British Armed Forces

The British Armed Forces are the armed forces of the United Kingdom. The British Armed Forces are officially called Her Majesty's Armed Forces, and they are sometimes called the Armed Forces of the Crown. The British Armed Forces is made up of three parts: the British Army, the Royal Navy (and the Royal Marines) and the Royal Air Force.
The Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces is the British monarch. Members of the British Armed Forces must swear that they will obey the orders of the monarch (swear allegiance). Under the constitution of the United Kingdom, the armed forces controlled by the Crown, however, because of the 1689 Bill of Rights, the UK cannot have an army during peacetime unless the British Parliament allows it. Nowadays, the British Parliament passes an Armed Forces Act every five years, which means the UK can keep its military. The British Prime Minister is the "de facto" commander of the British Armed Forces.&lt;ref name="United Kingdom 05/06"&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; The armed forces are managed by the Ministry of Defence.
The British Armed Forces protect the United Kingdom, the British overseas territories and the Crown dependencies. They also take part in United Nations peacekeeping missions. The British Armed Forces often take part in NATO missions. The most recent wars the British Armed Forces have fought are the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Operation Palliser, peacekeeping in the Balkans and Cyprus, and defending the no-fly zone over Libya. The British Armed Forces have bases in the following places: Ascension Island, Belize, Brunei, Canada, Diego Garcia, the Falkland Islands, Germany, Gibraltar, Kenya, Qatar and the Sovereign Base Areas (Cyprus).
The United Kingdom tested its first nuclear weapon in Operation Hurricane in 1952. , Britain is one of the five recognised nuclear powers. It has around 225 nuclear warheads. The United Kingdom's nuclear weapons are controlled by the Royal Navy.