MccGwire, Michael. "Comfort Blanket or Weapon of War: What is Trident for?". International Affairs, Vol.82, No.4 (2006): 639-650.

MccGwire, Michael. "Comfort Blanket or Weapon of War: What is Trident for?". International Affairs, Vol.82, No.4 (2006): 639-650.

• The detonation of a single Trident nuke has the potential to cause 20 million instantaneous casualties (639).
• British nuclear policy was developed in 1957 in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis. The maintenance of a nuclear arsenal provided Britain with a cost-effective deterrent to Soviet aggression independent of the USA and gave the UK added political importance in negotiations with the US and USSR (639).
• This reasoning no longer makes sense, as the Soviet Union has ceased to exist and it is unclear what strategic threat is disabled by British nuclear deterrence. The second function of keeping British politically important had already become obsolete by the 1960s, when the USA and USSR began negotiating reduction of nuclear systems. Britain's nuclear status did not help it curry favor with the USA in the 1980s, when the main American allies were Japan and the Bonn Republic, as demonstrated by its exclusion from the invasion of Grenada, isolation over the Falklands dispute, and being overruled on the issues of Germany reunification in 1990 and NATO expansion in 1993 (639-640).
• Britain has not conducted a serious review of its overall strategic position, nor the role of nuclear weapons in that position, since its defeat in Suez in 1957. The UK remains focused on remaining its special relationship with the USA, but has not considered the costs and benefits of this relationship (644). 
• Maintaining the Trident nuclear system costs Britain around one billion pounds every year, money that could potentially be reinvested in other areas of the armed forces. Replacing the Trident system would cost 15 billion pounds over the course of several years, again money that could be spent elsewhere (640).
• The Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT], created in 1968, received support on the basis of a promise that non-nuclear states would not acquire weapons in exchange for being able to pursue peaceful nuclear energy and a promise by nuclear states to eventually disarm (640).
• The main obstacles to the implementation of the NPT have been the difficulty of regulating dual-use nuclear materials, and the unwillingness of the nuclear powers to undergo nuclear disarmament (641).
• There were discussions of abolishing the NPT after the end of the Cold War, but the nuclear powers managed to extend the treaty in 1995 with the promise of regular meetings every five years to discuss progress made towards disarmament (641).
• Rejection of the NPT's commitment to nuclear abolition has primarily been a phenomenon among NATO countries, particularly the United States, which has regularly discussed nuclear first strikes as part of its military doctrine and alone among nuclear state seeks maintain nuclear superiority rather than parity. China rejected the NPT until 1992 and has always maintained a 'no first strike' policy, while the USSR had maintained such a policy from the 1970s until 1993 (641-642).
• The lack of progress towards nuclear abolition has generated the perception that the NPT is a tool of US foreign policy designed to preserve its nuclear supremacy while giving it free rein to invade states developing such capacities. The NPT is thus seen as unfair and illegitimate, with states incentivized to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent against American aggression (642).
• British unilateral nuclear disarmament would demonstrate its commitment to the aims of the NPT and give that treaty legitimacy and credibility. Moreover, the author believes that such a move could change the overall culture surrounding the nuclear suppliers group and the nuclear club, including repopularizing the nuclear taboo (642-643).
• Unclear Russia, China, and the USA, Britain does not see possess of nuclear weapons as essential to its national interests. This means that Britain is in a good possession to take the lead in nuclear abolition (643-644).
• Some have argued that nuclear abolition is a meaningless movement without American involvement, but recent successes such as the Ottowa Convention on landmines, the Kyoto Accords, and the Rome Statute demonstrate the ability of international standards to progress without US support (644).
• Nuclear disarmament could allow the UK to adopt a different strategic position, from the most loyal American ally, to a position among middle powers that support NATO, but disagree with the US on many issues, including nuclear weapons. The hope is that Britain's presence in this group could end or temper the American drive towards missile defense, nuclear supremacy, and dominance of space starting under the Clinton administration (645).
• The author argues that the benefits of Britain abandoning its nuclear weapons program outweigh the costs. The positives are the reinforcement of the nuclear taboo, restoring the legitimacy of the NPT, allowing for Britain to reorient its strategic outlook away from the USA, and providing additional budgetary resources for its conventional armed forces. The costs would require a change in Britain's strategic outlook (646).
• There remains a debate on the feasibility of global nuclear disarmament, and increasingly its desirability. The author argues that a nuclear-weapons-free world is preferable because it will trend towards disarmament, with the worst situation being rearmament or a limited nuclear exchange, whereas a nuclear world risks a massive nuclear exchange (647-648).
• A series of conferences held in the 1990s with American, Soviet, and Cuban participants in the Cuban missile crisis revealed that key decisions were made using misinformation and severe miscalculation, potentially resulting in nuclear annihilation (648).
• Further revelations of Cold War crises and plans reveal just how close the world has been brought to nuclear armageddon, despite control system thought sufficient during that time (648). Despite recognition of the likelihood of an accidental nuclear exchange, there has been strong resistance to any discussion of nuclear abolition as a preemptive step against nuclear war (649).
• Robert McNamara originated a famous dictum that nuclear weapons make nuclear war possible, human fallibility makes the eventual use of nuclear weapons inevitable, and any major nuclear exchange has the potential to destroy civilization and imperil the survival of the human race (648).
• Any use of nuclear weapons would result in devastation on an unimaginable scale. Even a limited nuclear exchange would result in a nuclear winter from fallout, leading to global crop failures and famine, and any exchange would likely trigger a knock-on effect of a larger nuclear war (649-650).
• The author asserts that the risks of nuclear war are so great that any probability greater than nil is unacceptable, thus necessitating nuclear abolition (650).