Author Archives: John Thomson

How not to get impaled on Trident

By John Thomson | Mon 12th February 2007 - 7:57 am

Trident missile launchA trident has three prongs. In political terms there are three ‘prongs’ on offer now in the Trident nuclear debate.

One prong says do away with Trident altogether, and with it Britain’s allegedly ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent. Another says keep it, but offer a 20% reduction in the number of missiles (this is the option favoured by the Blair/Brown/Cameron ‘BBC’ consensus). The third prong also says keep Trident, but suggests a 50% reduction in the system’s capability.

All three options have their problems. The straightforward elimination of Trident has the advantage of being in a principled unilateralist tradition, but is not really practical politics. It is unlikely to be adopted by any of the three major parties. It would, if adopted as Government policy, leave Britain without any cards to play in subsequent nuclear disarmament talks.

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