The history of Britain becoming a nuclear power dates back to 1947, when a Cabinet committee chaired by Prime Minister Clement Attlee agreed to develop a British atomic bomb and it was on October 1952 when Britain could achieve its first atomic and became the world’s third nuclear-weapon power. With regards to Britain’s weak economy and its decreasing military strength compares to earlier times as well as doubtful future of the Anglo-American relationship along with the increasing threat of Soviet Union, hence the UK tried to justify its nuclear bomb making as a mean of balancing of power. Later, the Labour government made the case for Trident renewal in 2006, and the MPs were to vote on whether Britain should remain a nuclear power Parliament in March 2007.
Many things have changed since the approval of renewing Trident system in 2007, both within and without the UK. The unanticipated financial crisis in 2008 resulted in recession and budgetary constraints and the growing popularity of the Scottish National Party (SNP) resulted in a referendum on Scotland’s independence in September 2014, as well as a historic victory of SNP in General Election in May 2015, and finally the EU referendum in June 2016 have all sort of influenced this replacement process up until the July 2016 when British MPs’ approved the manufacture of four replacement submarines by 472 votes to 117 at a current estimated cost of £31bn.
A ‘yes’ vote in the referendum by the Scottish people might have ended to the role of the UK as a nuclear power, since the SNP claimed that the nuclear submarines from their bases in the Clyde (West of Scotland) should be evicted and in reality there were no other alternative base in England and Wales. With the rejection of the Scottish Independence by 55%–45%, the UK Ministry of Defense could be relieved from the pressure and could secure the nuclear weapons up until the rise of support for the SNP resulted to the historic win of 56 (out of Scotland’s 59) seats. That meant that the Conservative government had to negotiate the replacement of Tridents with the opposition in Labour Party and the SNP while it also has been opposed by the Liberal Democrats in 2007.
The debate on the future of the UK’s Trident nuclear-missile system still continues with a broad range of views on the role of Tridents in reviving the global status of Britain, necessity of Trident system, and the truthfulness of Britain’s nuclear commitments to the global community. It has been said that the UK allegedly has around 225 thermonuclear warheads, of which 160 are operational.
After the Second World War and the new challenges for Britain including the gaining independence of colonies and weak economic situation of the country after wartimes, we could see that Britain was losing its global power and as you see, it tried to fill this deficit with membership in the European Union. So it turned from an assumed World power to a power with global interests. Not willing to accept both advantages and disadvantages of the EU, Britain tried play like a smart player and get the most possible benefits from the EU membership. This aim failed with the vote to Brexit and hence, this country now tried to define another special role for itself.
The only way to stay as an alleged world power for Britain was to renew its four old Trident submarine systems, one of which is always on patrol. While current Air Force of Britain suffers from insufficient budget and even there are opponents of Trident in the Royal Navy “ending up with a two-ship navy. With only has one giant aircraft carrier and one ballistic missile submarine at sea, [Britain] pretends to be a mini-US.” says Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford University. “We believe it keeps us in with the Americans and we believe that to be one of the big boys we have to have nukes.”
Paul Ingram of the British American Security Information Council think tank (Basic) estimated that “Trident is likely to take up between a third and a half of the entire defense procurement budget for the 2020s.” All this is to prevent another state attacking Britain with nuclear weapons, a threat that is in the second priority after threats from terrorism and cyber-attacks.
The United Kingdom as a nuclear power is committed to fulfill the Articles in NPT including Article VI which says “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” The decision to replace nuclear submarines is not consistence with UK nuclear nonproliferation and multilateral disarmament objectives. In other words, the United Kingdom, like the some other nuclear powers, certainly is not taking its disarmament responsibilities seriously.
The exit from the EU, whether it was pre-planned or not, aside from its many disadvantaged like the decline in the global prestige, provided justification for the modernization of nuclear weapons while nor it was necessary in term of threat priorities of the UK, nor it is according to Article VI of the NPT. Although the only claimed worrying issue for the UK and other western countries these days is the pretext of more Russian activities around its borders. However, we should not forget that in early February 1990, the U.S. offered the USSR that in exchange for cooperation on Germany, U.S. could make “iron-clad guarantees” that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward.” Although no formal deal was struck, but from all the evidence, the quid pro quo was clear: Gorbachev acceded to Germany’s western alignment and the U.S. would limit NATO’s expansion. It’s therefore not surprising that Russia was incensed when Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states and others were ushered into NATO membership starting in the mid-1990s. Boris Yeltsin, Dmitry Medvedev and Gorbachev himself protested through both public and private channels that U.S. leaders had violated the non-expansion arrangement. As NATO began looking even further eastward, to Ukraine and Georgia, protests turned to outright aggression and saber-rattling.
There is an old Persian proverb that says: “first, inject yourself a pin, then a needle to others;” Comparable to “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stone;” explaining that if you want to criticize others over a matter, you should criticize yourself as well. In this regards, after the historic JCPOA agreement with Iran, now international community expects from the permanent members of the United Nation Security Council, to be more serious in pursuing disarming their own nuclear weapons rather than expanding them.
It is just a nonconformist action by Britain to prove itself and to try to maintain its alliance with the United States. This may result to the public and global concern after statements like that of Theresa May that she would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons.
