The rushed withdrawal of US bombers from a British airfield will likely impact the tempo of strikes America can generate against Iran for the time being, and underscores a dearth of defenses at critical installations, experts told Breaking Defense. On Sunday [note, this is two sundays ago now, I just didn't get around to the article until now], the US abruptly pulled out a dozen B-1 Lancer long-range bombers from RAF Fairford in southern England due to fears of a threat from Iran, according to President Donald Trump. The New York Times reported Monday that the swift exit was prompted by the possibility of a localized drone attack, potentially mirroring a Ukrainian operation last year dubbed “Spider Web” that used cheap drones to destroy Russian strategic aircraft on the ground. Fairford, located in southwest England, has been a key launch pad for US bombers like the B-1 and B-52 Stratofortress after the outbreak of Operation Epic Fury in February. The base offers a shorter flight path to the Middle East — about 3,000 miles to Iran — relative to installations in the US, reducing strain on aircrews and airframes and offering a relatively quicker turnaround for sustained operations. The immediate operational impact of the bomber evacuation from Fairford is likely to be limited since the US is not currently flying many missions against Iran, according to Stacie Pettyjohn, senior fellow and director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security.

Still, other experts said future operational planning — especially for any significant resurgence in offensive strikes, as Trump is reportedly considering — will have to be reevaluated. “Withdrawing these bombers to home airfields in the contiguous United States will provide an opportunity for more significant maintenance on the aircraft, but it does reduce the potential sustained strike capacity US forces could bring to bear against Iran,” Timothy Walton, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Breaking Defense. Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, similarly said that having to move aircraft farther from the Middle East “means greater transit times and greater use of tanker aircraft,” increasing strain. Pointing to potential impacts like lower sortie generation, the loss of convenience offered by access to Fairford could influence “the efficiency and flexibility” that bombers could be employed, said Joshua VerGow, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Walton said he believed the bombers would return to Fairford in the future, but in the meantime US war planners are likely looking at other options.

Where To Go From Here

Beyond Fairford, VerGow said the US still maintains an “ecosystem of bases, allies, logistics, and intelligence sharing agreements” that can “ensure movements like these can be made while keeping them [the bombers] operationally relevant.” But options for potential locations to move the B-1s are more limited than they may have looked just a year ago. Analysts pointed to the resistance of local governments to aid the US strikes against Iran — a stance that has drawn Trump’s ire. Walton observed that Fairford is specially equipped with infrastructure to host US bombers, and that continental host governments have not granted permission for the aircraft to launch from other suitable locations closer to the region like Incirlik Air Base in Turkey or Morón Air Base in Spain. (Bomber operations from Fairford itself were already a source of political controversy in the United Kingdom, where the government has restricted their missions to “defensive” operations.) In the Middle East, B-1s operated from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar prior to the current conflict, “but that is not an option now given the extreme vulnerability of Gulf bases to Iranian drones and missiles,” Pettyjohn said.

DE-BA-SI-FI-CA-TION

Walton noted that American commanders have also run bomber operations from the British territory of Diego Garcia, which lies about 3,000 miles southeast of Iran in the Indian Ocean. The pacific atoll hosts a joint US-UK military base that can support B-1s. Should the Pentagon have to stick to launching from the US, Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, said it would “more of a challenge,” but the US has other options to strike Iran if need be. For instance, the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and other American forces are on their way to the region and expected to arrive by next month. “That will give the president more options when it comes to escalation,” he told Breaking Defense.

Highlighting The Drone Threat To Bases

Experts largely agreed that the bomber withdrawal underscored a need for a greater mix of defenses for US installations. Similar to events in the American homeland, British installations like RAF Lakenheath have reportedly been the subject of mysterious drone incursions that officials have been largely powerless to stop, raising fears of vulnerability to an attack. The Air Force and broader US military community “really need to internalize that nowhere offers sanctuary,” Pettyjohn said. “Typically, the US has moved its most valuable and scarce assets farther away to ensure that they are invulnerable. That is no longer an option, which means that the USAF needs more active and passive defenses.” Walton emphasized that the US needs to “accelerate” base defense initiatives, and warned that some ongoing efforts suggest poor planning. He pointed to the construction of environmental protection shelters at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota — a home base for the B-1 and first beddown destination for the service’s forthcoming B-21 Raider stealth bomber. “Although these shelters protect aircraft from weather and environmental exposure, they provide little protection against attack, leaving parked B-21s vulnerable to future Operation Spiderweb-style drone attacks and other threats,” Walton said. “This is a penny-wise, pound-foolish choice.”

The Pentagon and the military services appear very aware of the threat, as they are seeking to boost bureaucratic authorities when it comes to employing defenses, coordinate better with federal partners and introduce new counter-drone tech to military facilities. VerGow, for his part, noted that the possibility of adversaries being able to project forces from inside of a supposed sanctuary is itself “nothing new,” adding that it would be “easy to simply conclude that better base-protection measures are needed.” Instead, he said that the B-1 withdrawal highlights the efficacy of “operational resilience” in the military system. “This type of rapid relocation doesn’t happen without tripwires and deliberate risk-analysis done at multiple levels of command. For me, moving the aircraft is evidence that the system worked,” VerGow said. “Intelligence identified a threat and commanders preserved combat power.”