The United Kingdom and weapons of mass destruction

The United Kingdom is said to have a total of 200 nuclear weapons as of 1999. [1] (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/summary.htm) These warheads are carried by the Trident missiles of the four Vanguard class submarines. The principle of operation is based on maintaining deterrent effect by always having at least one submarine at sea, and was designed for the Cold War period.

The United Kingdom is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" (NWS) under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the UK ratified in 1968.

The UK ratified the Geneva Protocol on April 9, 1930. The country had chemical weapons – as much as 60,000 tonnes after World War II, including 7,000 tonnes of captured German weapons. These were disposed of in the 1960s and 1970s. A nerve gas pilot plant was destroyed in the early 1980s ending British chemical weapons programmes. The UK signed the Chemical Weapons Convention on January 13, 1993 and ratified it on May 13, 1996. The United Kingdom had an offensive program for biological weapons but ratified the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in March 1975. The defensive biological programme remains strong.

Use of WMD

The UK used poison gas in World War I in the form of battlefield shells, due to the vagaries of weather and the short ranges involved, a significant amount of the usage of both sides was ineffective or resulted in friendly casualties.

In addtion to poison gasses, (non-WMD) irritant gases (the forerunners of tear gas) were also available. The UK used gas shells in attacks in southern Iraq in the early part of the twenty-first century.

See also

• Military of the United Kingdom

External links

• FAS bulletin (http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsp/bulletin/cbwcb48.pdf)
• The Nuclear Threat Initiative on the United Kingdom (http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/UK/index.html)

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