UK Nuclear Interests: Security, Resilience and Trident

Benoît Pelopidas (1) , Jutta Weldes (2)

1 CERI - Centre de recherches internationales (Sciences Po, CNRS)
2 University of Bristol [Bristol]

This paper examines UK national (security and nuclear) interests in relation to Trident and the recent putative shift in conceptions of UK national interests from a discourse of ‘security’ to one of ‘resilience’. We discuss the rise of resilience in the discourse of UK national interests and reflect upon its possible articulations with the concept and goal of security, in order to make sense of what a shift from security to resilience would entail. We then assess the practices of UK nuclear weapons policy, and Trident in particular, in relation to the requirements with which a resilient nuclear weapons policy would need to comply. We conclude that the perceived requirements of deterrence as a communicative practice in large part explain missed opportunities to acknowledge the risk of a nuclear accident and the possibility of a consistent shift towards resilience as a national priority.

Mots clés: nuclear weapons; United Kingdom; security

Domaines: Science politique

Benoît Pelopidas, Jutta Weldes. UK Nuclear Interests: Security, Resilience and Trident. British Foreign Policy and the National Interest. Identity, Strategy and Security, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.155 - 170, 2014, 9781137392343. ⟨hal-03470480⟩