The UK government has confirmed it is developing a new nuclear warhead for its submarine-based deterrent in collaboration with the US, after the decision was first revealed by Pentagon officials earlier this month.
Ben Wallace, defence secretary, announced on Tuesday that the government had agreed to replace its existing warhead, which will fit the recently upgraded Trident missile carried on the Royal Navy’s Vanguard-class submarine and will eventually be transferred to the new fleet of Dreadnought class submarines, due to enter service in the early 2030s.
“To ensure the government maintains an effective deterrent throughout the commission of the Dreadnought Class ballistic missile submarine we are replacing our existing nuclear warhead to respond to future threats and the security environment,” Mr Wallace said in a written statement to Parliament. He added that the Ministry of Defence would “continue to work closely with the US” to ensure the new warhead remains compatible with the Trident Strategic Weapon System.
News of the joint UK-US warhead development first emerged earlier this month when a senior Pentagon official told a US nuclear deterrence summit that the two countries were collaborating on the weapon technology. “I think it’s wonderful that the UK is working on a new warhead at the same time, and I think we will have discussions and be able to share technologies,” he said.
However, opposition politicians including the SNP and Liberal Democrats have raised concerns that the decision to replace the warhead had been taken without parliamentary approval or scrutiny, especially on the cost implications of the new weapon.
The announcement comes as the government hinted that its upcoming security, defence and foreign policy review will not have to be “cost neutral”, raising expectations of an uplift in stretched UK military budgets.
In a statement, prime minister Boris Johnson said the review would look at Britain’s place in the world after Brexit, examining military procurement as well as how to harness technology and data to combat new threats such as hybrid warfare.
However, a Downing Street official said that unlike previous defence reviews, this one “doesn’t have to be cost neutral”, suggesting that there could be an increase in spending.
Setting out the terms of the review, Mr Johnson said that while the UK’s “expertise, leadership and values” were recognised around the world, the country could not rest on its laurels. “We must do more to adapt,” he said. “We will be judged by how we respond to the opportunities ahead.”
The prime minister added: “As the world changes we must move with it, harnessing new technologies and ways of thinking to ensure British foreign policy is rooted firmly in our national interests, now and in the decades ahead.”
The review will examine how to further British foreign policy aims while maintaining its existing minimum commitment as part of Nato to spend 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence and the government’s own target of spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid.
Commenting on the announcement Neil Melvin, director of the international security studies research group at the Royal United Services Institute, said the review would provide an opportunity for the UK to set out its defence and diplomatic relations post-Brexit.
“Critically, the review will need to calibrate the UK’s foreign and defence policies for engagements in the regions that will probably define international security in the decade ahead — northern Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and Gulf, south Asia . . . parts of Africa, and south-east Asia,” Mr Melvin said. “This will require responses to genuine threats alongside the reality of economic interdependency, notably with China, and the aim of ultimately steering hostile countries into more co-operative and less confrontational relationships.”
He said this would only be possible through adapting existing alliances and partnerships and by building new ones, “thereby placing diplomacy at the heart of national security”.
