A dozen B-1 bombers flew out of England this week, returning to Texas and South Dakota because of the potential threat from Iranian terrorists. While we do not know the plans of those arrested, imagine them launching drones from the backs of trucks in the English countryside, destroying bombers sitting vulnerably on the tarmac at RAF Fairford. Our high-value military assets were not safe or secure in England.
Since 2000, following the al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, six U.S. Coast Guard cutters had been based in Manama, Bahrain. Fearing they would be destroyed by Iranian drones, the U.S. Coast Guard ended its 25-year presence in the Persian Gulf earlier this year, after the war with Iran began. All six U.S. ships departed together in retreat. They are now in the Pacific.
In 1971, the British Royal Navy pulled down the Union Jack at its Juffair naval base in Bahrain. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Navy moved in and, over the decades, greatly expanded the base. As Assistant Secretary of State, I negotiated an extended basing agreement in 1991. Bahrain then became home to the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet. U.S. Navy ships were homeported there, including the USS Canberra, USS Santa Barbara, and USS Tulsa. Other Navy combatants visited regularly.
Now, following Iranian attacks, Fifth Fleet headquarters is in Florida, and the building in Bahrain is rubble. Today, no U.S. Navy ships are homeported in the Gulf. Indeed, no U.S. Navy combatants are even sailing in the Gulf, probably for the first time in half a century. Iranian attacks also heavily damaged U.S. bases in Kuwait and forced U.S. assets to move away. In Saudi Arabia, costly U.S. aircraft, including an AWACS, were destroyed on the runway, after which U.S. Air Force assets were flown to other bases.
What is the lesson of these moves? To find the answer, we may have to look to Siberia. It was there, on June 1, 2025, that Ukrainian intelligence executed Operation Spiderweb. Long-haul trucks driven by oblivious Russians suddenly opened, and armed drones flew out. The drones conducted surprise attacks on several strategic-bomber bases, destroying expensive aircraft that were sitting unprotected on tarmacs. The airbases had no way to detect incoming drones and no defenses against them. Iran was watching.
The Iranians and Ukrainians have now demonstrated that low-cost drones can be launched from nearly anywhere and can often evade detection, bypass defenses, and destroy parked aircraft and other high-value targets. That is why the U.S. Air Force fled England. Once it became apparent that pro-Iranian operatives could drive trucks within a few miles of RAF Fairford, it also became clear that, if those trucks carried drones and launched them, little could have prevented the destruction of B-1 Lancer bombers parked in the open.
One might wonder why there were no hardened shelters for the B-1s at RAF Fairford. During the Cold War, NATO built expensive protective facilities for fighter aircraft across Europe. I have been inside them from Germany to Turkey. Today, however, very few U.S. Air Force aircraft are housed in hardened shelters. Following Operation Spiderweb, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., noted that, in the United States, most of our bombers, AWACS aircraft, tankers, and fighter aircraft are sitting on runways or, at best, in flimsy hangars that a drone could easily enter.
If you doubt Sen. Warner, look for yourself. Go to Google Earth and examine the AWACS aircraft at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, the B-1s at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, and the B-52s at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. When I recently landed at the civilian airport in Burlington, Vermont, my regional jet taxied past a row of F-35s sitting in open-sided hangars with thin metal walls. Airbases in the United States have repeatedly reported mysterious drone flights near or over their facilities, including at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, home to F-15s.
Whether those flights are conducted by amateurs for fun or by terrorists as dry runs, nothing has been on hand to stop them. While the Pentagon is scrambling to develop and procure mobile radars to detect drones, as well as systems ranging from machine guns to lasers to shoot them down, a group of pro-Iranian actors in the United States could probably buy commercially available drones, arm them with small explosive charges, drive near an airbase, fly the drones undetected toward valuable and irreplaceable aircraft, and successfully attack.
I am not telling terrorists or Iranians anything they do not already know. The best defense we have against this kind of attack is the FBI counterintelligence teams around the country that might detect plotters before they attack. But under Kash Patel, the Bureau’s capabilities have been degraded.
And, of course, it is not just Air Force assets that are at risk. Critical infrastructure facilities, from the U.S. Capitol and the New York Stock Exchange to the myriad data centers in Loudoun County, Virginia, are among the many potential targets that could be hit by a drone launched from the back of a truck. The nature of warfare and terrorism changed dramatically with the advent of armed drones, beginning with the use of armed Predators in Afghanistan, an effort ,I admit, I was instrumental in initiating in 2000 and 2001. That was a quarter-century ago. It is high time we responded to the threat of armed drones with an equally dramatic change in how we defend ourselves.
Richard A. Clarke was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence (Reagan administration), Special Assistant to the President (Clinton), and National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism (Clinton/Bush). He is the CEO of Good Harbor Security Risk Management. (richardaclarke.net)
