The U.S. will expand an air base in Eastern Europe to house nuclear-capable fighter jets, according to a new report, after years of cultivating closer ties with Hungary under broader efforts to strengthen the NATO alliance’s borders with Russia.
British newspaper The Telegraph reported on Monday that government contracts indicate plans are in place to upgrade Kecskemét air base, a Hungarian military facility located to the southeast of the capital, Budapest. The base will likely house U.S.-made F-15 Eagle strike tactical fighter jets, according to the report, with an unknown number of A-10 Warthog close support aircraft and C-5 Galaxy transport planes. The F-15 is certified to carry B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs.
The U.S. has long had a strong presence in Europe, one beefed up after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine got underway in early 2022. NATO has spent the past two years bolstering its eastern flank close to Russia, with Sweden and Finland entering the alliance in a break from long-held neutrality policies. Newsweek has reached out to the Department of Defense for comment via email.
The U.S. is a leading member of the NATO alliance, which has explicitly labeled Russia as the “most significant and direct threat” to its member states, as well as other countries across Europe and across the Atlantic.
On Monday, Bruno Kahl, the head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, said that Moscow’s military would likely be able to launch an attack against NATO “by the end of the decade at the latest.”
The U.S. military has its European Command, headquartered in Germany, and provides vital capabilities for continental NATO countries, including logistics and intelligence.
The U.S. Army has eight garrisons in Europe, and opened its Polish garrison in March 2023. NATO also has a number of multinational battle groups in Eastern Europe, one of which is led by the U.S. The alliance doubled the number of battle groups, and therefore troops, in the region after February 2022.
U.S. President Joe Biden ordered an additional 20,000 U.S. troops to Europe in the first few months of the Ukraine war, placing more than 100,000 U.S. service personnel in Europe by the end of June 2022. Many of these were serving on NATO’s eastern edge, the U.S. said at the time.
The U.S. signed an implementation agreement with Hungary in July 2021 that would allow Washington to access Kecskemét air base, as well as the Pápa air base in the west of the country. Later in the year, another memorandum signed in Budapest granted the U.S. access to Tata and Várpalota Garrisons in Hungary.
Washington and Hungary announced what is known as the Defense Cooperation Agreement in 2019, tasked with modernizing forces in the eastern European nation.
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