The UGM-27 Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fueled nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). As the United States Navy's first SLBM, it served from 1961 to 1980.
The Polaris Sales Agreement was a treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom which began the UK Polaris programme. The agreement was signed on 6 April 1963. It formally arranged the terms and conditions under which the Polaris missile system was provided to the United Kingdom.
The Resolution class was a class of four nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) built for the Royal Navy as part of the UK Polaris programme. Each submarine was armed with up to 16 UGM-27 Polaris A-3 nuclear missiles.
Chevaline was a system to improve the penetrability of the warheads used by the British Polaris nuclear weapons system. Devised as an answer to the improved Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences around Moscow, the system increased the probability that at least one warhead would penetrate Moscow's anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defences, something which the Royal Navy's earlier UGM-27 Polaris re-entry vehicles (RVs) were thought to be unlikely to do.
The United Kingdom possesses, or has possessed, a variety of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The United Kingdom is one of the five official nuclear weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The UK renounced the use of chemical and biological weapons in 1956 and subsequently destroyed its general stocks.
The Nassau Agreement, concluded on 21 December 1962, was an agreement negotiated between President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to end the Skybolt Crisis. A series of meetings between the two leaders over three days in the Bahamas followed Kennedy's announcement of his intention to cancel the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile project. The US agreed to supply the UK with Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles for the UK Polaris programme.
In 1952, the United Kingdom became the third country to develop and test nuclear weapons, and is one of the five nuclear-weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament campaigns for the abolition of nuclear weapons and is one of nine partner organisations of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) active in Scotland.
Kinglet was a boosted fission primary used in several American thermonuclear weapons.
Odd Arne Westad FBA is a Norwegian historian specializing in the Cold War and contemporary East Asian history. He is the Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University, where he teaches in the Yale History Department and in the Jackson School of Global Affairs. Previously, Westad held the S.T. Lee Chair of US-Asia Relations at Harvard University, teaching in the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has also taught at the London School of Economics, where he served as director of LSE IDEAS. In the spring semester 2019 Westad was Boeing Company Chair in International Relations at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University.
Michael E. Cox is a British academic and international relations scholar. He is currently Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Director of LSE IDEAS. He also teaches for the TRIUM Global Executive MBA Program, an alliance of NYU Stern and the London School of Economics and HEC School of Management.
Trident, also known as the Trident nuclear programme or Trident nuclear deterrent, covers the development, procurement and operation of nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom and their means of delivery. Its purpose as stated by the Ministry of Defence is to "deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life, which cannot be done by other means". Trident is an operational system of four Vanguard-class submarines armed with Trident II D-5 ballistic missiles, able to deliver thermonuclear warheads from multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). It is operated by the Royal Navy and based at Clyde Naval Base on the west coast of Scotland. At least one submarine is always on patrol to provide a continuous at-sea capability. The missiles are manufactured in the United States, while the warheads are British.
Sir Lawrence David Freedman, is a British academic, historian and author specialising in foreign policy, international relations and strategy. He has been described as the "dean of British strategic studies" and was a member of the Iraq Inquiry. He is an Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College London.
Beatrice Heuser, is an historian and political scientist. She holds the chair of International Relations at the University of Glasgow.
ET.317 was a thermonuclear weapon of the British Royal Navy, developed for the UK version of the UGM-27 Polaris missile.
The United Kingdom's Polaris programme, officially named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System, provided its first submarine-based nuclear weapons system. Polaris was in service from 1968 to 1996.
Following the success of Operation Grapple in which the United Kingdom became the third nation to acquire thermonuclear weapons after the United States and the Soviet Union, Britain launched negotiations with the US on a treaty under in which both could share information and material to design, test and maintain their nuclear weapons. This effort culminated in the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement. One of the results of that treaty was that Britain was allowed to use United States' Nevada Test Site for testing their designs and ideas, and received full support from the personnel there, in exchange for the data "take" from the experiment, a mutual condition. In effect the Nevada Test Site became Britain's test ground, subject only to advance planning and integrating their testing into that of the United States. This resulted in 24 underground tests at the Nevada Test Site from 1958 through the end of nuclear testing in the US in September 1992.
Kate Pyne was an English historian working at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), Aldermaston. Her work there included the writing of technical history on various aspects of the British nuclear weapons programme from its earliest days to the present time. Prior to taking a degree in Modern History at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, she worked for many years in the aircraft industry.
In 1952, the United Kingdom was the third country to develop and test nuclear weapons, after the United States and Soviet Union. and is one of the five nuclear-weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Kenneth George Young FAcSS FRHistS was a British political scientist and historian who was Professor of Public Policy at King's College London in its Department of War Studies. Earlier he was instrumental in the creation of the Department of Political Economy at KCL in 2010, and was its founding head of department.
