What is Trident?
Trident is a submarine-launched missile system. Each of the four Tridents submarines carries 14 missiles. Each missile carries a number of warheads. There is a total of 48 warheads per submarine. Each warhead has the equivalent power of more than eight times the Hiroshima bomb. Once launched, they have a range of over 4,000 miles.
How many jobs does Trident create?
None. Trident does not create jobs - it destroys them. Each job in the Trident programme has cost at least Ł125,000 per year. If this money was spent on hospitals, schools, and housing then seven times more people could be given jobs. Government estimates in the 1980s of how many people Trident would employ have been shown to be wildly exaggerated, partly due to the transfer of the submarine refit contract from Rosyth to Devonport.
Do we need Trident because we live in a dangerous world?
Keeping nuclear weapons only adds to the dangers of the world today, it does nothing to eliminate them. The fact that we are building atom bombs encourages other countries to do the same. If we argue that these weapons are essential for our defence, then all the other nations of the world can copy our example. This only increases the risk of nuclear war. The most effective way to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons is to dismantle the arsenals that already exist.