UK SDR 2025: UK considers return to nuclear role for RAF

An F-35A seen dropping an inert B61 nuclear bomb during trials. The combination could be fielded by the RAF under a plan announced in the SDR 2025. (Sandia National Laboratories)

The UK Royal Air Force (RAF) could return to the nuclear role it lost following the end of the Cold War in the late 1990s, the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) 2025 has announced.

In a move described by one UK parliamentarian on the same day as its publication on 2 June as “the UK's most significant defence expansion since the end of the Cold War”, the review said that the country should consider participating in NATO's air-launched nuclear deterrent mission.

“[The Ministry of Defence] should commence discussions with the United States and NATO on the potential benefits and feasibility of enhanced UK participation in NATO's nuclear mission,” the review titled Making Britain Safer: secure at home, strong abroad said. Under NATO's nuclear sharing arrangement, the US has deployed a limited number of B61 nuclear weapons to certain locations in Europe, which remain under US custody and control.

The RAF ceased its nuclear mission in 1998, with the withdrawal from service of the WE177 freefall bomb coinciding with the conversion of the nuclear-capable Panavia Tornado GR1 to the non-nuclear Tornado GR4 configuration (it was withdrawn from the Royal Navy's [RN's] BAE Systems Sea Harrier force at the same time). This left the UK's nuclear deterrent with the Trident D5 system onboard the RN's Vanguard-class strategic missile submarines.

US option