Does The US Control The UK's Nukes?
Can the US actually stop the UK from firing their nukes?
The UKs nuclear deterrent is called trident and consists of 4 vanguard class submarines. One is always out on patrol with its whereabouts a top secret. They typically carry 8 trident II D-5 Ballistic missiles capable of delivering 12 thermonuclear warheads 7000 miles away from the launch site.
Some believe these trident missiles can’t be fired without a special code given by the US. And that’s true for the US’ own missiles but UK Trident missiles do not have Permissive Action Links equipped meaning they can be fired without being unlocked through a code.
In fact, technically a rogue trident sub crew could fire the nukes themselves without the Prime minister or anyone else being able to stop them. Although that’s highly unlikely to happen.
It is true that the missiles are leased from the US as well as stored and maintained in the US Strategic Weapons Facility in Georgia but that doesn’t stop the UK from using the missiles already on board a trident sub.
Lastly, some believe the US could simply turn off GPS stopping the missiles from being able to navigate. However, this also isn’t true as they use a stellar sighting guidance system and inertial navigation meaning they navigate by taking a reading from the stars and don’t rely on GPS at all.
The truth is, there isn’t much the US could do if the UK decided to fire their nukes, they could stop the UK from having more missiles to fire other than the ones already on board the trident subs, therefore limiting the potential scale of a UK response or attack but we can still fire the ones in our immediate possession without hindrance from the US.