The Boeing 747 E4-B Nightwatch aircraft, designed in the 1970s specifically for US military leaders as an airborne base during nuclear war, flew from Edwards Air Force Base to RAF Midenhall, Suffolk, UK, on 23 March.
Dubbed the 'Doomsday' plane, it was dispatched by the US Air Force to Europe as part of a fleet of jets supporting President Joe Biden throughout his four-day agenda, including an emergency NATO summit, a G7 summit and a meeting of the European Council in Brussels.
Washington and its allies have been developing plans for additional forces and capabilities to prop up defence in Ukraine, where Russia is conducting its special operation to "demilitarise and de-Nazify" the country, launched on 24 February. Moscow took the decision after the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) appealed for assistance amid increasing attacks from Kiev forces. The Kremlin has underscored that the goal of its operation is to exclusively target military infrastructure of the country, while having no plans of occupying Ukraine.
‘Flying Pentagon’
The E4-B Nightwatch - based on a Boeing 747 – is outwardly similar to the American presidential aircraft, known as Air Force One. It is part of a fleet of four jets that first entered service in the 1980s and have been upgraded since their first deployment.
Dubbed the “Flying Pentagon”, they are designed to be a command and control centre in the event of nuclear war as they can survive the electromagnetic pulse that is released when a nuclear charge detonates.
Furthermore, the jets can maintain contact with US military units across the globe as orders from the POTUS are conveyed to US nuclear submarines and Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos.
News of the deployment of Joe Biden’s “Doomsday” plane to Europe comes against the backdrop of reports that his administration has assembled a team of national security officials to draw scenarios for how the US would respond to a chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon attack by Russia during its operation in Ukraine.
The New York Times had cited sources within the discussions, claiming a group dubbed “Tiger Team” was established in a memo signed by the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on 28 February, four days after Moscow began the special military operation.
While the report claimed that the Tiger Team was tasked with examining what might compel the NATO alliance to deploy military force in Ukraine, Biden himself has openly voiced his opposition to such an eventuality. The US President has emphasized that a direct involvement in ongoing conflict would be "World War 3."
Indeed, Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin had ordered that the country’s nuclear forces be placed on heightened alert late last month, citing "aggressive statements" by British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss about possible NATO involvement in the Ukraine crisis.
Truss had remarked that the crisis in Ukraine “could end up” being a conflict between the “freedom and democracy”-loving nations of the Western alliance and Russia.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan made mention of that, ahead of Joe Biden’s trip to Europe, saying that the White House would discuss potential use of nuclear weapons with allies and partners in the context of the developments in Ukraine.
"President Putin in the early days of the conflict actually raised the spectre of the potential use of nuclear weapons. It is something that we do have to be concerned about. Based on our current analysis we have not changed our nuclear posture to date. But we are constantly monitoring for that potential contingency and of course we take it as seriously as one can possibly take it. We will be consulting with allies and partners on that potential contingency among a range of others and discussing what our potential responses are," said Sullivan at a briefing in Washington on Tuesday.
In response to the West’s talk of Russia’s potential use of nuclear weapons, Moscow has clarified that only if it determined its existence as a nation was threatened would it resort to such a scenario.
"We have a concept of domestic security, it's public, you can read all the reasons for [Russia's] nuclear arms to be used. If it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used in accordance with our concept," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN in an interview.
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