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Tankers are concentrating in the Gulf, B-1 bombers remain in Britain, surveillance aircraft are watching Iran and another American carrier is crossing the Pacific. The machinery for another major bombing campaign is largely in place. What is still missing is the unmistakable final surge that would show an attack is imminent.
The clearest signs of an approaching air war are often not the weapons that eventually make the headlines, but the machinery gathering behind them: tankers arriving at forward bases, surveillance aircraft repeatedly tracing the same routes, communications aircraft appearing where they may soon be needed, cargo planes bringing equipment and technicians, bombers remaining in theatre, and ships due to rotate out being watched to see whether they actually leave.
Individually, almost every one of these movements can be explained as routine military business. Taken together, they can mean something else. The United States now appears to have assembled a standing military force from which another substantial bombing campaign against Iran could be launched with relatively little warning.
That does not mean an attack has been ordered, nor does the available evidence yet show the unmistakable final mobilisation that might precede an enormous air offensive before the American midterm elections on November 3. But Washington no longer needs to construct such a force from the beginning. Much of it is already in place.
The clues are scattered across specialist military websites, aviation trackers, naval publications, aircraft enthusiasts and Russian military bloggers who follow tail numbers, satellite photographs, ship movements and the electronic traces left by aircraft crossing the sky. None provides proof on its own, but together they give a reasonably coherent picture: tankers, bombers, fighters, reconnaissance aircraft, airborne communications systems, carrier strike groups and the logistics required to sustain them have been positioned around Iran and kept there.
The tankers at Al Udeid
The most intriguing evidence concerns Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where on September 22 the Russian Telegram channel SEMPER IRATUS circulated satellite imagery said to show at least 25 United States Air Force tanker aircraft at the base. It described the gathering as the largest concentration there since the war began and suggested that fighting could soon intensify.
Another Russian military channel, Mine Division, run by Maxim Klimov, circulated the same observation through military correspondent Oleg Blokhin. There is, however, an obvious qualification: these should not be treated as two independent confirmations because the Russian channels appear to be drawing upon the same underlying satellite observation. Twenty accounts repeating one image do not make twenty sources. Source
What matters more is the aircraft themselves. Tankers such as the KC-135 Stratotanker and KC-46 Pegasus are among the least glamorous but most important instruments of modern air warfare because they give fighters and bombers reach and endurance, allow aircraft operating from widely separated bases to participate in the same operation, and permit strike aircraft to remain airborne long enough to reach distant targets and return.
A major campaign involving aircraft from Britain, carriers at sea, bases around the Gulf and potentially Israeli aircraft would depend heavily on this refuelling architecture.
The specialist aircraft tracker DefenceGeek, working with the Military Air Tracking Alliance, estimated on September 7 that as many as 195 KC-135 and KC-46 tankers were distributed across CENTCOM and supporting European locations. That does not mean 195 tankers have been assigned to attack Iran; it describes aircraft distributed across a much larger American military system stretching from the Gulf into Europe and potentially available to support operations. Source
The tracker subsequently recorded some reduction in tanker numbers outside CENTCOM while aircraft inside the Middle East remained comparatively steady. Some aircraft go home, others rotate forward, and some movements reflect the requirements of maintaining an existing war. But the underlying point remains that the refuelling network required for another large operation already exists.
The bombers that stayed behind
Thousands of miles away, another part of that network remains on the ground in Gloucestershire, where RAF Fairford has long been one of the places in which apparently routine aviation movements can suddenly become strategically important.
The independent RAF Fairford Movements site is maintained by aircraft enthusiasts who record movements by serial number and callsign using ADS-B, radar data and visual observation. Its September logs show 12 B-1B Lancer bombers remaining at Fairford, alongside a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Source
These are not aircraft sitting quietly at the edge of an airfield. Pairs of B-1s have flown repeatedly during the month. On September 23 the site recorded four B-1 departures in two separate flying periods, while similar pairs flew on September 15, September 11, September 9 and September 3.
The same logs record military and contracted transport traffic, including C-5M Galaxy aircraft as well as Boeing 747, 767 and 777 movements. This is not evidence of a new bomber surge. Those B-1s have been at Fairford for some time.
The more interesting point is that they have not gone home. A substantial heavy-bomber force has remained forward deployed in Britain, regularly flown and supported, rather than being dismantled after the previous phase of the Iran campaign.
If Washington decides it wants another bombing campaign, it does not first have to move an entire bomber force across the Atlantic and build the supporting operation around it. Part of that work has already been done.
The aircraft nobody notices
Russian military analysts have been paying particular attention to a less spectacular part of the American deployment. Rybar, one of Russia’s largest military analytical Telegram networks, has tracked not simply American fighters and bombers but the aircraft that make them useful.
In one recent assessment it counted 29 American and Israeli tactical-aircraft sorties over Syria and Iraq near the Iranian frontier during a single day. It also observed three American E-11A aircraft operating from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, together with seven reconnaissance aircraft and six American drones conducting surveillance missions. Source
The E-11A is not a bomber and carries no dramatic weapons load, which is precisely why it is interesting. The aircraft acts as an airborne communications node, and its Battlefield Airborne Communications Node system allows forces using otherwise incompatible communications networks to exchange information across enormous distances and difficult terrain.
In a large and complicated air campaign, that capability matters because aircraft flying from carriers, Gulf bases and more distant airfields need to exchange targeting information, fighters need warnings, tankers must rendezvous with aircraft at prescribed points and times, and surveillance platforms must feed information into the same system.
Rybar has been following the E-11A presence for some time. It recorded first five and then six aircraft being positioned at Prince Sultan and subsequently observed several operating simultaneously close to Iran. Source
The same network has monitored RC-135 intelligence aircraft, E-3 airborne warning aircraft, U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, RQ-4 high-altitude drones and P-8 maritime surveillance aircraft around Iran. In another assessment, it put the American reconnaissance tempo at six to eight aircraft or drone sorties each day along Iran’s western approaches. Source
These aircraft attract little public attention compared with a carrier or a B-1, yet they may provide better clues to what the United States is capable of doing because a bombing campaign does not begin with the bomb. Before an aircraft reaches a target, somebody has to locate it, monitor it, understand the surrounding air defences, map enemy radar and communications, coordinate tankers, control the airspace and prepare to recover an aircraft or crew if something goes wrong. The machinery behind the strike can therefore be more revealing than the strike aircraft themselves.
A carrier crosses the Pacific
The naval picture offers another test. The United States currently has the George Washington and George H.W. Bush carrier strike groups operating in the Middle East, together with the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group.
Then, on September 27, Theodore Roosevelt left San Diego carrying Carrier Air Wing 11 for what USNI News has described as an extended Middle East deployment. Source
A third carrier heading towards the region naturally attracts attention, but the distinction between reinforcement and rotation is critical. Theodore Roosevelt is presently expected to relieve George Washington, rather than join it permanently as a third carrier strike group, and the Navy has maintained a two-carrier presence since the conflict began in February.
That means the most interesting development may not be Roosevelt’s arrival but whether George Washington leaves. If Roosevelt reaches the region and George Washington starts its expected journey away from the theatre, the movement is principally a rotation.
If Roosevelt arrives and George Washington remains, while George H.W. Bush is still present, the United States would have three carrier strike groups available in or near the theatre. That would be materially different, because it would turn an apparently routine handover into an additive deployment and would represent a significantly stronger indication of preparation for escalation.
Sometimes the important military movement is not the ship that arrives, but the ship that fails to go home.
What the Russian analysts are not saying
There is a temptation in this kind of exercise to gather every movement into a single dramatic narrative: tankers appear, bombers remain at Fairford, surveillance aircraft circle Iran and another carrier sails west, therefore an attack must be imminent.
The evidence does not yet support that conclusion, and one of the most useful objections comes from the Russian side.
Rybar, despite following American deployments closely and having no obvious reason to minimise American preparations, concluded in a recent assessment that there had been “no qualitative change” in the US force compared with mid-August. It said there had been no new wave of bombers and that most of the changes among American warships appeared to be rotations.
At the same time, Rybar noted the continuing high tempo of reconnaissance, combat patrols and surveillance around Iran and the ability of the United States to generate additional military power quickly from the forces already present. Source
Those two observations can coexist. The United States does not appear to be assembling an enormous attack force from zero because it has already assembled much of one, and the real question is whether it has started the final preparations to use it.
There is no convincing evidence of that yet.
What the final buildup might look like
The advantage of watching these movements over time is that a pattern begins to emerge. A fresh influx of B-1, B-52 or B-2 bombers would matter, as would another abrupt increase in tanker numbers.
An unusual run of C-17 and C-5 transport movements into the relevant bases would deserve attention, particularly if accompanied by additional personnel, maintenance equipment or munitions-support activity. More electronic-warfare, reconnaissance and airborne command aircraft would strengthen the picture, as would fighter squadrons arriving without corresponding units going home.
And the carrier question remains particularly important: does Theodore Roosevelt merely replace George Washington, or does it join an enlarged naval force?
Any one of these movements could have a conventional explanation because aircraft require maintenance, units rotate, ships break, exercises happen and commanders hedge against contingencies. The evidential threshold becomes more interesting when several things happen together. A bomber surge accompanied by additional tankers, transport aircraft, electronic-warfare platforms and the retention of an outgoing carrier would be much harder to explain as normal rotation.
That combination has not yet appeared.
The force is already there
The American military posture around Iran on September 29 is therefore more consequential than the simple alternatives suggest. It is not accurate to say nothing unusual is happening, but nor is there enough evidence to say that a huge new bombing campaign is about to begin.
Instead, Washington has something in between: a formidable military structure already surrounding Iran and capable of being expanded relatively quickly.
Tankers are concentrated in the Gulf, heavy bombers remain forward deployed at Fairford, fighters are distributed throughout the theatre, reconnaissance and communications aircraft operate persistently around Iran, two carrier strike groups remain in the Middle East, and a third carrier is crossing the Pacific to replace one of them.
Behind all of this sits the logistics system required to keep aircraft flying and ships supplied, and that changes the warning time. In a more conventional buildup, the movement of bombers, carriers, tankers and surveillance aircraft might provide weeks of notice. Much of that movement has already happened, which means that if Washington chooses to move from readiness to another substantial bombing campaign, it may need to add only the final pieces.
For the moment, those pieces are not unmistakably visible. Even Russian military observers scrutinising American movements day by day still describe what they see as a very large force being maintained rather than a clearly identifiable strike package entering its final stage.
That is what makes October important.
The question is no longer whether the United States can assemble another air armada against Iran, because much of the armada is already there. The question is whether, quietly and perhaps only briefly, Washington begins adding the last pieces.