Arms Trade | Drones | Environmental Costs of War | General Dynamics | Hiroshima | Nuclear Treaties |
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The Nuclear Chain | ||
HMS Vigilant |
The nuclear litany goes like this -
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Where does Trident fit into this dangerous pattern? | ||
Trident adds nothing to our security.. The missiles have a poor record of reliability. Note the danger of transporting nuclear components by road. One pretext on which Britain might possibly use Trident is to give legitimacy to a US nuclear attack by participating in it, (just as Tony Blair legitimised George Bush's invasion of Iraq). In a crisis the very existence of our Trident might make it harder for a UK prime minister to refuse to take part. The truth is that Trident is not an independent deterrent. Essential components are leased from the US. UK Trident submarines have to return their missiles regularly to the US for maintenance. The UK-US Agreement for Cooperation in the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes, which governs this arrangement, was due to expire in 2024. On 25 July 2024, three weeks after Keir Starmer became UK prime minister, he visited Washington and agreed, without reference to parliament, to delete the longstanding "sunset clause" which required the agreement to be renewed every ten years. This removed the opportunity for parliament, once a decade, to debate and reconsider America's role in Britain's nuclear programme. It violates the duty of both governments, under the 1970 Non-Proliferatiom Treaty, to avoid transferring nuclear weapons and to promote nuclear disarmament. Britain is no longer forced to be part of the Nuclear Chain. We would be safer without Trident. Its principal role now is to secure our seat at the Top Table. The alternative would be to scrap Trident, rethink the nature of "security", and place Britain at the head of the non-nuclear powers - the majority of the countries in the world - in support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). | ||
The future | ||
The current generation of Vanguard nuclear submarines is to be replaced by Dreadnought submarines. | ||
Explore the decision flow-chart on the morality of nuclear weapons. | /||