The issue is all the more sensitive because the planes are not only expensive – each B-1 cost well over $300million (£2237million) – but they are impossible to replace as they are not made any more, so the Pentagon cannot afford to lose one, let alone the 12 based at Fairford.
As there are only 45 B-1s still in service, the squadron at the Gloucestershire base represented a full quarter of America’s stock of its most potent strike aircraft.
Yes, they will now have to fly sorties from the US itself, with two or three crews on board to cope with the length of the trip and mid-air refuelling, but they clearly feel this is the price they have to pay for peace of mind.…
The Americans have already been forced out of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait – and pulled out of Iraq, too – following missile and drone attacks launched by hostiles often described as ‘local militias’ but which are almost certainly Iranian proxies.
However, these countries are all just across the Persian Gulf from Iran – or in the case of Iraq, next door – not 2,750 miles away in an island off mainland Europe.
The Americans will be asking themselves, if Britain cannot provide security at its air bases for Allied planes thousands of miles from Iran, what use will it be during a conflict with Russia?
The temptation to recall the too-clever-by-half theory of ‘offshore balancing’ is too great to resist. Now that even the Americans’ unsinkable aircraft carrier (the UK) is too dangerous for deployments; now that there are almost no diplomats worthy of the name; now that the dollar is losing its value; now that power projection – hard or soft, smart or dumb – is being ruled out in any meaningful sense… how far is that shore?