UK Delays Decision on Trident Nuclear Submarines "Until Around 2016"

British Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to cut military personnel and hardware in an effort to reconfigure a military that he called "overstretched, underequipped and ill-prepared" to meet the unconventional warfare challenges of the future.

As part of the efforts to reconfigure the military and cut costs, Cameron also announced the that UK would delay construction of a new fleet of Trident nuclear missile submarines for about five years.  According to the New York Times, "By putting back the final decision on the new submarines until 2016, Mr. Cameron conveniently averted a clash within his coalition government over whether Britain should retain a nuclear strike force at all."

In a recent interview on TalkWorks, Paul Ingram, executive director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), a Ploughshares Fund grantee, explained the costs of the Trident program:

If we did decide not to replace the Trident submarine, we would have roughly four to five billion pounds extra to be able to spend on schools, hospitals, or indeed, other military capabilities.  It is a significant amount of money.  It equates to roughly 15 percent of the defense budget.

Watch the full interview below: