LAP is taking action to prevent the return of US Nuclear weapons to ‘RAF ‘ Lakenheath. RAF Lakenheath is in reality USAF Lakenheath and is the largest US airbase in Europe. It is assigned to United States Air Forces in Europe and Africa. Its Air Force units maintain combat-ready wings that are pledged to NATO, which plans, conducts, controls, coordinates and supports air and space operations in Europe, parts of Asia and all of Africa with the exception of Egypt. USAF Lakenheath is a threat to us all with its conventional weapons that have been deployed in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, Libya, Syria, the Middle East and East Africa. But with nuclear weapons coming back it becomes even more dangerous.
LAP is committed to nonviolent direct action for a peaceful and non-threatening world. We demand that military resources are instead directed towards global peace and justice and the prevention of human caused climate change and biodiversity loss.
With the nuclear expansionism of the US and NATO that is now leading to a global nuclear arms race, the peace, justice and environmental movements need to be organising civil resistance at US nuclear bases wherever they are. US determination to maintain its global domination – by military, as well as political and economic means – has brought death and destruction, environmental degradation, and impoverishment to countless millions across the planet.
In recent years US contempt for international law, and its trashing of international arms control treaties, have made the world a far more dangerous place. Its systematic expansion of nuclear-armed NATO – now gone global – and its pursuance of bilateral military alliances, has brought tension and conflict, risking wider wars and even global nuclear conflagration. The second Trump presidency is likely to make matters worse.
Central to US militarisation and its increasing nuclearisation, is its extensive network of foreign military bases – in the region of 800 in around 80 countries! A number of US bases across Europe – under the auspices of NATO – enable US nuclear weapons to be present in Europe. They put Europe on the front line in US wars, and risk nuclear war being fought in Europe. These bases are currently in the process of being equipped with upgraded and more versatile nuclear weapons, as well as being used to support ongoing US wars. One of these bases is USAF/RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, East Anglia, 130 kilometers north east of London.
Militarism is one of the central pillars of the carbon intensive, exploitative, industrial system that is driving the climate crisis. Climate change causes war and war causes climate change. About 6% of global carbon emissions are from military activity. Climate change is already a significant cause of conflicts and is a key factor driving the refugee crisis, both from food shortages and climate induced conflicts. Getting to net zero will require a radical social transformation including ending militarism.
The Pentagon admits that global warming is a national security threat. Yet, the US military is the single largest user of fossil fuels on the planet. The developments at Lakenheath are actively promoting the expansion of the fossil fuel industry, accelerating the nuclear arms race and turning the UK and Europe into a nuclear front line, even more dangerous than the Cold War was.
According to the Global Peace Index 2024 there are currently at least 56 armed conflicts taking place with 92 countries involved outside of their own borders. The global economic impact of armed conflicts now represents at least 13.5% of global GDP and poses a significant supply chain risk for governments and businesses.
Syria’s economy shrunk by more than 85% after the start of the civil war in 2011, and the Ukrainian economy shrunk by 29% in the year after the onset of the conflict in 2022.
It has been calculated that 108 countries are becoming more militarised. There are now 110 million refugees or internally displaced people due to violent conflict, and there are 16 countries each hosting more than half a million refugees. And the numbers are growing every day.
A major problem is the way in which ‘national security’ is defined by the political establishment which include corporate business interests which are rooted in the shareholder capitalist system. The very system that makes its money from the continued pillage of natural resources and the war industry.
Military force is regarded as the primary response to perceived security threats. If a country want to take control of their own natural resources or to look after their own people by feeding them and providing social security, this is seen as a threat by the national security corporate complex – once known as the military industrial complex.
The arms industry is highly profitable and governments do not want to stop this lucrative business; as our present system needs wars to survive. So even though Israel, for instance, is breaking international law with its genocidal attacks on Gaza and its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, our Government, amongst others, continues to sell arms and provide resources to Israel. International law is being undermined and becoming weaker because of this support for military solutions that actually require diplomacy and a respect for all peoples rights to live in peace and security.
The narrow definition of security that our present system relies upon has ignored the people’s many more important real needs, like stopping climate breakdown and biodiversity loss.