In the short term, that's true. If they can't independently maintain the weapons, it ceases to be true beyond the short term, though. OTOH, my understanding i

In the short term, that's true. If they can't independently maintain the weapons, it ceases to be true beyond the short term, though. OTOH, my understanding is that that is not a problem for the UK; they don't “essentially lease” their arsenal from the US; they use domestically developed and maintained warheads on purchased-from-the-US but locally-maintained Trident missiles carried by UK-built-and-maintained subs. They might have some uphill work if they wanted major delivery system upgrades, but their existing arsenal is, AFAIK, functionally independent of an ongoing dependence on the US.