The UK does not need a hair-trigger nuclear weapons system to keep it safe. To suggest otherwise is Cold War thinking at its most outdated – and last week it was a shame to see both the Conservative and Labour parties in denial…
…writes Danny Alexander in the Independent.
Danny goes on to argue that the level of alertness of a weapons system should be justified by a threat level – a doctrine that is accepted for conventional weapons. He points out that we have an opportunity to take a positive step towards disarmament, and that this debate should not be dominated by the ghosts of Thatcher and Kinnock, who, let’s remember, had a cold war to deal with.
Just last month in Berlin, President Obama announced a major reduction in the US nuclear arsenal and called for movement beyond “Cold War nuclear postures”. I want the UK to meet this call.
The idea that the military can get stuck planning for the last war rather than the next was recently illustrated, perhaps unfairly, by the “more horses than tanks” comment. But on this occasion it appears to be a political attachment to the cold war and its doctrines.
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9 Comments
All rather spoilt by Mr Alexander not following the logical conclusion of what he wrote. The cold war is over. There is no need for an independent British Nuclear deterent. Even the rogue state argument is pants – if North Korea did launch a nuclear strike on the UK, what would be the justification of the UK nuking the people of North Korea ? if North Korea is not detered by the USA arsenal of weapons it will not be bothred by trident. The whole idea of deterence is in any case based on people behaving rationally and is now being promoted to deter people who would be acting irrationally.
“The UK does not need a hair-trigger nuclear weapons system to keep it safe. To suggest otherwise is Cold War thinking at its most outdated – and last week it was a shame to see both the Conservative and Labour parties in denial…”
That’s fine and true, but I do hope that Danny is not going to advocate the two-three SSBN route as the replacement for the four Vanguard class CASD we have at present.
It would be absurd!
Saving just 5% for a DRAMATIC reduction in capability makes no sense at all.
There was an option that both bolstered the viability of our strategic industry in building nuclear powered submarines, along with a nukes-in-a-cupboard based deterrent based on the next generation Trident missiles, but the review failed to look at this.
Jedi, yes I thought the dual-purpose submarine plan had some merit. Are there any issues over deliverability?
North Korea could only attack the UK if it gets ICBM technology; look at the globe, it’s much too far for anything else. And if they have that, oh – and a nuclear warhead that actually works – why would they attack the UK? I’m sure they would rather have a pop at South Korea, Japan, or the USA. We really aren’t that important.
The 2/3 sub idea is a nonsense. If, for whatever mad reason, you decide that you want a nuclear deterrent, then buy a proper one, not one that only works sometimes, and that needs 4 or 5 subs. Maybe they only need a few missiles each, but it makes no sense to have a deterrent where your opponent only has to wait till they’re not at sea to take them out.
@ Joe – “Jedi, yes I thought the dual-purpose submarine plan had some merit. Are there any issues over deliverability?”
It is a question of dual-purpose with cruise or dual-purpose with trident succesor.
The report only looked at the former, which ended up very expensive as not only do you have to include the costs of developing a cruise based deterrent, but also two extra intermediate vangaurd boats to bridge the delay.
Bizarrely, this choice was made even tho our putataive dual-capable boat used the Common Missile Compartment which is purpose designed for the Trident replacment program (it just so happens to be usable for multipacked cruise and special forces insertion too).
If they can create a dual-capable sub, and do so with CMC, then I cannot see any technical or cost issues that would invalidate, tho i say this without any experience as a systems integrator familiar with complex multi-billion pound engineering projects.
I cannot second guess the result the report might have arrived at had it considered this option, i do not have the expertise, but it would not have required the expensive development of a cruise deterrent, and should not have required the two intermediate vanguard boats any more than the Vanguard successor program would.
Whether to run it as an active deterrent, using the various calibrations outlined in the report, or whether to opt for a nukes-in-the-cupboard arrangement would have been a choice.
A mystery.
Oh dear, oh dear.
Pakistan has a nuclear missile with a range of 2000 miles – I refer you to FAS latest brief to Congress. They also are currently building nuclear powered submarines and it will only be a matter of time before they tie the two together. Pakistan are not currently the UKs biggest fans and so, just as they did with Iran, they could quite easily sell their technology to the North Koreans. Thus we could face NK missiles in the not too distant future.
The only way to combat this threat is to follow present doctrine and have one sub constantly at sea. Any other alternative is to open ourselves to a first strike on Faslane (or wherever they put nuclear capable subs in the future).
However, the threat of a nuclear war is nowhere near as great as a medium size conventional war an so, given the state of the UKs finances we should cut our military cloth accordingly and bin our nuclear capability
we don’t need nuclear, we don’t need submarines, but we do need much more spending on health and social care, and on reducing class sizes.
oops, there goes anothe few hundred thousand votes.
The trident review should offer the opportunity for considering how we can meet our obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and take concrete steps towards longer-term nuclear disarmament.
Whether or not a decision is taken to step down the UK’s nuclear strike capability in the next parliament, we need to retain our focus on expanding the creation of Nuclear Waepons Free Zones in non-nuclear weapons states beginning with both Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe and followed by the Korean peninsula and the Indian sub-continent.
Effective containment of nuclear weapons proliferation is the only feasible route thay may someday offer the prospect of a European-wide nuclear weapons free zone. If and when, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan and North Korea have abandoned nuclear weapons, the way will be clear for the UK and France to follow suit.