6 Bases during the Cold War

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eturn to the link here with aircraft overflight rights.During the latter part of the Cold War, the U.S. utilized some overseas basesfor its Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS), a battle managementaircraft often used for coercive diplomacy as a modern form of “gunboat diplomacy.”Earlier in the Cold War, indeed, it had deployed overseas other electronicwarfare aircraft (ECM and ECCM), for instance, RC-135 CONVENT/ELINT aircraft for monitoring radars and telemetry had been based at RAFMildenhall, Hellenikon in Greece and Kadena in Okinawa. The EC-135, a modifiedKC-135 Stratotanker, was used as a radio and telemetry intercept aircraft,and four of these “Silk Purse” planes were based at Mildenhall. In the latter partof the Cold War, USAF EF-111 Ravens were based in Spain and Turkey(Diyarbakir).The AWACS themselves were home-based well back from potential lines ofconfrontation, so as to mitigate the chances of preemptive strike. Some werebased at Keflavik in Iceland in relation to the crucial G-I-UK Gap, others atGeilenkirchen in Germany, and several in Japan. Also used as forward AWACSoperating bases were Trapani in Italy, Konya in Turkey and Oerland in Norway.A NATO command center at Maisieres in Belgium controlled NATO AWACSand British Nimrod early warning systems. Still other AWACS were sold toSaudi Arabia but operated there with U.S. crews.Aircraft overflights13One of the less visible forms of foreign military presence, also one whichinvolves movable and transitory presences, is that of aircraft overflight privileges.It is a form of external access.This occasionally crucial matter of aircraft overflight privileges involves acomplex range of practices and traditions, some of which were, in an overallBases during the Cold War 103İ 2007 Robert E. Harkavysense, altered by time in an era of increasingly “total” warfare, diplomacy andideological rivalries. In parallel with – and closely bound up with – what hasbeen wrought by nations’ increasing insistence upon extension of sovereigncontrol further outward from coastlines (now more or less institutionalized by200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones – EEZs), the trend here during the ColdWar was towards tightened restrictions on overflights.In the past – and in some cases continuing to the present – some nations haveallowed others more or less full, unhindered and continuous overflight rights(perhaps involving only pro forma short-term notices, i.e., filing of flight plans).In other cases, however, where political relations are weaker or not based onalliances, ad hoc, formal applications for permission to overfly must be madewell ahead of time, which may or may not be granted depending upon thepurpose and situation, be it routine or crisis.It is to be stressed that the day-to-day diplomacy of overflight rights is a veryclosed and obscure matter, albeit of often crucial importance. We have little data– the subject periodically emerges to prominence during crises such as the 1986U.S. raid on Libya. Of course, it is precisely when urgent military operations areinvolved that the subject acquires the most importance.Nowadays, of course, well past the introduction of radar and its widespreadglobal distribution, few overflights can be made on a covert basis, as wascommon before World War II, when detection depended primarily on visualobservation from the ground. Not only “host nation” radar, but now also thesuperpowers’ satellite reconnaissance makes such “covert” activities almostimpossible, particularly if a small nation has access to information from one ofthe superpowers, be it on a regular or ad hoc basis. This in turn may have hadimportant ramifications for intra-Third World rivalries, specifically, regardingthe balance of diplomatic leverage involved. Nations inclined, for instance, toprovide overflight rights in connection with a U.S. airlift to Israel knew thatSoviet satellite reconnaissance would provide information about that to Arabgovernments. That was a powerful deterrent.Some overflights were made without permission (as with the respective useby the United States and the USSR of U-2 and MiG-25 reconnaissance flights),overtly or with a tacit or resigned wink by the overflown nation. Often a nationwhose airspace is violated will not openly complain for fear of international ordomestic embarrassment over its impotence, or untoward diplomatic repercussionswith a strong power. Hence, the USSR is thought to have overflown Egyptand Sudan, among others, without permission in supplying arms to EthiopiaPage 11
during the 1977–1978 Horn War, earlier, its MiG-25 and Tu-95 reconnaissanceaircraft apparently flew with impunity over Iran’s airspace. The United States isthought to have threatened overflights in some places for future arms resupply ofIsrael, if it should be utterly necessary.More recently during the Gulf War, and the Afghan and Iraq wars, thisbecame a big issue in numerous places. During the Gulf War, the U.S. and itsallies were allowed overhead access almost everywhere, including ex-WarsawPact states in Eastern Europe. In the Afghan war, the U.S. had good overhead104 Bases during the Cold Warİ 2007 Robert E. Harkavyaccess all over Europe, in the Caucasus and Central Asia and in and around thePersian Gulf excepting, of course, Iraq and Iran. Pakistan, politically crosspressured,allowed U.S. overflights by bombers coming from Diego Garcia andfrom aircraft carriers stationed in the Arabian Sea. During the Iraq war,however, the U.S. did have some problems with Switzerland, Syria and Iran.Nuclear-related bases14The utilization of overseas facilities in connection with the superpowers’ nuclearcompetition began immediately after the close of World War II. During the late1940s, prior to the Soviet Union’s development of a deployed nuclear militarycapability, the U.S. forward-based some nuclear-armed B-29 aircraft in the U.K.in an effort to deter feared Soviet advances in Europe. By 1950, B-29s werebased at Brize Norton, Upper Heyford, Mildenhall, Lakenheath, Fairford,Chelveston and Sculthorpe. There were also reserve B-29 bases at other Britishbases. There were related depots at Burtonwood and Alconbury, and also relatedLORAN navigational facilities at Angle, Pembrokeshire and in the Hebrides.That provided a clear first-strike deterrent capability for the U.S. well into the1950s.During the 1950s, the B-47 bombers became the backbone of SAC, and whiletheir effective ranges were greatly extended by the aerial-refueling techniquesthen emerging, the U.S. then determined on forward deployment to enhance itschances for penetration and to lessen its vulnerability to a Soviet first-strike.This so-called “reflex force” rotated between U.S. home bases and those in theU.K. (Fairford, Upper Heyford), Morocco (Sidi Slimane, Benguerir, BenSlimane, Nouasseur), Spain (Torrejon, Zaragoza, Moron de la Frontera), Greenland(Thule) and Goose Bay, Labrador. (F-84 fighters used as bomber escortswere also based at Nouasseur until U.S. access to Morocco was lost in 1963.)Related U.S. tankers (then mostly KC-97s) were based primarily at Thule,Greenland and Goose Bay, Labrador, and also at several other Canadian bases:Namao, Churchill, Harmon, Cold Lake and Frobischer. Though the subsequentlydeployed B-52s which began entering inventories in 1955 did notrequire forward main basing, they too utilized trans-Arctic tanker facilities(including one at Sondestrom in Greenland) as well as contingency recoverybases in Spain and elsewhere.The Soviet Union did not utilize forward strategic-bomber facilities duringthis period. Indeed, early Soviet bombers, such as the 4500-km range Tu-4,could only reach the U.S. Pacific northwest from Siberia and, even then, by concedingseveral hours’ warning time because of U.S. radar coverage in Alaska.During this period, and for a long time thereafter, the U.S. also relied onforeign access for strategic defense, primarily in Canada, Greenland and Iceland– that involved the DEW Line, Mid-Canada and Pinetree Line strings of electroniclistening posts, all under the U.S. Air Defense Command, which workedclosely with SAC. In addition, some U.S. interceptor aircraft were deployed atCanadian bases such as Goose Bay, and at bases in Greenland and Iceland, forBases during the Cold War 105İ 2007 Robert E. Harkavyperimeter early defense, well forward of the large-scale interceptor deploymentsaround major U.S. urban areas.By the late-1950s, Soviet missile developments had rendered somewhatobsolete the three-layered radar early-warning system across the CanadianArctic, which had been constructed to provide several hours’ warning of bomberattacks. To cope with the missile threat, the U.S. built, beginning around 1958,the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), the three hinges ofPage 12Page 13
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6 Bases during the Cold War

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