UK has 'fewer than 225 nuclear weapons'

UK has 'fewer than 225 nuclear weapons'

www.cnn.com

London, England (CNN) -- Britain has a total nuclear arsenal of fewer than 225 weapons, with 160 currently operational, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday.

"We believe that the time is now right to be more open about the weapons we hold," Hague said in a statement to Parliament.

"We judge that this will assist in building a climate of trust between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states and contribute, therefore, to future efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons worldwide."

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 5/26/2010 by tothetenthpower]

[edit on 5/26/2010 by tothetenthpower]

I am kind of impressed with the UK for this.

They seem to be one of the only countries not worried about releasing such important intel on their capabilities.

Will other countries follow suite? OR will this be seen as a weakness by rival countries of the UK?

Thoughts?

IMO this is a good thing for everybody. The more honesty, the better we can plan to reduce the numbers to 0.

~Keeper

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by tothetenthpower


No weakness there. 225 nukes is nothing to F#*$ with.

2nd line.

Still, 160 is a piddly figure compared to US & Russia's totals adding up to over 10000. Israel probably has more nukes operational than the UK.

We have just enough to take care of business, if needed.

[edit on 26-5-2010 by john124]

Bet there are more yank nukes in this country than our own

Lines...Sorry

160 nukes, plenty of nukes to keep someone off the lawn lol
in a mad scenario 160 nukes will be more then effective

225 Is still enough to destroy most of the population of the planet. I see this as more of a MAD threat to the other countries of the world.
Also one must never forget the statements made in public are often very different from what is made behind closed doors.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
Will other countries follow suite? OR will this be seen as a weakness by rival countries of the UK?

It looks like you didn't read the article you linked to. UK is the one following suit:

The British disclosure follows similar recent announcements by France and the United States, the other nuclear-armed Western allies. Britain had previously disclosed that it had 160 operational warheads, which since 1998 have been based aboard a squadron of four ballistic missile submarines.

In May, the United States announced its stockpile of nuclear weapons numbers 5,113. In April, Washington decided to swear off the development of new generations of nuclear weapons and announced it would not use its existing warheads to attack non-nuclear states that are in compliance with nonproliferation agreements.

So the US and France already did it, it's about time the UK joined the party.

Don't expect to see zero anytime soon, but it's nice to see disclosure and reductions. The Soviets had more nukes than anyone else at one point, they've made big reductions in numbers but they still have a long way to go.

India and Pakistan seem to be doing their own thing over there.

The US announcement saying it "would not use its existing warheads to attack non-nuclear states that are in compliance with nonproliferation agreements", does that sound like a veiled threat to North Korea and Iran, that they aren't exempt from getting nuked if they are nuclear powers not in compliance?

This is just outrageous, we have fewer nuclear weapons than france. I demand we build more immediately and put the damned french back in their place.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Can anyone tell me whether the UK still hosts stock piles of USA nuclear weapons, and indeed whether Mr Hague was including or excluding these from his figures?

I was recently advised (by an enthusiast, who I believe had found the stats online somewhere?) that some of the UKs larger underground weapons storage facilities are likely to hold c.300 odd USA nuclear warheads, and he thought they were largely smaller scale devices of the kind that may be used against an advancing land force/tanks (possibly Russian?)

Anyone got further info?

Originally posted by john124
Still, 160 is a piddly figure compared to US & Russia's totals adding up to over 10000. Israel probably has more nukes operational than the UK.

We have just enough to take care of business, if needed.

[edit on 26-5-2010 by john124]

Israel might have more nukes, but the Trident II is indeed a very capable, accurate and versatile weapon, with the upgrade to the Mk4 arming fuse the weapon itself is now capable taking out the D5 hard targets (no mean feat there, one capability that I am sure without US & UK intervention, Israel will not get)

Not to mention the fact that at AWE they have created simulators that are effective enough to design the next gen weapons with all the testing done within the simulator, circumventing the ban on new tests..

Add on top of that, the fact that the US military industrial complex and our own Gov create plenty of unknowns at AWE as the US do not have Congressional oversight of their activities in the UK it leaves the doors wide open to what they all can get upto... we have a reciprical deal with plenty of our guys playing around in the US to avoid Parlimentary oversight.

So I would say... 160 (225) nukes up front with the capability to put together next gen weapons in next no time puts the UK and the US in quite an advanced positions especially when bending the NPT...

However I am sure all the other powers play the exact same games..

Originally posted by RedGolem
225 Is still enough to destroy most of the population of the planet. I see this as more of a MAD threat to the other countries of the world.
Also one must never forget the statements made in public are often very different from what is made behind closed doors.

Yes, agreed.
You don't play poker by tell the other players what you have in your hand.
Believing this figure is like believing that the moon is made from cheese.
A nuclear detonation in the paths of incoming missiles will fry their boards, and guidance systems. They then become uranium meteors, falling to the ground.

This is 168-40 Mt instantaneous kill radius nukes.



[edit on 5/26/2010 by endisnighe]

There are somewhere between 193 to 250 countries in the world depending on who you ask. Only 193 of which are recognized by the United Nations.

Britain poses as much of a threat to the rest of the world as it needs to.

Remain Vigilant.

reply to post by Chris McGee


House of lords says "BAA"....................

Only 225?

If Great Britain wants to be the leader in the Arms race than it needs over 10,000 nukes in its arsenal.The above map shows UK can barely cover Europe.

Nuclear deterrence never really made sense when it came to the British, because as a true deterrent, the other side has to believe that you are willing to use those weapons, and no one ever believed that the post 1960 version of the UK had the guts, and as it turned out they didn't.

The belief was confirmed when that despicable individual Dennis Healey, former Secretary of State for Defence, confirmed as much following the end of his nightmarish tenure in that role, stating simply that "oh, we never would have actually used them" - this in spite of being in the minority pro-nuclear weapons camp of the Labour Party.

As for the UK having them today, it's just the last dying fart of a former colonial power still thinking it can play with the big boys, when in fact it's military, through decades of budget cuts and scalebacks, has been reduced to something approximating a joke. This week's case in point - the RAF has already been forced to literally axe it's first 6 Typhoons, currently just a few years old, to use them as spare parts for the rest of the fleet owing to a lack of funding for the Air Force.

The British would be well served by restricting their nuclear deterrent to a reintroduced stockpile of 50 or so WE.177B free fall bombs and reinvesting the billions that the Trident fleet costs in their conventional forces.

The British military is far from a joke.

2nd line

reply to post by Sozen94


When the "worlds most advanced air defence warship" enters service without any missiles, when your air force has to cannibalize 6 nearly new fighters to keep the rest flying, when the SAS have to use ice cream tubs filled with explosives and nails because there's no money for Claymores, when the US voices concerns about the ability of the UK's naval forces to fulfil their NATO commitments, and when the next steps document for the future of the UK's armed forces reads like this:

www.rusi.org...

then I'd say it's all a bit of joke.

It's nothing to do with the quality of the people, but you do have to adequately fund them, and the UK doesn't, and never has.

reply to post by Retseh


I'd agree with that in part. Spirit and morale can never be enough if the equipment being used is sub-par and in no way fit for the job. I would argue that certain aspects of the British military do well though, such as the SAS.

It's nice to see some numbers coming out of the government for a change. I don't think they'd have any reason to fabricate the amount of nukes they currently have, considering it's such a relatively low number compared to some other countries out there. He could have easily bragged about having four times as many warheads currently active, but they seem to be providing some transparency for the time being.