U.K. Secretly Works on New Nuclear Warhead

The United Kingdom has been secretly operating a program to develop a new nuclear warhead, the London Sunday Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 2, 2005).

The effort is akin to the U.S. Reliable Replacement Warhead program, and aims to produce a warhead that could be tested without an actual nuclear detonation.

“We’ve got to build something that we can never test and be absolutely confident that, when we use it, it will work,” a senior British official said.

The British program is a cooperative effort with the United States, but has advanced more quickly than the similar U.S. warhead development effort, the Times reported.

News of the warhead research comes amidst ongoing debate over whether the United Kingdom should replace its existing submarine-launched Trident nuclear missiles.

“The Trident missiles will last for another 20 years,” said Labor Party lawmaker Paul Flynn. “Who on earth are we going to take them on with anyway? Replacing them wrecks any standing we have when we preach nonproliferation to countries like Iran.”

A report issued this month by the British Foreign Policy Center calls for the Trident to be eliminated without development of a replacement. It questions the United Kingdom’s status as an independent nuclear power, noting that Trident missiles are kept in the United States and picked up by British submarines for patrol.

“The U.K. should cease to try to keep up appearances and adopt a policy based on the reality that it is not an independent nuclear power,” the report states.

“Trident should not be replaced and should be phased out now,” it adds.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to make a decision on the Trident before he leaves office.

“It is a huge decision for the country and it will probably be done in a far more open way than the decisions have been taken before,” he said in February (Michael Smith, Sunday Times, March 12).

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