Why do the British use American Nukes instead of making their own?

Question

Im just curious. But you guys buy our missiles and our warheads. Why? I know you can make them yourself. But why dont you?

Answer 1

We do, we use the Trident missile which comes from the US but we manufacture our own warheads for it.

Answer 2

oooh, difficult...

We used to, at the Atomic Weapons Research Lab at Aldrmaston ...

But what with the end of the Cold War, we now have this situation where our only nuclear weapons are Trident ICBM missiles ... and due to the treaty under which we buy Trident from the US, the warheads were originally created in partnership with the US ...

Now of course it's all owned by Halliburton, even the supposedly independant company that reports on Aldermaston has just been bought by Halliburton I think.

I guess the answer is cost, and the fact that we signed up to the Test Ban Treaty, which means even if we do try to develop our own, we can't test them ...

Remember all the fuss when the French destroyed those islands in the South Pacific - they were calibrating their systems so they would never need to test again. When they finished, they immediately signed up to the treaty!

Unfortunately we chose to go the 'work with the US route' so now if we want to develop and build out own nukes, we'd have to break that test ban treaty...

so now we rely on our pals in America for that kind of thing...

Hope that helps

Philip

Answer 3

Why bother? Building a nuclear weapon is very expensive as Britain found out when it began development with Australia in the 1950s. We would be using British warheads today if it wasn't for America realising that with the Cold War looming they should hand out nukes to allies.

Answer 4

Because former leaders such as Thatcher and Major together with the current incumbent of Downing Street Blair have destroyed our industrial base and the means of production in almost every field of operation.
We still have the know how but there is no longer the political will to manufacture anything including Nukes as you call them.
Before the Soviet Union and the Satellite countries fell into the hands of capitalism Polish coal was considered to be filthy and full of sulphur it is now regarded as clean coal and imported into Britain as Thatcher closed the majority of our mines down.
During her time in office China was regarded as a threat and an enemy, now the Chinese government are regarded as business partners and the bulk of our goods are manufactured there to the detriment of our workers.
It is all about cheap labour and relinquishing the responsibility of employing people in this country.
That is why the accurate figure of unemployment is approximately 7m but the government will deny this as in common with previous administrations they only refer to the number of people who are in receipt of Job Seekers Allowance which is about 1.2m.
The remaining 5.8m are either on incapacity benefit or not eligible for benefit and possibly working in the black economy in which case they will not escape paying 17.5% VAT, so why should the government care.
Blue Sky scenario Britain!

Answer 5

We build our own warheads just buy the missile of you.

Answer 6

To my knowledge the warheads and the submarines are built in Britain. It's just the missile that is built in th US.

Answer 7

The British government likes to keep American workers employed. If countries like Ghana and Uganda made nukes then they would buy them from their under the Fair Deal scheme.

Answer 8

Why do you buy bacon and eggs at the store when you could just own a farm? We have the infastructure to produce these items, so buying them from us is easier than settting a whole industry up to make them on their own. Its simple economics, its cheaper and easier to buy them then to try to make their own. Of course you could raise chickens and pigs, but why not exchange cash for someone else that already knows how to do it to raise them for you?

Answer 9

The golden rea of Britain is over.They are no more a world power.Britain require US support to stand on .Britain has a weak fundamentals and it cannot afford to spend much on development and delivery of nukes.Britain is now only a part of USA for all practical purposes.

Answer 10

Britain depolys such a small number, that its even less economical to invent their own system - Britain used to make their own air & ground launched systems, but sub launched are far more complicated