In a globalised, increasingly multi-polar world, the ‘special relationship’ between the US and UK might be expected to diminish, as twenty-first century reality supersedes Cold War imperatives. Nothing of the sort, it seems, when it comes to nuclear weapons.
In 1958 the US and UK signed the ‘Agreement between the UK and the USA for cooperation in the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes’. Also referred to as the Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA), the treaty established a modus operandi between both countries to exchange classified information to develop their respective nuclear weapon systems. Originally, the MDA prohibited the transfer of nuclear weapons, but an amendment in 1959 allowed for the transfer of nuclear materials and equipment between both countries. This amendment is extended through a renewal of the treaty every ten years, most recently in 2004. Continue reading
With tensions escalating on the Korean peninsula in what is possibly the most serious nuclear crisis since that over the Cuban missiles in 1962, PM David Cameron’s assertion that Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons ‘was necessary’, was not merely opportunistic and hypocritical but utterly dangerous. Whilst other world leaders Ban Ki-moon, the Russian and Chinese governments, as well as leading politicians in South Korea and the US – have all been calling on both sides in the conflict to show restraint, Cameron was in effect inflaming the situation, giving a green light not least to those in South Korea and Japan who would have their countries develop their own nuclear weapons.
This afternoon, the House of Commons debates Britain’s nuclear deterrent: Jeremy Corbyn puts the case against the replacement of Trident in the context of austerity.
Hammond’s jumping the gun by pledging a £350m contract to signal the Tories’ embrace of a Trident replacement should be met by a resolute pronouncement from Labour that neither the arguments nor the figures stand up to any serious scrutiny. At the present time the biggest danger we face is the threat of terrorism on our mainland, and against that nuclear weapons are useless. 
