Tridents (UK)

Trident is the United Kingdom’s sole nuclear deterrent: the Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile carried by four Royal Navy Vanguard-class SSBNs, which replaced the earlier Polaris force from 1994. The UK leases the missiles from a shared US pool at King’s Bay and fits its own warheads. The system sustains Continuous At-Sea Deterrence, with one boat always on patrol. Parliament approved building the successor Dreadnought-class SSBNs to carry Trident into the 2030s and beyond, alongside a US-UK common missile compartment.