{"id":506,"date":"2015-01-10T08:16:13","date_gmt":"2015-01-10T08:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=506"},"modified":"2017-11-20T17:24:24","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T17:24:24","slug":"us-to-permanently-station-f-35-jets-in-uk-pentagon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/us-to-permanently-station-f-35-jets-in-uk-pentagon\/","title":{"rendered":"US to permanently station F-35 jets in UK: Pentagon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The United States will station two squadrons of F-35 fighter jets in the United Kingdom, the first European base selected for the advanced fighter jets, the Pentagon announced on Thursday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The US Department of Defense said it would permanently base the F-35s at the Royal Air Force Lakenheath in Suffolk, England starting in 2020.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The F-35, made by Lockheed Martin, is a fifth generation fighter jet designed to perform ground attacks, reconnaissance and air defense missions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cToday we announce that we will permanently place the F-35 in Europe,\u201d Derek Chollet, Assistant Secretary of Defense for international security affairs said at a press briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday. \u201cThe presence of the F-35 at Lakenheath will allow for greater training and wider support,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The newly announced plan is part of a US military consolidation in Europe that will close 15 US military bases and return them to host nations due to shrinking budgets.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Consolidation of American bases across Europe will save the Pentagon about $500 million a year when it\u2019s completed in five or six years, even though it has to spend $1.4 billion to move and close the facilities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The closures and infrastructure consolidations will affect 15 facilities in the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Portugal, the Pentagon says.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Some 2,000 US troops would be removed from Britain over the next several years&#8211; the biggest consolidation move in Europe in terms of personnel.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The United States has more than 64,000 troops stationed in Europe, mostly in Germany, Italy and Britain.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.com\/Detail\/2015\/01\/09\/392335\/US-to-permanently-station-F35s-in-UK\" target=\"_blank\">Press TV<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States will station two squadrons of F-35 fighter jets in the United Kingdom, the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1,125],"tags":[227,256,6,24,252,7,61],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","category-united-states","tag-air-force","tag-aircraft","tag-defense","tag-eu","tag-f-35","tag-u-s","tag-uk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/F-35-Jets.jpg?fit=616%2C330&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-8a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5445,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/5445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}