both Nazi Germany and the USSR failed to do, the defeat and possible disintegration of the United States.
Utterly unbelievable.
It’s illogical Captain.
Spock wasn’t the captain 🤦🏻♂️
The Iranians better be careful, they are firing ballistic missiles into a nuclear armed state threatening to destroy them. The UK needs to distance itself from any of this.
Iran has always threatened and wanted to destroy Isreal!can you just imagine the mad mullahs with nukes?nowhere would be safe!
If Isreal can stop that good luck to them any regime change will be a bonus.
Israel 🙄
So instead we clearly have an aggressor in Israel. Do we really want them as the only nuclear power in the region. It’s only a matter of time that they decide one of their neighbours is a threat and nukes them knowing they are free to do it. Can you blame Iran for wanting to be able to defend themselves against that threat.
A nuclear Iran isn’t far from ideal, but I don’t feel isreal has the high ground on this. Their actions over the last couple of years have broken all forms of international law and the only reason they aren’t being sanctioned hard like Russia is because the US is blindly backing them.
So Iran is an innocent victim? Rubbish !!!
Look at all the wars they have funded and prosecuted via their proxies.
They have been constantly threatening to destroy Israel for decades, and you think Israel is the Aggressor ?
They have provoked everything that is currently happening to them.
In this specific case they were attacked first. Innocent clearly no but they are the victim here..
Reality is if trump hasn’t been jealous of Obama Nobel peace prize for the Iran deal and not immediately ripped it up without any evidence of Iran failing to comply (us intel, western intel, un intel, none said there was any evidence, trump as a presidential candidate had more info it seems), then we probably won’t be in this mess, so let’s blame trump.
Rubbish. In addition to the constant attacks on Israel by Hezbollah, financed, armed and led by Iran, Hamas, armed and financed by Iran launched a large scale attack on Israel. This was a deliberate act of war by the government of Gaza. Israel was entirely justified in responding. Indeed it should have moved more quickly and decisively to destroy its enemy. The operation against Hezbollah was also entirely justified under the rules of war.
As to Iran, in 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany before any military action against either country. How much more justified is the Israeli attack on a country that has not only repeated its aim of wiping Israel off the map, but has organised proxy wars and launched direct attacks on Israel in retaliation for the damage to its terrorist proxies.
Of course, these justified responses to aggression do nothing to solve the long term problem of the displacement of Palestinian people.
Without progress on that, Israel, for all its military strength and skill, will never be truly safe.
Oh Steve. Israel isn’t going to nuke another nation unless that nation is nuking them or about to eradicate them militarily.
Yes. I dont want any of those nations around Israel with nuclear capability!
No, Iran can defend itself all it likes.
It also uses its proxies to attack who it likes.
Now chickens are home to roost. They are no match for the IDF.
Yes, Israel are ruthless. They’ve dismantled Hezbollah, same with Hamas, now Iran.
Israel is not our enemy. But Iran is.
On Gaza, maybe neighbouring countries should hsve allowed the civilians ( who were cheering Hamas weeks before ) to leave? But they closed their borders.
Israel doesn’t put its facilities beneath hospitals and schools then shout at the world either.
A nuclear iran is definitely far from ideal.. im not saying Israel hasn’t done bad things, justified or otherwise.. if i was Israel, the last time the surrounding countries kicked off i would have carried on and turned them into semi-autonomous buffer zones. I think at the point that everyone surrounding a country is preaching its eradication the gloves are off and everyone else should stay the out of it
The problem with Nuclear weapons be they Fission, Fusion or a DDR is, as always size matters !
The land mass of Israel is tiny at 8630 square miles, it’s only 500 square miles bigger than Wales has a population of 10million of which 75% are Jewish and 90% of that population lives in less than 20% of the land, mainly on the coast and around Jerusalem, so it’s a very small compact target.
Iran by contrast is 636,372 square miles so is 74 times the size of Israel and has a population of 90 million.
Now you know why Israel is terrified of an Iranian Bomb (of any type), 4 bombs and between the immediate blast and overlapping fallout it pretty well curtains for Israel. Even 4/5 DDR exploding over Israel would be Cataclysmic for them and they know it.
Iran on the other hand is far larger, its population is more dispersed and so it would need a considerable nuclear strike on it to really devastate it, and for that you are talking dozens of weapons. Which effects the entire planet due to the existing Strontium 90 levels it would have far reaching effects in the short and long term.
So no a Nuclear Iran is a really bad idea because MAD relies on both sides being equal and both having a level of sanity. And I actually can’t see any sanity on either side.
Israel has been the only nuclear power in the region for over half a century. I’d much rather that continued than an India/Pakistan style standoff.
“So instead we clearly have an aggressor in Israel. ”
The agressor is Islamist Iran, it is Iran that has an world wide imperial islamic ideology in its Constitution and wants to destroy Isral and it did try it with Hamas, Heezbollah and themselves.
Iran doesn’t really have a choice, it’s been attacked by Israel, no nation is just going to sit back and take daily bombing raids without fighting back.
Have you ever served in the Armed Forces?
Well as Israel has been attacked almost daily by Iranian weapons supplied to their proxies all intent on the destruction or Israel Thats a bit rich isn’t it? What would happen if the mullahs decided to send a device to one of those groups and then just sit back and say “wasn’t us guv” as it was exploded in Israel?
“Iran doesn’t really have a choice, it’s been attacked by Israel, no nation is just going to sit back and take daily bombing raids without fighting back.”
That must be one of the most dumb things to have been said here. Iranian regime have been attacking Israel for years. Houthis have been lobbing Iranian missils against Israel weekly.
Then Israel have been attacking military and regime installations while Iran have been raining missils on cities.
Oh and Pakistan, another nuclear armed State, has (though it’s been little reported) that it won’t allow Iran to be ‘defeated’ whatever that means in reality. Trump is just pushing buttons under the delusion he’s an ‘action man’ and the rest of us just have to hope he doesn’t hit the big red one.
Pakistan has its own problems to deal with.
There are many factions of Taliban and muhajideen that are causing many problems locally.
And then there is India.
I doubt they will do anything to defend Iran.
You continue peddling non sense. Pakistan was one of the countris that abstaind in IAEA last report blasting Iran – only Russia, China and Burkina Faso voted against.
remind you that Pakistan and Iran traded attacks last year and Pakistan wants to continue to have an edge over Iran.
Have the current Iranian regime not threatened to target UK and US bases in the region? Whilst I don’t want us getting involved, I hope we have a Sky Sabre battery or two in Cyprus!
Type 45 off the coast really required to defend against a ballistic attack.
coincidence?
Lets look at some basic stats.
Iran has a population of 80million, Israel is about 10 million.
Then you have to remember the conflict between Iraq and Iran which went on for years. Iraq was backed by the west and basically lost.
You cannot presume Israel can win even with the US helping out, but not directly getting involved.
Israel has the technology edge, but it’s army would be too small to occupy Iran in any great numbers and for any length of time.
You cannot dictate regime change without occupying the country.
The US could do it, but unlikely it would want to get involved with a long term commitment and possibly unset a lot of Arab countries who do not want a lot of US troops in the Middle East.
Iran could end up being a failed state if Israel wins a military conflict and the Iran regime falls. That would mean a more unstable situation in the Middle East for many years to come and it is hard to see how it would be resolved considering what happened in Libya.
There is no easy options now this has started.
You are right. Pakistan would not tolerate that (how would the US feel if Mexico came an ungovernable state?) and Israel or indeed the US in any sane World would be mad to mix it with them, definite WW3 material especially as China would actively support Pakistan. This has all the makings of the build up to WW1 if some sanity isn’t brought to it. I think even Trump (presently) won’t want to push his luck but all it needs is a loss of US nationals or attack on a US base (deliberately or accidentally) and we know revenge will take priority over and concern for wider conflict. He lives on the delusion the US is invincible if they exert enough increasing power, though that parade with those mostly slovenly troops (that Russians I note on TikTok have applied Laurel and Hardy music to) is hardly a convincing argument.
A failed state is still a regime change, and a failed state cannot muster the industrial resources to build nuclear warheads.
That may be so.
Sadly, to cause a lot of trouble you just need access to nuclear material to build a dirty bomb.
FYI According WHO Iran is now over 90 million and 25% of Israel’s population is Arab (inc Gazas 2 million).
I can’t see how a failed state would be worse than one which deliberately ferments revolutions and disorder throughout the region.
One thing I note from this conflict is that Domes of any nature, be they Iron Dome or Tin Pot Dome or as I contemplated this question just now, in particular Trump’s Golden Dome in reality operate far better as a deterrent than having to be extensively used. Seems 7 missiles penetrated Iron Dome last night alone and Iran is boasting it spoofed Israeli defensive missiles so as to chase themselves, which strangely I would have dismissed but having watched last night I thought I had detected just such a phenomenon though doubted my own perception till hearing this claim this morning. If Israel, the size it is and with all the technology and assets it has at its disposal, plus those supplied co-designed and financed by the US on a massive scale, still struggles to protect against relatively unsophisticated missiles; imagine the complexity of protecting a Country the size of the US from far more sophisticated missiles of various types and ultimately with multiple nuclear warheads where, if only a few got through effects would be catastrophic? The question has to be asked how effective could it be in reality and is it really, considering the extremes lengths and thus related costs they are planning to take it to, the best use of limited military outlay when balance of payments and borrowing in the US is heading, as the leadership trumpets, for unsustainable levels, while the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is ironically making it even worse while perversely making ordinary people poorer. This is getting beyond surreal.
Agreed, I’m surprised there’s not been greater highlighting in the news that Israel’s much vaunted Iron Dome is not invincible. Yes it’s been effective against Hamas and Houthi rockets and drones in the past, but it’s struggling against ballistic missiles. Iron Dome is regarded as the premier layered GBAD system with Germany spending €4bn on Israel’s Arrow 3 exoatmospheric interceptors as part of the ESSI.
GBAD systems like this are fine for minimising losses from conventional warheads, but against nuclear they need to far, far better.
Agreed, this conflict has already demonstrated the Herculean task ahead of both ENATO and the US to develop effective, resilient GBAD/ABM systems. Bring the checkbook along.
Given some nearly 700 ballistic missiles have been fired at Israel, I would say the ABM systems have performed well.
Plus the IDF has taken out some missile bases and launchers.
Once Iran runs out of Ballistic missiles their offensive capabilities against Israel are pretty much gone.
Where did they all land? Mildenhall? Ramstein? Aviano? A mix?
Carrickter, They are all “Stacked” around Glasgow Prestwick, waiting for the UK to build facilities. Hopefully they have enough fuel to last the 12 months it will take.
Good to see you stayed on topic !
And when they start falling out of the sky.?
The world is going to subject the US to its own proxy war.problems.