Abstract:

Nuclear weapons have brought on significant changes in the international system. There was a balance of terror created by nuclear weapons between the USA and the USSR during the Cold War. In this balance, other countries that possessed nuclear weapons remained in the shadow of these two. UK became the third nuclear weapon-powered country after the USA and the USSR. World wars had weak-ened the British global power. Accordingly, UK should have set new strategies. The effort to have a nuclear bomb was the top priority issue as a requirement of these new strategies. UK’s nuclear weapon capacity is an important subject in terms of international power balances. However, there are few studies in the Turkish literature on the nuclear armament process of the UK. This paper will be expected to contribute to the Turkish literature on the studies of the UK’s nuclear weapon. The paper has analyzed the reasons which have affected the UK to have nuclear weapons. In the meantime, the paper is focus-ing on the role played by the USA in this process. Inasmuch as UK’s nuclear armament can not be analyzed independently from the US during the cold war Although the UK has produced its own nuclear weapon, US-UK cooperation was quite important in this regard.

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