Thành viên:Yellow Diamonds/US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement

US–UK Mutual Defense Agreement

Tên đầy đủ: Thỏa thuận giữa Chính phủ Hợp chủng quốc Hoa Kỳ và Chính phủ Vương quốc Liên hiệp Anh và Bắc Ireland về Hợp tác sử dụng Năng lượng nguyên tử cho các Mục đích Phòng vệ lẫn nhau
Biểu trưng cho lễ kỷ niệm 50 năm hiệp ước năm 2008
Ngày kí	3 tháng 7 năm 1958 (1958-07-03)
Nơi kí	Washington, DC
Ngày đưa vào hiệu lực	4 tháng 8 năm 1958 (1958-08-04)
Ngày hết hiệu lực	31 tháng 12 năm 2024 (2024-12-31)
Bên kí	John Foster Dulles (Hoa Kỳ) Samuel Hood (Vương quốc Anh)

Hiệp định Phòng thủ chung Hoa Kỳ-Anh năm 1958 , hay Hiệp định Phòng thủ Chung Hoa Kỳ-Vương quốc Anh, là một hiệp ước song phương giữa hai quốc gia là Hoa Kỳ và Vương quốc Anh về hợp tác vũ khí hạt nhân. Tên đầy đủ của hiệp ước là Thỏa thuận giữa Chính phủ Hợp chủng quốc Hoa Kỳ và Chính phủ Vương quốc Liên hiệp Anh và Bắc Ireland về Hợp tác sử dụng Năng lượng nguyên tử cho các Mục đích Phòng vệ lẫn nhau. Hiệp ước cho phép Hoa Kỳ và Anh trao đổi nguyên vật liệu, công nghệ và thông tin hạt nhân. Hoa Kỳ cũng có các thỏa thuận hợp tác hạt nhân với các nước khác, bao gồm: Pháp và các quốc gia thành viên NATO khác nhưng hiệp định này cho đến nay là toàn diện nhất. Vì có giá trị chiến lược của hiệp định đối với nước Anh, Thủ tướng Harold Macmillan - (người chủ trì việc Vương quốc Anh tham gia hiệp định) đã gọi hiệp định là "Giải thưởng lớn".

Hiệp ước được ký vào ngày 3 tháng 7 năm 1958 sau khi Liên Xô gây chấn động dư luận Mỹ khi phóng Sputnik vào ngày 4 tháng 10 năm 1957, và chương trình bom khinh khí của Anh đã thử nghiệm thành công một thiết bị nhiệt hạch trong cuộc thử nghiệm Chiến dịch Grapple vào ngày 8 tháng 11. Mối quan hệ đặc biệt tỏ ra cùng có lợi, cả về quân sự và kinh tế. Anh nhanh chóng trở nên phụ thuộc vào Hoa Kỳ về vũ khí hạt nhân kể từ khi Anh đồng ý hạn chế chương trình hạt nhân của họ với thỏa thuận công nghệ chia sẻ. Hiệp định cho phép vũ khí hạt nhân của Mỹ được cung cấp cho Anh thông qua Dự án E để Lực lượng Không quân Hoàng gia và Quân đội vùng Rhine của Anh cho đến đầu những năm 90 khi Vương quốc Anh hoàn toàn độc lập trong việc thiết kế và sản xuất đầu đạn hạt nhân của riêng mình.

Hiệp định quy định việc bán cho Vương quốc Anh một nhà máy đẩy tàu ngầm hạt nhân hoàn chỉnh, cũng như cung cấp uranium trong 10 năm để cung cấp nhiên liệu cho nhà máy. Các vật liệu hạt nhân khác cũng được Mỹ mua lại theo hiệp định. Khoảng 5,4 tấn plutonium do Anh sản xuất đã được gửi đến Mỹ để đổi lại 6,7 kg (15 lb) triti và 7,5 tấn uranium làm giàu cao (HEU) từ năm 1960 đến năm 1979, nhưng phần lớn HEU không được sử dụng cho vũ khí mà là làm nhiên liệu cho hạm đội tàu ngầm hạt nhân ngày càng tăng của Anh. Hiệp định mở đường cho Thỏa thuận mua bán Polaris, và Hải quân Hoàng gia cuối cùng đã mua lại toàn bộ hệ thống vũ khí, với chương trình Polaris của Anh và chương trình hạt nhân Trident sử dụng tên lửa của Mỹ với đầu đạn hạt nhân của Anh.

Hiệp ước đã được sửa đổi và gia hạn chín lần. Lần gia hạn gần đây nhất đã kéo dài nó đến ngày 31 tháng 12 năm 2024.

Lịch sử

Thỏa thuận Quebec

Hội nghị Quebec năm 1943. Ngồi (từ trái sang phải): Anthony Eden, Tổng thống Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nữ bá tước Athlone và Winston Churchill. Đứng là (từ trái sang phải): Bá tước Athlone (Toàn quyền Canada), Vua Mackenzie (Thủ tướng Canada), Ngài Alexander Cadogan và Brendan Bracken.

Trong thời gian đầu của Chiến tranh thế giới thứ hai, Anh có một dự án vũ khí hạt nhân, với tên mã là Tube Alloys. Tại Hội nghị Quadrant vào tháng 8 năm 1943, Thủ tướng Vương quốc Anh - Winston Churchill, và Tổng thống Hoa Kỳ - Franklin Roosevelt, đã ký Thỏa thuận Quebec, trong đó sáp nhập các Hợp kim Ống với Dự án Manhattan của Mỹ để tạo ra một dự án kết hợp của Anh, Mỹ và Canada. Thỏa thuận Quebec thành lập Ủy ban Chính sách Kết hợp và Tin cậy Phát triển Kết hợp để điều phối các nỗ lực của cả hai quốc gia. Nhiều nhà khoa học hàng đầu của Anh đã tham gia vào Dự án Manhattan.

Thỏa thuận Quebec tháng 9 năm 1944 mở rộng hợp tác thương mại và quân sự sang thời kỳ hậu chiến tranh thế giới 2, nhưng Roosevelt qua đời vào ngày 12 tháng 4 năm 1945, và hiệp định không ràng buộc người lãnh đạo hiệp định kế nhiệm. Trên thực tế, hiệp định đã bị mất về mặt thể chất. Khi Thống chế Sir Henry Maitland Wilson nêu vấn đề này trong cuộc họp của Ủy ban Chính sách Kết hợp vào tháng 6 năm 1945, không thể tìm thấy bản sao của Mỹ. Thỏa thuận Quebec quy định rằng vũ khí hạt nhân sẽ không được sử dụng chống lại quốc gia khác nếu không có sự đồng ý của cả hai bên. Vào ngày 4 tháng 7, Wilson đã đưa ra thỏa thuận của Anh về việc sử dụng vũ khí hạt nhân chống lại Nhật Bản. Vào ngày 8 tháng 8, Thủ tướng Anh - Clement Attlee, đã gửi một thông điệp tới Tổng thống Harry Truman tự xưng là "người đứng đầu Chính phủ nắm quyền kiểm soát lực lượng lớn này".

Chính quyền Truman

Chính phủ Anh đã tin tưởng rằng Hoa Kỳ sẽ tiếp tục chia sẻ công nghệ hạt nhân, mà họ coi là một khám phá chung. Vào ngày 9 tháng 11 năm 1945, Attlee và Thủ tướng Canada - Mackenzie King, đến Washington, DC, để trao đổi với Truman về hợp tác trong tương lai trong lĩnh vực vũ khí hạt nhân và năng lượng hạt nhân. Một Biên bản Lưu trữ được ký kết vào ngày 16 tháng 11 năm 1945 đưa Canada trở thành đối tác đầy đủ và thay thế yêu cầu của Thỏa thuận Quebec về "sự đồng ý của hai bên" trước khi sử dụng vũ khí hạt nhân để "tham vấn trước". Cần phải có "sự hợp tác đầy đủ và hiệu quả trong lĩnh vực năng lượng nguyên tử", nhưng hy vọng của người Anh đã sớm thất vọng vì hiệp định chỉ là "trong lĩnh vực nghiên cứu khoa học cơ bản".

Hợp tác kỹ thuật đã bị ngưng vì Đạo luật Năng lượng Nguyên tử Hoa Kỳ năm 1946 (Đạo luật McMahon), đạo luật cấm chuyển "dữ liệu hạn chế" cho các đồng minh của Mỹ. Điều đó một phần là do nhà vật lý người Anh Alan Nunn May bị bắt vì tội làm gián điệp vào tháng 2 năm 1946 trong khi việc thi hành luật pháp đang bị tranh cãi bởi dư luận. Lo sợ sự trỗi dậy của chủ nghĩa biệt lập Mỹ và nước Anh mất đi vị thế cường quốc, chính phủ Anh bắt đầu lại nỗ lực phát triển của chính mình, hiện có tên mã là High Explosive Research.

Vào cuối năm 1947, 1.900 tấn dài (1.900 tấn) quặng uranium từ Congo của Bỉ đã được dự trữ cho Tổ chức Tín thác Phát triển Kết hợp tại Springfields, gần Preston ở Lancashire, như một phần của thỏa thuận chia sẻ thời chiến, cùng với 1.350 tấn dài (1.370 t) để sử dụng ở Anh. Để có được quyền tiếp cận kho dự trữ cho dự án vũ khí hạt nhân của mình, người Mỹ đã mở các cuộc đàm phán dẫn đến Modus Vivendi, một thỏa thuận được ký vào ngày 7 tháng 1 năm 1948 và chính thức chấm dứt tất cả các thỏa thuận trước đó, bao gồm cả Thỏa thuận Quebec. Nó loại bỏ quyền tham vấn của Anh về việc sử dụng vũ khí hạt nhân; được phép chia sẻ hạn chế thông tin kỹ thuật giữa Hoa Kỳ, Anh và Canada và tiếp tục Ủy ban Chính sách Kết hợp và Ủy ban Phát triển Kết hợp, sau này được đổi tên thành Cơ quan Phát triển Kết hợp.

In 1949, the Americans offered to make atomic bombs in the US available for Britain to use if the British agreed to curtail their atomic bomb programme. That would have given Britain nuclear weapons much sooner than its own target date of late 1952. Only the bomb components required by war plans would be stored in the UK, the rest would be kept in the US and Canada. The offer was rejected by the British on the grounds that it was not "compatible with our status as a first-class power to depend on others for weapons of this supreme importance".

As a counter-offer, the British proposed limiting the British programme in return for American bombs. The opposition of key American officials, including Lewis Strauss from the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and Senators Bourke B. Hickenlooper and Arthur Vandenberg of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), coupled with security concerns aroused by the 2 February 1950 arrest of the British physicist Klaus Fuchs as an atomic spy, caused the proposal to be dropped. The June 1951 defection of Donald Maclean, who had served as a British member of the Combined Policy Committee from January 1947 to August 1948, reinforced the Americans' distrust of British security arrangements.

Quản trị Eisenhower

The first British atomic bomb was successfully tested in Western Australia in Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952, but although it was more advanced than the American bombs of 1946, Britain was still several years behind in nuclear weapons technology. On 1 November, the United States conducted Ivy Mike, the first nuclear test of a true thermonuclear device (also known as a hydrogen bomb). The JCAE saw little benefit for the US from sharing technology with Britain. The Soviet Union responded to Ivy Mike with the test of Joe 4, a boosted fission weapon on 12 August 1953. That prompted President Dwight Eisenhower, who was inaugurated in January 1953, to inform the US Congress that the McMahon Act, which he considered a "terrible piece of legislation" and "one of the most deplorable incidents in American history of which he personally felt ashamed", was obsolete.

US President Dwight D. Eisenhower (second from right) and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (left foreground) meet for talks in Bermuda in March 1957 to repair the rift created by the 1956 Suez Crisis.

At the three-power Bermuda Conference in December 1953, Eisenhower and Churchill, who had become prime minister again on 25 October 1951, discussed the possibility of the United States giving Britain access to American nuclear weapons in wartime, which came to be called Project E. There were technical and legal issues that had to be overcome before American bombs could be carried in British aircraft. The Americans would have to disclose their weights and dimensions, and their delivery would require data concerning their ballistics. Further down the track would also be issues of custody, security and targeting. The release of such information was restricted by the McMahon Act.

It was amended on 30 August 1954 by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which allowed for greater exchange of information with foreign nations and paved the way for the Agreement for Co-operation Regarding Atomic Information for Mutual Defence Purposes, which was signed on 15 June 1955. On 13 June 1956, another agreement was concluded for the transfer of nuclear submarine propulsion technology to Britain, which saved the British government millions of pounds in research and development costs. It precipitated a row with the JCAE over whether that was permitted under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and whether Britain met the security standards set by the 1955 agreement. With the 1956 presidential election approaching, Eisenhower was forced to rescind the offer.

The October 1956 Suez Crisis brought relations between Britain and the United States to a low ebb. Eisenhower met with the new British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, in Bermuda in March 1957 and raised the possibility of basing US intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) systems in the UK. This came to be called Project Emily. There were also discussions on exchanging nuclear submarine propulsion technology for information on the British Calder Hall nuclear power plant, allowing the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to purchase uranium ore from Canada and co-ordinating the war plans of RAF Bomber Command with those of the Strategic Air Command.

Although the IRBM negotiations pre-dated the Suez Crisis, the British government touted the IRBM deal as a demonstration that the rift had been healed. The British hydrogen bomb programme attempted to detonate a thermonuclear device in the Operation Grapple test series at Christmas Island in the Pacific. The test series was facilitated by the UA, which also claimed the island. Although the first tests were unsuccessful, the Grapple X test on 8 November achieved the desired result.

Đàm phán

Cuộc khủng khoảng Sputnik

Eisenhower (left) lays the cornerstone for the new Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) building in Germantown, Maryland, on 8 November 1957. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) Chairman Carl T. Durham (centre) and AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss (right) look on.

The successful development of British thermonuclear weapons came at an opportune moment to renew negotiations with the Americans. The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, on 4 October 1957, came as a tremendous shock to the American public, which had trusted that American technological superiority ensured their invulnerability. Suddenly, there was now incontrovertible proof that in at least some areas, the Soviet Union was actually ahead. In the widespread calls for action in response to the Sputnik crisis, officials in the United States and Britain seized an opportunity to mend their relationship. At the suggestion of Harold Caccia, the British Ambassador to the United States, Macmillan wrote to Eisenhower on 10 October to urge for both countries pool their resources, as Macmillan put it, to meet the Soviet challenge on every front, "military, economic and political".

Macmillan flew to Washington, DC, for talks on 25 October. He had concerns that the disastrous 10 October Windscale fire might prove a stumbling block in negotiations, as it might reflect badly on British expertise and provide ammunition for opponents of closer co-operation with the British. He ordered extra copies of the report into the fire to be destroyed and for the printers to destroy their type. He immediately sensed how shaken the Americans had been by Sputnik, which placed the Eisenhower administration under great public pressure to act on the deployment of IRBMs by a shocked and distraught nation.

Eisenhower and Macmillan agreed to form a study group headed by Sir Richard Powell, the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, and Donald A. Quarles, the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, to consider how the deployment of IRBMs to Britain might be expedited. Another study group, under Strauss and Sir Edwin Plowden, the head of the UKAEA, would investigate nuclear co-operation and the exchange of nuclear information. The personal relationship developed between Plowden and Strauss would be crucial in converting the latter over to the idea of providing information to Britain.

By December, most of the issues with the IRBM negotiations had been ironed out, and a formal agreement was drawn up on 17 December, but it was not until the end of the month that it was definitely determined that Britain would receive Thor, not Jupiter, missiles.

However, the nuclear submarine propulsion effort was running into trouble. Under the July 1956 agreement and a February 1957 directive from Eisenhower, Royal Navy officers had been assigned to study the US Navy's nuclear submarine programme. By October 1957, its head, Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, felt that their questions were slowing the deployment of the Polaris submarine-launched IRBM at a critical time. He feared that any delay might cause Congress to favour land-based missiles. By December, the British liaison officers were complaining of slow response to their questions. Rickover proposed that Westinghouse be permitted to sell the Royal Navy a nuclear submarine reactor, which would allow it to immediately proceed with building its own nuclear-powered submarine. The British government endorsed this idea, as it would save it a great deal of money.

Sửa đổi đạo luât McMahon

For their part, the British wanted the McMahon Act's restrictions on nuclear co-operation to be relaxed. They wanted to know the weight, dimensions, fusing and firing sequences, safety features, and in-flight procedures. That information would allow American bombs to be carried in British V-bombers and American warheads to be fitted to British Blue Streak missiles. That could save millions of pounds and avoid domestic political complications if Britain had to persist with nuclear testing during an international moratorium. While the British knew what they wanted, there was no consensus among the Americans as to what they wanted to provide. US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was concerned that a special relationship with Britain might complicate US relationships with its other allies. Strauss, in particular, felt that a proposal to give hydrogen bomb secrets to the British would likely not get past the JCAE, and counselled drafting amendments that were sufficiently vague as to give the president the authority that he needed without arousing its ire. Eisenhower declared that the US and the UK were "interdependent" and pledged to ask Congress to amend the McMahon Act.

Crucially, he managed to secure the support of Carl T. Durham, the chairman of the JCAE. Eisenhower met with congressional leaders on 3 December 1957 and pressed for more discretion to co-operate with all America's NATO allies, not just Britain. Indeed, the administration negotiated agreements with Australia, Canada and NATO. Eisenhower did not yet have wholehearted support for the proposal, but outright opposition from US Senator Clinton Anderson failed to attract much support. On 27 January 1958, Strauss sent Durham the administration's proposed legislative changes, and the JCAE Subcommittee on Agreements for Cooperation, chaired by Senator John Pastore, held hearings from 29 to 31 January. Quarles and Major General Herbert Loper, the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy Affairs, were forced to deal with pointed questions about nuclear proliferation. British information security, or the lack thereof no longer seemed so important now that the Soviet Union was apparently ahead and the UK had independently developed the hydrogen bomb, but the JCAE objected to the terms of the proposed deal to trade British uranium-235 for US plutonium under which the US would pay USD$30 per gram for plutonium that cost $12 per gram to produce in the UK.

The amendments were passed by the US House of Representatives on 19 June but not without changes that now limited exchanges of nuclear weapons data to nations that had made substantial progress in the field. The same restriction applied to the actual transfer of non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons. American nuclear weapons were to remain under US custody and could not be turned over to allies except in wartime. The sale of nuclear reactors for submarines and nuclear fuel for them and other military reactors was permitted. Only the UK qualified as a nation that had made substantial progress. The bill passed Congress on 30 June 1958 and was signed into law by Eisenhower on 2 July 1958.

The 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement was signed by Dulles and Samuel Hood, the British Minister in Washington, DC, on 3 July and was approved by Congress on 30 July.

Thi hành

Chi tiết

UK Defence Minister Des Browne (right) addresses a reception hosted by US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates (left) commemorating the 50th anniversary of the US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement in Washington, DC, on 9 July 2008.

The agreement enables the US and the UK to exchange classified information with the objective of improving each party's "atomic weapon design, development, and fabrication capability". While the US has nuclear co-operation agreements with other countries, including France and some NATO countries, none of them is similar in scope to the US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement. Macmillan called it "the Great Prize".

Article 2 of the treaty covered joint development of defence plans; the mutual training of personnel in the use and defence against nuclear weapons; the sharing of intelligence and evaluation of enemy capabilities; the development of nuclear delivery systems and the research, development and design of military reactors. The treaty called for the exchange of "classified information concerning atomic weapons when, after consultation with the other Party, the communicating Party determines that the communication of such information is necessary to improve the recipient's atomic weapon design, development and fabrication capability". The US would communicate information about atomic weapons that were similar to UK atomic weapons. For the immediate future, that would exclude information about thermonuclear weapons. Confidential intelligence matters are also covered by the agreement. The UK government has not published those sections "because of the necessity for great confidentiality and because of the use that such information would be to other would-be nuclear states. In other words, it might well assist proliferation".

Article 3 provided for the sale to the UK of one complete nuclear submarine propulsion plant, as well as the uranium needed to fuel it for ten years. Because of concerns expressed by the JCAE, the AEC would determine the price that Britain would pay for highly enriched uranium (HEU). The treaty did not originally allow for non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons to be given to Britain. It was amended on 7 May 1959 to give Britain access to non-nuclear components and to permit the transfer of special nuclear material such as plutonium, HEU and tritium. The treaty paved the way for the subsequent Polaris Sales Agreement, which was signed on 6 April 1963. The two agreements have been "the cornerstone of the UK-US nuclear relationship for nearly 60 years".

Phát triển vũ khí hạt nhân

The AEC invited the British government to send representatives to a series of meetings in Washington, DC, on 27 and 28 August 1958 to work out the details. The US delegation included Willard Libby, AEC deputy chairman; Loper; Brigadier General Alfred Starbird, AEC Director of Military Applications; Norris Bradbury, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Edward Teller, director of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory; and James W. McRae, president of the Sandia Corporation. The British representatives were Sir Frederick Brundrett, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence, and Victor Macklen from the Ministry of Defence; and William Penney, William Cook and E. F. Newly from the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston. The Americans disclosed the details of nine of their nuclear weapon designs: the Mark 7, Mark 15/39, Mark 19, Mark 25, Mark 27, Mark 28, Mark 31, Mark 33 and Mark 34. In return, the British provided the details of seven of theirs, including Green Grass; Pennant, the boosted device which had been detonated in the Grapple Z test on 22 August; Flagpole, the two-stage device scheduled for 2 September; Burgee, scheduled for 23 September; and the three-stage Halliard 3. The Americans were impressed with the British designs, particularly with Halliard 1, the heavier version of Halliard 3. Cook, therefore, changed the Grapple Z programme to fire Halliard 1 instead of Halliard 3. Macmillan noted in his diary with satisfaction:

in some respects we are as far, and even further, advanced in the art than our American friends. They thought interchange of information would be all give. They are keen that we should complete our series, especially the last megaton, the character of which is novel and of deep interest to them.

An early benefit of the agreement was to allow the UK to "Anglicise" the W28 nuclear warhead as the Red Snow warhead for the Blue Steel missile. The British designers were impressed by the W28, which was not only lighter than the British Green Grass warhead used in Yellow Sun but also remarkably more economical in its use of expensive fissile material. The Yellow Sun Mark 2 using Red Snow cost £500,000 compared with £1,200,000 for the Mark 1 with Green Grass. A 1974 CIA proliferation assessment noted: "In many cases [Britain's sensitive technology in nuclear and missile fields] is based on technology received from the US and could not legitimately be passed on without US permission". The UK National Audit Office noted that most of the UK Trident programme warhead development and production expenditure had been incurred in the US, which supplied special materials and "certain warhead-related components and services". There is evidence that the warhead design of the British Trident system is similar to or even based upon the US W76 warhead fitted in US Navy Trident missiles, with design and blast model data supplied to the UK.

Britain soon became dependent on the United States for its nuclear weapons, as it lacked the resources to produce a range of designs. The treaty allowed the UK to receive US nuclear weapons for the Royal Air Force (RAF) and British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) under Project E. Similar custody arrangements were made for the Thor missiles supplied under Project Emily. The UK was able to carry out underground nuclear tests at the US Nevada Test Site, where the first British test took place on 1 March 1962. British nuclear testing in the United States continued until it was abruptly halted by President George H. W. Bush in October 1992. Major subcritical nuclear tests continued to occur, most notably the Etna test in February 2002 and the Krakatau test in February 2006.

Trao đổi vật liệu hạt nhân đặc biệt

The Royal Navy's submarine lớp Swiftsure HMS Splendid

Under the agreement 5.37 tonnes of UK-produced plutonium was sent to the US in exchange for 6.7 kg of tritium and 7.5 tonnes of HEU between 1960 and 1979. A further 470 kg of plutonium was swapped between the US and the UK for reasons that remain classified. Some of the UK-produced plutonium was used in 1962 by the US for the only known nuclear weapon test of reactor-grade plutonium. The plutonium sent to the US included some produced in UK civil Magnox reactors, and the US gave assurances that the civil plutonium was not used in the US nuclear weapons programme. It was used in civil programmes which included californium production and reactor research.

Some of the fissile materials for the UK Trident warhead were purchased from the US, but much of the HEU supplied by the US was used not for weapons but as fuel for the growing fleet of UK nuclear submarines. Under the treaty, the US supplied the UK with not only nuclear submarine propulsion technology but also a complete S5W pressurised water reactor of the kind used to power the US lớp Skipjack submarines. That was used in the Royal Navy's first nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Dreadnought, which was launched in 1960 and commissioned in 1963. The S5W was fuelled by uranium enriched to between 93 and 97 per cent uranium-235. In return for a "considerable amount" of information regarding submarine design and quietening techniques being passed on to the United States, reactor technology was transferred from Westinghouse to Rolls Royce, which used it as the basis for its PWR1 reactor used in the UK's Valiant, Resolution, Churchill, Swiftsure and Trafalgar submarines.

The UK produced HEU at its facility in Capenhurst, but production for military purposes ceased there in March 1963. Thereafter, uranium oxide was imported from Australia, Canada, Namibia, South Africa, the United States and Zaire and processed into uranium hexafluoride at Springfields. It was then shipped to the US, where it was enriched at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon, Ohio. HEU was then flown back to the UK in RAF aircraft. In 1994, with the Portsmouth plant about to close, the treaty was amended with the US requirement to "provide" uranium enrichment services changed to one to "arrange" them. By March 2002, the UK had a stockpile of 21.86 tonnes of HEU, about 80 years' supply for the Royal Navy's nuclear-powered submarines.

Nhóm làm việc chung

Most of the activity under the treaty is information exchange through Joint Working Groups (JOWOG). At least 15 of them were established in 1959. Subjects investigated included

one-point safety, computer codes, metallurgy and fabrication technology for beryllium, uranium and plutonium, corrosion of uranium in the presence of water and water vapour, underground effects tests, outer-space testing, clandestine testing, the technology of lithium compounds, high explosives, deuterium monitors, extinguishing plutonium fires, high-speed cameras, mechanical safing, liquid and solid explosive shock initiation, environmental sensing switches, neutron sources, tritium reservoirs, telemetry, hydrodynamic and shock relations for problems with spherical and cylindrical symmetry, nuclear cross sections, radiochemistry, atomic demolition munitions, warhead hardening, asymmetric detonations, terrorist nuclear threat response, nuclear weapons accidents and waste management.

Between 2007 and 2009, staff of the Atomic Weapons Establishment paid 2,000 visits to US nuclear facilities. Tính đến năm 2014 there are also two enhanced collaborations jointly developing capabilities:

• Enhanced Nuclear Safety to develop architectures and technologies related to warhead safety; and
• Warhead Electrical System to develop architectures and technologies for warhead electrical systems.

Lợi ích chung

The Anglo-American special relationship proved mutually beneficial although it has never been one of equals after the World Wars since the US has been far larger than Britain both militarily and economically. Lorna Arnold noted:

The balance of advantage in the exchanges was necessarily in Britain's favour but they were not entirely one-sided. In some areas, notably electronics and high explosives, the British were equal or perhaps even superior, and in many areas they had valuable ideas to contribute, as the American scientists, and notably Teller, appreciated.

A 1985 report by the US State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research reported that the US was "profoundly involved and benefited greatly" from the treaty.

Sự đổi mới

NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty and Stephen Lovegrove cut the ribbon on the US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement 60th Anniversary commemorative exhibit in June 2018

The treaty was amended on 7 May 1959, 27 September 1968, 16 October 1969, 22 June 1974, 5 December 1979, 5 June 1984, 23 May 1994 and 14 June 2004. Most amendments merely extended the treaty for another five or ten years; others added definitions and made minor changes. Tính đến năm 2020, the most recent renewal was on 22 July 2014, extending the treaty to 31 December 2024, with minor changes for the Trident nuclear programme.

A 2004 legal opinion obtained by the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) argued that renewal of the treaty violated Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which required signatories to take steps towards nuclear disarmament, but that was not accepted by the British government. In July 2014, Baroness Warsi, the Senior Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2012 to 2014, stated the government's position:

We are committed to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons and firmly believe that the best way to achieve this is through gradual disarmament negotiated through a step-by-step approach within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The UK has a strong record on nuclear disarmament and continues to be at the forefront of international efforts to control proliferation, and to make progress towards multilateral nuclear disarmament. The UK-USA Mutual Defence Agreement is, and will continue to be, in full compliance with our obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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