Nuclear Arsenal Case Study

1555 Words4 Pages

As the United Kingdom’s status, has declined in the world people have argued that its nuclear arsenal is obsolete. In this essay, I intend to argue that its nuclear arsenal is not obsolete but rather is of vital importance for the United Kingdom’s national interest and security and should be maintained. I will achieve this goal by at first looking at the types of threats that are facing the United Kingdom before moving on to where the threats are originating from then I will argue the positive case for why I believe the nuclear arsenal is not obsolete and I will rebut some counterarguments to these arguments I will finish by wrapping this all together in a conclusion. In its review of security threats to the United Kingdom (HM Government, 2015) found that a Nuclear attack was in a 2nd tier ranking of threats behind the 1st tier of Terrorism, international military conflict, cyber-attacks, public health …show more content…

This suggests there is clear intent to acquire a nuclear weapon and indicators point to the fact they would want to use it if they were able to acquire nuclear capability but it might be hard to see how nuclear weapons can act as a deterrent here as non-state actors may not have clearly defined territory and they may not act as rationally as state actors. The next threat I will examine is North Korea whose nuclear capability is unclear on whether or not they actually have nuclear weapons although there have certainly been nuclear weapon tests with the yield of these tests increasing and has reached 25 kilotons according to (BGR, 2016) and North Korea have stated an intent to use nuclear weapons although the likelihood of them choosing to and having the capability for attacking the United Kingdom is extremely low due to North Korea’s main targets seeming to be South Korea, Japan and the

Open Document