Why 'British' nuclear weapons are really very American

Since the first test and use of nuclear bombs in 1945, the heads of the UK Government have brushed aside efforts at international agreement to ban nuclear weapons.

After the Second World War, British prime ministers wanted Britain to have nuclear bombs to keep up with America. Now the British nuclear program can only exist because of “sharing” with America.

The UK Government ignores new efforts at banning nuclear weapons. This is despite knowing that any nuclear war will end comfortable liveable life across most of this planet and that the majority of non-nuclear countries in the world disagree with their viewpoint and support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

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Deviating from this blinkered commitment to nuclear weapons would rupture the “special relationship” with the USA.

The so-called British nuclear weapon system includes four nuclear-powered submarines each ready to simultaneously launch at least 40 nuclear bombs in clusters, fanning out from eight independently targeted missiles. That is eight regions to be totally obliterated by five bombs each.

Each bomb is approximately 10 times more powerful than the bomb used on Hiroshima.

This is the system described by this government and governments before it as “Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent”. This name combines the idea that the UK Government alone controls the nuclear weapon system – hence “independent” – and that it will stop any aggressor ever attacking – hence “deterrent”. Both the independent and the deterrent ideas are deeply flawed.

Many things are written about the failures and problems of deterrence, including the possible catastrophic mistakes in games of bluff and counter-bluff, the tendency towards constant escalation in nuclear arms, the target it puts on our back, the absurd costs, and the very real risks created by nurturing mass death machines in your own back yard.

But the idea that this weapon system is “independent” involves just as much magical thinking and is more myth than fact. Unfortunately, such myths are not harmless but deadly dangerous for every one of us and for the future of our planet.

The United States is involved at every level of the so-called British nuclear weapon system, from design and procurement to operation and targeting.

The flow of knowledge, technology, materials and military personnel between the US and the UK is made possible by a number of treaties, most importantly the Mutual Defence Agreement treaty. It was first signed in 1958 and has been extended and expanded multiple times since.

Nuclear bombs assembled in Britain are based on a US design and have components shipped from the USA. The USA also builds, supplies, and maintains the missiles used to “deliver” the bombs to their targets.

The Trident missiles currently in use were designed and built in the USA by Lockheed Martin. The submarines that carry the armed missiles are built at Barrow-in-Furness but follow US designs and are powered by nuclear reactors dependent on components, materials and expertise supplied by the USA.

The targeting of the missiles is dependent on US software, satellites, computers and personnel.

As John Ainslie wrote in 2006: “Reliance on American software for all aspects of targeting undermines nuclear independence. Any future British nuclear weapons system will only be as independent as Washington wants it to be.”

Dan Plesch also suggests that it is utterly implausible that the UK could ever launch its nuclear weapons without US permission. There is no prospect of further fact-checking the issue.

Sadly, it is frighteningly plausible that British nuclear weapons would be quickly incorporated into any USA nuclear attack. Look at how seamlessly our government ministers have committed British forces to supporting recent US military action such as in Iraq or Israel.

(Image: Newsquest)

Sustaining the myth of independent British nuclear weapons papers over Britain’s junior partnership with the US. The unsavoury exchanges involved range from bartering plutonium for high-enriched uranium or tritium to giving permission for military bases in exchange for missiles.

In the early 1960s, the British prime minister gave permission for the USA to establish a nuclear-armed submarine base at the Holy Loch in Scotland while negotiating an agreement that the USA supply the UK with Polaris missiles – the predecessor of the Trident missiles that the USA now supplies.

This deal made it possible for the UK to have submarine-launched ballistic missiles and kick-started the presence of nuclear weapons on the Clyde estuary, dangerously close to Scotland’s most populated area and its largest city, Glasgow.

Neither the US base nor the subsequent development of the Faslane Royal Navy into a nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered submarine base involved consultation or agreement with Scottish people, a situation that many have resisted ever since.

The UK has been called the Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier because of the extensive use the USA made of RAF bases during the Cold War, including siting US nuclear weapons at RAF Greenham Common and RAF Lakenheath. US forces withdrew when bases were no longer useful to them but the US military retains a firm foothold in the UK.

(Image: PA)

Lakenheath is RAF in name only as it is primarily populated by US personnel and equipment. US sources have revealed that permission has been given once again for Lakenheath to host US nuclear bombs without prior consultation with the population.

Whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris becomes president, the allegedly British nuclear weapon system will remain very American, a system that cannot be sustained without Britain playing the role of a loyal junior partner to the USA. The president of the United States can issue the order to launch a nuclear strike without consulting any other person.

There is no safe pair of hands for nuclear weapons. This is why Scottish CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament UK, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and like-minded organisations support and advocate for leaders who are brave enough to engage with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is time to replace dangerous posturing that could cost us the earth with the perseverance needed to ban all nuclear weapons.