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UK and France sign landmark defence agreements

At the UK-France summit in London earlier today, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy issued a declaration and signed a formal Defence Treaty that signalled a new era of defence cooperation. Letters of intent were exchanged and a Road Map agreed for deeper cooperation in the future. Three years in the making, the arrangement focuses on joint capabilities and procurement, but also to a limited extent, operations. There are two areas of specific note in the nuclear field:

vanguard4

Latest on the Trident replacement delay

Suggestions surfaced publicly today that the UK Ministry of Defence is considering a delay to the main gate for Trident replacement – the point at which a decision is taken to start actual construction of the submarines – until 2015/16, after the next election.

BASIC understands that these discussions have been ongoing throughout August, and that the decision has been made on the basis of accountability and the political context.

The thinking goes something like this.

Dropping nuclear submarine policy has benefits

Paul Ingram wrote the lead letter in the Financial Times, arguing that “there are in fact substantial financial benefits” to ending the requirement that the United Kingdom maintain a nuclear submarine at sea at all times. “Not only would the current running costs be reduced, but so too would the total substantial capital costs…”

Read the full letter on the website of the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/afb28048-c056-11df-8a81-00144feab49a.html

A crisis in financing Britain’s replacement of Trident?

It is time to reassess options for the replacement of the Trident nuclear missile submarines in the light of indications that the capital cost, to be funded from the Defence Ministry's core budget, could run to 28 billion pounds over the next 10-15 years. But Paul Ingram and Nick Ritchie also argue that it would be a mistake to base a decision on cost alone.

Click the “Full article (PDF)” button below to read the report.

 

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