Britain and France as Nuclear Partners

摘要

In November 2010, as part of a broad-ranging bilateral defence agreement, the United Kingdom and France signed a treaty providing for limited cooperation on nuclear weapons. Modest in scope, and the product in immediate terms of economic pressure, the nuclear treaty's main substantive provision is for the joint construction of radiographic-hydrodynamic facilities.1 Beneath the surface of this treaty, however, lies a story of significant strategic shifts, and there are intriguing possibilities for future collaboration between the UK and France, and perhaps for trilateral cooperation involving the United States.