ABSTRACT
There is a recognition among the UK policy elite that the global nuclear order is changing, and that the best response to this uncertainty is to continue to hedge with the recapitalisation of a “minimum” nuclear weapons capability, reinforce key strategic relationships and seek new mechanisms of “integrated” arms control. The approach of the UK government is therefore best characterised by continuity rather than change and by pragmatism rather than transformation. Despite a recent marginal increase in the number of nuclear warheads that might be kept in the stockpile, the UK government has not elevated the importance or expanded the role of nuclear weapons for national security or made any major commitment to expand the development of strategic non-nuclear weaponry (beyond through NATO and AUKUS). Instead, the pathway for security for the United Kingdom seems to be about business as usual when it comes to military capabilities, bolstering key military alliances to balance against competitors and seeking to find ways to restrain disruptive pressures in the international nuclear environment.
