The infrastructure supporting NATO’s nuclear strike mission is shifting north to include significantly more active nuclear weapons storage shelters than in the southern part of the Alliance, report Hans Kristensen and Celia McDowell in a new article posted yesterday by the Federation of American Scientists. The shift is visible on new satellite images showing the full extent of construction of security fencing around 22 nuclear-capable aircraft shelters at Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath, the home of the U.S. Air Force 48th Fighter Wing.

The northern nuclear focus will increase further when the United Kingdom buys 12 U.S. F-35A fighter-bombers for deployment at RAF Marham, about 25 km north of Lakenheath, as a new part of NATO’s dual-capable aircraft nuclear sharing mission. Kristensen has been tracking the upgrading of the nuclear facilities at Lakenheath since 2022 while the British intention to join NATO’s nuclear sharing mission was announced in 2025.

The significance of the shift is not clear nor is the reason for it though Kristensen attributes it to tensions between NATO and Russia over Ukraine. “Once construction is completed, RAF Lakenheath will be able to regularly host US nuclear weapons and receive nuclear weapons from more vulnerable European bases in a crisis,” Kristensen writes. “In addition, the RAF nuclear sharing mission planned for RAF Marham sometime in the 2030s will further add to NATO’s new northern nuclear focus. If nuclear storage vaults at RAF Marham are also reactivated, the number of active nuclear storage shelters on NATO’s northern flank could nearly double compared with 2020.”