page_title: Trident (UK nuclear programme)
section_title: Negotiations
hierarchical_section_title: Trident (UK nuclear programme) / Negotiations
caption_attribution_description: Margaret Thatcher visiting President Jimmy Carter at the White House
context_page_description: 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. 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. Each one carries up to eight missiles and forty warheads, although their capacity is higher. The missiles are manufactured in the United States, while the warheads are British.
  The British government initially negotiated with the Carter administration for the purchase of the Trident I C-4 missile. In 1981, the Reagan administration announced its decision to upgrade its Trident to the new Trident II D-5 missile.
context_section_description: The Cabinet Secretary, Sir John Hunt briefed Cabinet on Polaris on 28 November 1977, noting that a possible successor might take up to 15 years to bring into service, depending on the nature of system chosen, and whether it was to be developed by the United Kingdom, or in collaboration with France or the United States. With the recent experience of Chevaline in mind, the option of a purely British project was rejected. A study of the options was commissioned in February 1978 from a group chaired by the Deputy Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, Sir Antony Duff, with the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Sir Ronald Mason. The Duff-Mason Report was delivered to the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, in parts on 11 and 15 December. It recommended the purchase of the American Trident I C-4 missile then in service with the US Navy. The C-4 had multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) capability, which was needed to overcome the Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences.
  Callaghan approached President Jimmy Carter in January 1979, who responded positively, but non-committally. The Carter administration's main priority was the SALT II Agreement with the Soviet Union, which limited nuclear weapons stockpiles. It was signed on 18 June 1979, but Carter faced an uphill battle to secure its ratification by the United States Senate. MIRV technology had proved to be a major loophole in the 1972 SALT I Agreement, which limited numbers of missiles but not warheads. During the SALT II negotiations the US had resisted Soviet proposals to include the British and French nuclear forces in the agreement, but there were concerns that supplying MIRV technology to the UK would be seen by the Soviets as violating the spirit of the non-circumvention clause in SALT II.
  Callaghan was succeeded by Margaret Thatcher after the general election on 3 May 1979, and she discussed the issue with Carter in October, who agreed to supply C-4, but he asked that the UK delay a formal request until December in order that he could get SALT II ratified beforehand. In the meantime, the MDA, without which the UK would not be able to access US nuclear weapons technology, was renewed for five more years on 5 December, and the MISC 7 cabinet committee formally approved the decision to purchase C-4 the following day. When Thatcher met with Carter again on 17 December, he still asked for more time, but the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on 24 December ended all hope of Senate ratification of SALT II, clearing the way for the sale to proceed.
  The British government hoped that Trident could be secured on the same terms as Polaris, but when its chief negotiator, Robert Wade-Gery, sat down with his American counterpart, David L. Aaron, in March 1980, he found this was not the case. Instead of the 5 per cent levy on the cost of equipment supplied in recognition of US research and development (R&D) costs that had already been incurred that Kennedy had agreed to in the Polaris Sales Agreement, which would have been about $100 million, a 1976 law now required a pro rata fixed fee payment, which in this case came to around $400 million.
  The law could be waived if the President determined that it was in the interest of the United States to do so, but for that the Carter administration wanted undertakings that the UK would raise defence spending by the same amount, or pay the cost of US forces manning Rapier batteries and Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) sites in the UK. On 2 June 1980, Thatcher and the United States Secretary of Defense, Harold Brown, agreed to $2.5 billion for the C-4 missile system, plus a 5 per cent R&D levy, British personnel for the Rapier batteries, and an expansion of the US base on Diego Garcia, which had assumed great importance since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Secretary of State for Defence, Francis Pym, informed Cabinet of the decision to purchase Trident on 15 July 1980, and announced it in the House of Commons later that day. The agreement was effected by amending the Polaris Sales Agreement,
caption: Margaret Thatcher visits President Jimmy Carter on 17 December 1979
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