THE bankrupt British ruling class is preparing to expand its ‘nuclear deterrent’ by buying a squadron of American jet fighters that have the capacity to deliver US-provided tactical nuclear warheads that are to be stored in the UK, and be ready for use.
The UK’s nuclear plan involves the purchase, by the UK, of 12 US F35A jets capable of carrying the US B61-12 gravity bomb which is over three times more explosive than the bomb that was used on Hiroshima.
UK Prime Minister Starmer’s position is that ‘These aircraft will strengthen our armed forces and support communities across the country through our defence industry.’
What the UK government is planning, in a situation where the existence of British capitalism is at stake, is using a weapon or weapons of mass destruction to maintain British capitalism, even as a pile of ruins.
US nuclear weapons have not been stored in the UK since 2008 at Lakenheath, when the WE177 was scrapped by the Labour Government.
Currently, the UK’s nuclear deterrent has been delivered solely via its Trident submarine fleet, whose warheads carry the explosive power to destroy a city.
British military planners are now saying that this is not enough and that there is a pressing need for a ‘substrategic’ capability that could be deployed on the battlefield to deter an attack by Russia on a NATO country.
The F-35As will be based at RAF Marham in Norfolk and will join NATO’s ‘Dual Capable’ aircraft programme.
The British government has also warned, in a newly published security strategy, that Britain needs to prepare for the possibility of being attacked on its own soil or waters.
The Strategic Defence Review warns of renewed nuclear threats and that Britain needs to be prepared ‘for the possibility of the UK Homeland coming under direct threat, potentially in a wartime scenario.’
NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte has even issued a warning that without a big increase in defence spending British people ‘had better learn to speak Russian.’
Meanwhile, closing the Strait of Hormuz by Iran in an all-out war will send global oil prices rocketing. Oxford Economics has said that a full-blown oil crisis of this kind will push oil to $130 a barrel, and push both global and US inflation to 6pc.
US imperialism is already entangled in proxy wars against Russia in the Ukraine, and against the Palestinian nation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, along with its allies in the UK and EU.
After its ignominious defeat in Afghanistan after 20 years, it is facing defeat again. But what is clearly revealed is the international involvement of the whole world in this death agony of capitalism with the arrogant Trump believing he can march into any country and threaten to incinerate its population.
Revolution has emerged on a world scale, and the counter-revolutionary wars of imperialism to restore their rule over the former colonies and the degenerated deformed workers’ states of Russia and China will be met by the international working class taking action in the imperialist countries to overthrow their warmonger governments, take the power and bring in socialism worldwide.
The conflict in the Middle-East and Ukraine places the whole world on the brink of a cataclysmic nuclear World War 3 which would wipe out humanity all over the globe.
What is most urgently required is the building of the revolutionary leadership of the International Committee of the Fourth International in the major imperialist countries to organise the victory of the world socialist revolution.
Capitalism is gripped by a terminal economic and political crisis which requires that the existing trade union leaders, subservient to their ruling classes, be removed so that a new leadership can call for general strikes to remove the international bourgeoisie and establish workers’ power and socialism.
Don’t delay. Join the Workers Revolutionary Party and Young Socialists now and build sections in every country! Forward to the victory of the World Socialist Revolution!
