British Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy and the Trident Purchase

Abstract

It seems reasonable to assume that the decision of individual near-nuclear states about the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons is shaped by a calculation of its various costs and benefits. In some instances a government’s expectation that without its own nuclear arms it may be subjected to nuclear blackmail or attack by a hostile neighbour could provide the predominant impetus to reach or cross the nuclear threshold. Other governments apparently accept that their security is best protected by the two-pronged policy of abstaining from developing their own nuclear weapons and giving sustenance to, and placing confidence in, the non-proliferation system. If a number of the latter states concluded that a significant ‘pillar’ of their security arrangements, namely the non-proliferation system, was degenerating, they might well alter their judgement about the possession of nuclear arms. Thus nuclear-proliferation issues typically exhibit both a state-level and a systemic dimension and analyses that ignore either aspect are likely to be incomplete.

D. Keohane is a Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of Keele. He has contributed articles on nuclear-arms control to several journals. This chapter originated in an article published in the RUSI Journal (December 1981) and the RUSI’s permission to reproduce substantial sections of it is gratefully acknowledged.