QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

What is this Trident anyway?Trident is Britains nuclear weapons system. It is made up offour nuclear submarines. Each sub carries up to 8 missiles onboard, and each missile carries up to 5 nuclear bombs(warheads) on top. Each of these bombs is around eight timesas destructive as the bomb which flattened Hiroshima in1945, killing over 140,000 civilians. One Trident submarinepatrols the seas at all times.

Why does the government want to replace it?Because the whole system will wear out sometime between 2025and 2030.

What do they want to replace it with?A very similar submarine-based system. Due to the LiberalDemocrats being opposed to a like-for-like replacement, theCoalition Agreement with the Conservatives signed in 2010 defersany decision on replacing Trident until 2016. In the meantime, aLib Dem-led Cabinet Office review published in July 2013 lookedinto possible alternatives.

So what are these alternatives?The report argues for an end to a nuclear-armed submarinebeing on constant patrol. This would mean a reduction in thenumber of subs from four to three. But the review wasfundamentally flawed in not considering non-replacement ofTrident the most logical alternative.

How much does replacing Trident cost? At least 100 billion. Building new submarines will cost over25bn. Then the running costs will be around 60bn over thenew systems lifetime and eventual decommissioning isestimated to be about 13bn. The warheads will probablyneed to be replaced. Additional costs include extending thelife of the missiles and security costs. This money would bebetter spent on employing more nurses and teachers,developing clean energy, scrapping tuition fees or buildingaffordable homes.

Who will this new Trident defend usagainst?No-one seems to have an answer to this. It will be uselessagainst terrorists who are supposed to be the new threat. TheSoviet Union, the enemy when Britain developed its firstnuclear weapon, has long since disappeared. No other country

What is Trident?is threatening to use nuclear weapons against us: North Koreadoesnt have a deliverable nuclear warhead, and Iran doesnthave anything but enriched uranium.

Surely it is an insurance policy for anuncertain future?This is just what the government says. But it is a very oddinsurance policy, which actually increases the risks that it issupposed to protect us against.

What do you mean?If Britain shows the world that we think our security dependson us having nuclear weapons far into the future, then othercountries without them will want them too. So the dangers ofaccidents or crises increase. India and Pakistan are less securewith nuclear weapons today than they were when they did nothave them.

Why not just cut down the destructivepower we now have to a lower level?Reductions are good as a first step forward, but they do notsolve the problem when one bomb alone can kill hundreds ofthousands of people. Even a small nuclear exchange wouldkill millions. It would have a devastating impact on theworlds climate, resulting in a major drop in temperatureleaving large parts of the worlds agricultural land unable toproduce crops, so millions more would starve. No matter howfew or how many nuclear weapons countries have, while theyexist at all other countries will try to get them too. The onlyway to be really safe is to abolish all nuclear weapons. This iswhat the majority of the countries in the world and theirpeople want.

Have any countries actually got rid of theirnuclear weapons?Yes: South Africa dismantled its nuclear arsenal entirely between1989 and 1993. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus gave up theirnuclear weapons following the break-up of the Soviet Union.

How many countries now have nuclearweapons?At least eight, and possibly nine. They have around 16,000 nuclearwarheads between them.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Have there ever been accidents or momentsof tension when nuclear weapons mighthave been used?There have been plenty of dangerous accidents and severalmoments of crisis when leaders or military advisors wanted to usethem. We have, says Robert McNamara, who was once in chargeof US nuclear policy, been very lucky. It is not a luck which canhold out forever.

So whats this nuclear Non-ProliferationTreaty then?It was signed in 1968 and it agreed three things:1. That every signatory is entitled to have civilian nuclear energy.2. That those without the bomb at the time would not try toget it.

3. That those five countries then with the bomb would negotiatethe elimination of all nuclear weapons.

So is Iran in violation of the NPT?No but it may be in violation of a subsequent voluntaryagreement entered into with the International Atomic EnergyAgency about inspections.

Are the countries with nuclear weapons inviolation of the NPT?Yes, since no negotiations aimed at the abolition of nuclearweapons have ever even started. All we have had are negotiationsaimed at good housekeeping of nuclear arsenals not so manynuclear weapons, rules about test explosions, and agreements notto put them into space, for instance.

Has the International Court of Justice hadanything to say about all this?Certainly. In 1996 the judges of the Court said unanimously thatthere is an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to aconclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all itsaspects under strict and effective international control.

How does that ruling affect Tridentreplacement?For Britain to decide to replace Trident, and at the same timerefuse to start abolition negotiations, it cannot possibly

demonstrate the good faith demanded by the InternationalCourt judges. Trident replacement will mean Britainpossessing nuclear weapons until nearly 2060 90 years afterwe agreed to disarm!

How could negotiations on abolition start?Easily, with enough political will. There is already a detaileddraft treaty, a model Nuclear Weapons Convention, lodgedwith the UN which could be the basis for starting discussions.This would ban all nuclear weapons and it covers all thedifficult issues: such as observation, inspection on demand,verification, control of nuclear material and criminality.

Does that mean that international inspectorsmight want to have a look at the British bombfactory at Aldermaston or the nuclearsubmarine base at Faslane in Scotland?Of course. In our global world, threats disease, climate change,shortage of water and energy sources, the danger of war, andespecially nuclear war are all global. Solutions have to be globalas well. This country cannot be above the law, even though wetried to be with the Iraq war.

Why dont abolition negotiations start?There are already moves in that direction. But there are still manypeople who do not realise that to start abolition negotiations isperfectly possible. Many of the top people in countries withnuclear weapons still think of them as status symbols or even asuseable weapons of war.

Recently, non-nuclear weapon states have taken the lead. 146countries met in Mexico in February 2014 to discuss thehumanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. At their nextgathering in Vienna, they will begin discussing a ban treaty.The British government has so far refused to attend thesemeetings.

What should the British government do? We must begin by telling the world now that we are not going toreplace our existing Trident system when it comes to the end ofits life AND that we want to see the start of international nuclearweapon abolition negotiations immediately.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Mordechai Vanunu House 162 Holloway Rd London N7 8DQ 020 7700 2393 www.cnduk.org Updated March 2014