Gibraltar is used primarily as a training area, thanks to its good climate and rocky terrain, and as a stopover for aircraft and ships en route to and from deployments East of Suez or in Africa.

[2] However, many years later, the British Royal Navy captain serving as Head of Sea Section in Operations Division, SHAPE, was to have to deal with the re-absorption of Spain into NATO in the early 1990s.

Arranging the NATO-Spain-Gibraltar-UK linkages involved "delicate negotiations," but British plans, to Captain Peter Melson's knowledge "committed no forces to defence of the Strait, while Spain was willing to commit substantial elements of their ORBAT [order of battle, their armed forces].

[4] The commander of British Forces Gibraltar is Commodore Tom Guy of the Royal Navy, who was appointed in June 2022.

In the early 1980s a decision by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence to cut back the Royal Navy surface fleet meant that the dockyard was no longer financially viable.

[1] The base is the permanent home to the Royal Navy's Gibraltar Squadron, equipped with two Cutlass-class patrol vessels and three Pacific 24 rigid inflatable boats.

[16] Winston Churchill Avenue, the four-lane road linking Gibraltar and Spain, crosses the airfield's runway and is closed to traffic each time an aircraft takes off or lands.

[20] Windmill Hill located on at the southern end of the peninsula is home to the Buffadero Training Centre which is used by the Royal Gibraltar Regiment and other British Army units.