NATO summit: Atomic deterrence: Buy British new high-tech fighting jets

During the ongoing NATO summit in the Hague, Great Britain’s government has announced the decision to buy state-of-the-art fighter jets from the USA to strengthen its atomic deterrent. According to this, at least twelve F-35A aircraft are to be ordered that can throw atomic bombs. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte welcomed the decision of the British as an important contribution to the nuclear deterrence of the transatlantic military alliance.

After the end of the Cold War, Great Britain had circumcised the strategic role of the Royal Air Force and put it on his submarine fleet solely on the nuclear deterrence. The current U -turn has been marking the most important strengthening of the deterrent program for decades, the government in London said.

“In times of radical uncertainty, we can no longer consider peace to be a matter of course, which is why my government invests in our national security,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer was quoted in the message. The purchase of the F-35A jets, which can be equipped with both conventional weapons and nuclear weapons, will be heralded “a new era”. “I all have to do more to protect the euro-Atlantic area for the next generations,” said Stamer.

Mass order of more than 100 fighter jets

The fighter planes estimated at a unit price of around $ 80 million (the equivalent of EUR 70 million) are part of a long-planned mass order of 138 f-35 jets. What is new is that a dozen of this plane should now also be able to use nuclear weapons. The British “Guardian” reports that the B61-12 types of USTom bombs, whose destruction was three times as strong as that of the explosive body that was thrown down to the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945.

In Europe, in addition to Russia, only Great Britain and France have their own nuclear weapons.

At their summit in the Haag in Dutch, the 32 NATO countries want to adopt a new output on Wednesday, which will result in investments in armaments and infrastructure by 2035. As the main reason for the strongest upgrade since the end of the Cold War, new threats from Russia have been cited.