I could be wrong but I think the way foreign litany bases work is that they are in the thinnest legal sense “sovereign foreign territory.” To which I mean, the activities conducted on these bases are outside the control of the country who’s land they occupy.
Edit: I was wrong, amd the US are just tennants on the land which makes this a very questionable thing that they are doing.
This is a common misconception (it doesn’t actually apply to embassies either, from which the myth arose). Every military base of a nation within another nation’s territory is governed by a status of forces agreement (SOF); usually a large general SOF for all locations in the territory and also a narrower SOF that applies to that site specifically.
These munitions could be just being moved from one site to another, not destined for a site supplying the Iranian theater. They could be being sent for decommissioning. They could be loaded just for regular evaluation, loaded test flights. They could be going to the Iranian theater, but the UK government gave special exception for this case. Or it could be what we all thought right when we saw the headline and these are going directly ti theater to be used on Iranian targets.
Without more information, it’s impossible to know. Brits should be demanding more information for sure; I just told my partner and she is emailing her MP right now about this.
That does not sound like a good idea. I would expect a country would want to maintain sovereignty of their own territory.
Of course embassies have something similar to what you describe, but if an embassy is breaking the law, the diplomats can be expelled.
I
could be wrong but I think the way foreign litany bases work is that they are in the thinnest legal sense “sovereign foreign territory.” To which I mean, the activities conducted on these bases are outside the control of the country who’s land they occupy.Edit: I was wrong, amd the US are just tennants on the land which makes this a very questionable thing that they are doing.
Nnnnope. They are RAF bases, with a nominal RAF CO. The USAF are tenants.
This is a common misconception (it doesn’t actually apply to embassies either, from which the myth arose). Every military base of a nation within another nation’s territory is governed by a status of forces agreement (SOF); usually a large general SOF for all locations in the territory and also a narrower SOF that applies to that site specifically.
Thank you for the correction! That makes what they’re doing against the SOF rules/law, then?
That really depends tbh.
These munitions could be just being moved from one site to another, not destined for a site supplying the Iranian theater. They could be being sent for decommissioning. They could be loaded just for regular evaluation, loaded test flights. They could be going to the Iranian theater, but the UK government gave special exception for this case. Or it could be what we all thought right when we saw the headline and these are going directly ti theater to be used on Iranian targets.
Without more information, it’s impossible to know. Brits should be demanding more information for sure; I just told my partner and she is emailing her MP right now about this.
That does not sound like a good idea. I would expect a country would want to maintain sovereignty of their own territory.
Of course embassies have something similar to what you describe, but if an embassy is breaking the law, the diplomats can be expelled.