The United Kingdom has possessed nuclear armaments since 1952 and presently deploys a nuclear weapon system comprising four Vanguard class nuclear-powered submarines - home-ported at Faslane in Scotland, US Trident II (D5) missiles, and a stockpile of up to 180 warheads, manufactured and maintained at the Atomic Weapons Establishments (AWE) at Aldermaston and Burghfield, near London, and stored at Coulport, near Faslane, Scotland. Generally referred to as ‘Trident’ – or the political euphemism ‘independent deterrent’ – this nuclear-weapons system came into service during the 1990s, with an expected 30 year service life, based on policies that entailed ‘continuous-at-sea-deterrence’ (CASD) patrols and regular refits. In 2007, despite disarmament commitments undertaken in accordance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and deep reductions in the Russian and US strategic arsenals from their cold war levels, the Labour government of Tony Blair decided to procure a replacement fleet of up to 4 new submarines to carry British nuclear weapons into the 2050s. Even prior to the debate and parliamentary vote in March 2007, the government had authorized billions of pounds for upgrading warhead design and testing facilities at Aldermaston, including a new ‘Orion’ laser and supercomputer.

The Acronym Institute published an in depth analysis of the roles and options relating to UK nuclear weapons in the context of Britain’s security, legal and international priorities in our 2006 report “Worse than Irrelevant: Britain’s Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century”. This provided discussion of the political and technical questions facing decision-makers, and called for a comprehensive security and defence review, noting that the choice would have significant budgetary, security and proliferation ramifications for Britain and the international non-proliferation regime for the future.

Following the May 2010 General Election, Britain’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition rushed through a ‘Strategic Defence and Security Review’ (SDSR) which took as its starting point the “need for a minimum effective nuclear deterrent as the ultimate means to deter the most extreme threats”. Placing emphasis on the requirement to get ‘value for money’, the Coalition government announced that deployed submarines would each carry 40 rather than 48 warheads, the numbers of operational missiles would be reduced, and only 120 warheads in the stockpile would be ‘operationally available’. It was also decided that the Main Gate decision on the acquisition plans and number of submarines would be delayed until 2016. From publications and meetings in parliament to high profile public debates, the Acronym Institute has remained at the forefront of questioning the utility and relevance of nuclear weapons for Britain's security.