Reports & Publications

Over the years Scottish CND has produced publications ranging from leaflets to detailed technical reports on the issues surrounding nuclear weapons. During the early 2000s in particular, SCND staff used of Freedom of Information laws to research details of safety lapses and possible dangers of Trident nuclear weapons, convoys and accidents.

pre 1988 Scottish CND News - newspaper of SCND

1988 - Nuclear Free Scotland - magazine of SCND

June 1992 Cracking Under Pressure - report by SCND and Faslane Peace Camp detailed accidents and incidents relating to nuclear powered submarines, and concluded a serious defect was affecting reactors, measures taken were inadequate and Polaris submarines on patrol should have been kept in port on safety grounds.

February 1994 The Safety of Trident - report, written by John Ainslie for SCND, provided an assessment of the radiation risks associated with the UK Trident programme.

March 1999 Trident: Britain's Weapon of Mass Destruction - SCND report which described Britain's nuclear weapon capacity in term of deterrence, risk, status, targetting, effect of use and legality.

July 2001 Trident on Trial: the case for people's disarmament - book by Angie Zelter founder of Trident Ploughshares. A story of people power and the right of individuals to prevent their state from committing great wrongs. Includes contributions by Brian Quail of SCND.

c.2002 What's wrong with nuclear power? - SCND leaflet highlighting links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons

September 2004 Fortress Scotland - a report published by SCND detailing all the, at that time, 374 MoD sites, military installations and land holdings in Scotland, and their uses.

March 2007 Cancelling Trident :The Economic and Employment Consequences for Scotland - SCND and STUC report demonstrating that the replacement of Trident would cost Scotland more jobs then it would provide and that, by contrast, the funds released by Trident cancellation would create a major opportunity for productive investment in Scotland's economy.

October 2008 Now More Than Ever, Here More Than Anywhere: 50 Years of Scottish Songs for Nuclear Disarmament - book by Penny Stone with well-researched history and songs by writers Dick Gaughan, the Glasgow Eskimos, Hamish Henderson, Alistair Hulett, Ewan McColl, Ewan McVicar, Ian Davison, Nancy Nicolson, Karine Polwart, Leon Rosselson, Geordie McIntyre and many others.

September 2010 Trident, Jobs and the UK Economy - report for CND by John Foster, Alan Mackinnon and John Ainslie of SCND. It outline the impact of replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system, causing a reduction in defence employment due to scrapping conventional defence activities. The report concluded that Trident replacement would "cost more jobs than it would generate".

March 2012 Disarming Trident - a report by SCND and Scotland's For Peace, described as 'a practical guide to deactivating and dismantling the Scottish based Trident nuclear weapon system'. It concluded that a prohibition of nuclear weapons could be written into the constitution of an independent Scotland and that the Scottish Government could set out a short, but realistic, timetable for disarmament.

July 2012 Trident Nowhere To Go - report by John Ainslie of SCND examined alternatives to Scotland as possible places to locate Trident and concluded that given the economic and political realities of the time none of the alternatives are practical.

February 2013 Unacceptable Damage - report by John Ainslie of SCND on the damage criteria underlying British nuclear policy, particularly around the period when Britain was deciding how to replace Polaris.

March 2013 If Britain Fired Trident - report by John Ainslie of SCND outlining the humanitarian consequences of a nuclear attack by a Trident submarine on Moscow. It gives an illustration of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences and shows that the devastation would be on such a scale that humanitarian and emergency response agencies would be unable to provide an adequate response.

March 2014 Falling Eagle, Rising Dragon - CND report written by Alan MacKinnon of SCND drawing attention to the dangers of a new arms race in the Asia-Pacific region

April 2014 No Place for Trident - report by John Ainslie of SCND which set out how a YES vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish Independence would be likely to result in the removal of nuclear weapons from Scotland and the UK government scrapping Trident

October 2014 Nuclear Weapons, Yes or No? - education packs and DVD with short films for schools, launched by Scottish CND Education, which later became Peace Education Scotland a Scottish charity aiming to advance knowledge of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

July 2015 Trident and Jobs, The Case for a Scottish Defence Diversification Agency - a report by SCND and the STUC highlighting the transferrable skills of many of the workers in the nuclear weapons industry and concluding that an agency could shift employment away from defence dependency to socially useful employment helping the Scottish Government to meet it's own plans for carbon reduction and greening the Scottish economy.

July 2015 NATO is the Biggest Threat - report by Alan MacKinnon of SCND argued that aggressive expansion by NATO provoked conflict with Russia, ratcheted up the arms race and was used to legitimise Britain's nuclear weapons system which was assigned to NATO.

March 2016 Trident Shambles - a report by John Ainslie of SCND showing that the Trident renewal programme is in chaos, badly managed, with the cost and timescale for completion understated.

April 2016 The Truth About Trident, Disarming the Nuclear Argument - a book by Timmon Milne Wallis in which he dissects arguments for retaining Trident, cutting through the rhetoric to get to the real truth. John Ainslie and Janet Fenton of SCND are acknowledged for their help.

July 2016 Nukes of Hazard - a report by Rob Edwards drawing attention to the accident record of nuclear convoys and the risks they pose to the public. It quoted the MoD as saying that a terrorist attack on a convoy could cause "considerable loss of life and severe disruption both to the British people's way of life and to the UK's ability to function effectively as a sovereign state." The report acknowledged John Ainslie of SCND's contribution to Rob Edward's research.

February 2017 Playing With Fire - a report by Nuclear Information Service which presented the accident record of the UK's nuclear weapons programme over its 65 year history to remind the public of the risks and alert politicians and decision makers to the need to eliminate these risks. The report was dedicated to the memory of John Ainslie "whose persistent and meticulous research exposed many of the accidents described".

June 2017 Unready Scotland - a report published by Nukewatch scrutinising the preparedness of Scottish civil authorities to deal adequately with any incident or accident involving convoys carrying nuclear weapons which travel on public roads from Berkshire to Faslane. It concluded that they would not be able to cope. The Scottish Government was asked to "head up a review of the civil authority response to the threat of an incident or accident involving the convoys." Nukewatch campaigns against nuclear warhead convoys.