The US has the power to switch off the UK’s nuclear subs – a big problem as Donald Trump becomes an unreliable partner

Th Conversation, March 28, 2025 , Becky Alexis-Martin, Peace Studies and International Development, University of Bradford

Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently boarded one of the UK’s four nuclear-armed submarines for a photo call as part of his attempts to demonstrate the UK’s defence capabilities as tensions with Russia continue.

However, Starmer faces a problem. The submarine, and the rest of the UK’s nuclear fleet, is heavily reliant on the US as an operating partner. And at a time when the US becomes an increasingly unreliable partner under the leadership of an entirely transactional president, this is not ideal. The US can, if it chooses, effectively switch off the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

British and US nuclear history is irrevocably interwoven. The US and UK cooperated on the Manhattan project, under the 1943 Quebec agreements and the 1944 Hyde Park aide memoire. This work generated the world’s first nuclear weapons, which were deployed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

It also led to the first rupture. In 1946, the US classified UK citizens as “foreign” and prevented them from engaging in secret nuclear work. Collaboration with the UK immediately ceased.

The UK decided to develop its own arsenal of nuclear weapons. The successful detonation of the “Grapple Y” hydrogen bomb in April 1958 cemented its position as a thermonuclear power.

In the meantime, however, Russia’s launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 had demonstrated the lethal reach of Soviet nuclear technology. This brought the US and UK back together as nuclear partners…………………………………………..

Serious concerns are now being raised about the UK’s nuclear capacity, given the unpredictability and potential unreliability of the new US administration. Trump could ignore or threaten to terminate the agreement in a show of power or contempt.

The UK’s nuclear subs

The UK’s Trident nuclear deterrence programme consists of four Vanguard nuclear-powered and armed submarines. The UK has some autonomy, as it is operationally independent and controls the decision to launch.

However, it remains dependent on the US because the nuclear technologies at the heart of the Trident system are US designed and leased by Lockheed Martin – and there is no suitable alternative. The Trident system therefore relies on the US for support and maintenance.

The UK is currently in the process of upgrading the current system. But its options seem limited. If the US were to renege on its commitments, the UK would either have to produce its own weapons domestically, collaborate with France or Europe or disarm. Each scenario creates new issues for the UK. Manufacturing nuclear weapons from scratch in the UK, for example, would be a costly and protracted activity.

Technical collaboration with France seems the most plausible back-up option at the moment. The two countries already have a nuclear collaboration treaty in place. France has taken a similar submarine-based approach to deterrence as the UK and French president Emmanuel Macron has suggested its deterrent could be used to protect other European countries. Another alternative would be to spread the cost across Europe and create a European deterrence – but both strategies just re-embed the UK’s current nuclear reliance.

While these weapons may deter a hostile nuclear strike, they have failed to prevent broader acts of aggression. Nuclear weapons have not been used in warfare for 80 years. Perhaps it is time to completely and permanently unshackle the UK from nuclear deterrence, and consider alternative forms of defence.

The UK’s nuclear arsenal is expensive to maintain. The cost of replacing Trident is £205 billion. In 2023, the Ministry of Defence reported that the anticipated costs for supporting the nuclear deterrent would exceed its budget by £7.9 billion over the next ten years. This funding could be channelled into more pressing security threats, such as cybersecurity, terrorism or climate change.

Nuclear weapons will become strategically redundant if the UK cannot act independently. As Nato and the US dominate the global nuclear stage, the UK’s capacity to respond has become contested. The time has come to decide whether the US is really our friend – or a new foe.  https://theconversation.com/the-us-has-the-power-to-switch-off-the-uks-nuclear-subs-a-big-problem-as-donald-trump-becomes-an-unreliable-partner-252674

March 30, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Walt Zlotow: UK to push 250,000 Brits into poverty to increase unneeded defense spending.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 28 Mar 25

Now that President Trump has bailed on endless US funding of failed Ukraine war, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has picked up the slack.

Starmer is delusional that Russia seeks to recreate the Soviet empire. He joins equally delusional French President Emmanuel Macron that the EU must replace the disappearing $175 Billion in US treasure to continue the lost Ukraine war.

Starmer wants to boost UK defense spending to 3% of GDP from the current 2.3% tho no foreign enemy is anywhere in sight. To pay for this senseless squandering of UK treasure, Starmer proposes cuts in welfare spending. He appears oblivious of reports that such cuts may push 250,000 Brits into poverty, including 50,000 kids.

Alas, Starmer also remains oblivious that the hundreds of billions the US and EU has squandered in Ukraine has merely cost Ukraine hundreds of thousands of casualties, 10 million fled and 45,000 lost square miles of land. But the only words echoing in Starmer’s brain are: ‘The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.’

March 29, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Deeply concerning’: British General’s Israeli weapons job criticised.

“That the UK’s former chief of the defence staff is now advising Israeli arms companies exemplifies the extent of the links between the British state and Israel’s arms industry. “

General Carter signed a military treaty with Israel. Now he advises Israeli arms firms.

PHIL MILLER, 20 March 2025,  https://www.declassifieduk.org/deeply-concerning-british-generals-israeli-weapons-job-criticised/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Image&utm_campaign=ICYMI&utm_content=Image

The former head of Britain’s armed forces is providing advice to Israeli arms firms, sparking questions over his role in a country whose prime minister is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

General Sir Nick Carter was chief of the defence staff – Britain’s most senior military position – from 2018-21. Months before stepping down, he signed a military cooperation agreement with Israel.

That pact has never been published – despite freedom of information requests and questions in parliament – but it was hailed as a landmark moment in relations between the two militaries.

Carter had visited Israel earlier in his tenure, touring military bases and shaking hands with his opposite number, General Aviv Kohavi.

That experience of rubbing shoulders with the top of the IDF is likely to come in handy for his new job at Exigent Capital, a boutique financial services firm based in Jerusalem.

Carter is one of Exigent’s two “domain experts” in its “strategic advisory” wing, with his focus on “aerospace and defence”.

His role there is to “develop international growth strategies for our clients as well as identify and open doors to new business opportunities that accelerate growth”, according to the company’s website.

Or, as the Jerusalem Post put it, Carter provides “strategic consulting services to Israeli companies operating in the defense sector.”

Doing business

Carter attended a military tech summit in Tel Aviv in December 2024 – before the ceasefire had been signed in Gaza – when he told a journalist: “Israel is very significant in the world of defense tech.”

Carter added: “We appreciate the extraordinary innovation that Israeli defense companies exhibit and sometimes adopt what we see in Israel. It’s impressive to see the innovation of Israeli companies”.

The British army has bought Israeli-made drones, rifle sights and air defence systems. 

More recently, he felt “privileged” to have signed the “successful” UK-Israel military deal in 2020, commenting: “It’s very important for both militaries to work together, share the best training, and understand together the complexity of the modern battlefield. This is a very good way to do business.”

General Carter: Caught in the revolving door?

However campaigners are criticising Carter’s business decisions. Dr Sara Husseini, director of the British Palestinian Committee, told Declassified: “That the UK’s former chief of the defence staff is now advising Israeli arms companies exemplifies the extent of the links between the British state and Israel’s arms industry. 

“These revelations are deeply concerning, particularly at this moment in which Israel is recommencing its large-scale bombardment of Gaza, killing more than 400 Palestinians in the past two days.

“Rather than aligning with a state which is on trial for genocide and – as the Foreign Secretary acknowledged earlier this week – is in breach of international law, Keir Starmer’s government must now halt its military collaboration with Israel, including scrapping the agreement signed by Sir Nick Carter.”

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said: “Serious questions arise from former defence officials working with arms companies in states that have a track record of serious violations of international law.”

Turning to Labour’s partial embargo on weapons exports to Israel, Doyle commented: “It also raises longer term questions about whether former officials should be allowed to work with arms companies in countries where there is a ban on arms exports because the government has already acknowledged a serious risk of human rights abuses.”

Arms trade expert Andrew Feinstein from Shadow World Investigations remarked: “This is an example of what used to be called the revolving door – or is now known as the open plan office – between the British state and arms companies. It raises the question of whose interests the most senior political and military figures are working in: their own material interests, or the interests of Britain?”

‘System is bust’

Under government rules supposed to prevent conflicts of interest, former Generals must inform Whitehall’s Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) of any job offers they receive for two years after leaving the military.

General Carter notified ACOBA of 12 jobs he had been offered since stepping down from the army in July 2022, although Exigent was not among them. 

General Carter and Exigent did not respond to a request for comment on when they began working together. A LinkedIn post by the company shows they had started at least three months ago, when Exigent said: “We look forward to sharing his unparalleled expertise, insights and network with our clients.”

His other job offers encompassed unpaid roles at Harvard and Stanford universities, plus a trusteeship at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

Paid positions included working part-time as a strategic advisor for Schroders bank, plus advisory roles at Helsing – a German AI defence start-up – and an insurance firm.

On top of this, Carter spends 30 days per year “as a thought partner for Tony Blair in his role as Executive Chairman” at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

And he is chairman of Equilibrium Gulf Limited, which advises the crown prince of Bahrain on the autocratic country’s notoriously brutal interior ministry.

While he claims no military experience is required for the Bahrain role, previous Equilibrium directors include another former defence chief, General David Richards, and MI6’s one-time Middle East controller Geoffrey Tantum.

Lord Pickles, who oversees ACOBA, has acknowledged there are weaknesses in the system supposed to regulate Whitehall’s ‘revolving door’ between government positions and corporate careers.

Pickles said of ACOBA last year: “The system is bust and needs fixing.”

March 27, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment