---

Armed Forces: Nuclear Deterrent

My Lords, last June, the Prime Minister called for ““the fullest possible debate”” on the renewal of the British nuclear deterrent and promised a White Paper to set the framework for that debate, with a decision to be taken before the end of this Parliament. The House of Commons Defence Committee responded by undertaking a series of inquiries, while sharply criticising the Ministry of Defence for its reluctance to co-operate by providing the information needed for a proper and open debate. The Liberal Democrats set up a working group, which will report to our spring conference in March, and which has taken evidence from independent experts on defence and foreign policy. Meanwhile, the Government appear to be doing their best to close down the debate that they have opened. The hasty publication of this brief White Paper in mid-December compounded earlier rumours that a much longer and much more detailed White Paper would be published in the new year, which suggests a degree of confusion in the Government. The paper argues that we need to take crucial decisions now because a lead-in time of 17 years or more is needed before the successor system comes into service, and because the Trident system will cease to be fit for service 25 years after its introduction. In his opening speech, the Minister appeared to be retreating a little. He said only that some decisions had to be taken now. We do not accept either of those assumptions. We accept that it is prudent in the current uncertain circumstances to invest in preparatory studies for a successor system. But the crucial decisions on this weapon system, as on others taken through the research and development stages, will come when keels have to be laid and major costs incurred, which the Government claim will be in five to seven years’ time. We argue that, with life extension of the current submarine system, it can be much later. My noble friend Lord Garden, whose career has included direct engagement in the UK’s deterrent force and, later, responsibility for defence strategic planning, will expand on how and why the Trident system was planned for a longer operational life and is likely to remain operationally effective for considerably longer than the Government now suggest. My noble friend Lady Williams will say more about the important non-proliferation and arms control dimensions of decisions to maintain, reduce and, at some point, decide whether to renew. We have to ask, therefore, why the Prime Minister is determined to press for this artificial decision, with an artificial timescale, now. Indeed, in a later chapter, the White Paper says only that, "““we plan shortly to commence detailed concept work””," with the intention of placing a, "““contract for their detailed design by around 2012 to 2014””," when more accurate cost estimates will be available. The major commitments on spending are still on the other side of two general elections from now. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister wants to make this part of his legacy, to commit his party to a major, long-term programme before he leaves office. The way in which the initial call for debate was made suggested to some of us that Blair and Brown wanted to flush out old Labour opponents of the new Labour legacy, perhaps to provoke a contest for the succession in which they might be roundly defeated, seeking to use the nuclear issue to mark a symbolic divide within the Labour Party, in much the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Owen, sought to use the deterrent to divide Social Democrats from Liberals some 20 years ago. Then there was the question of the needs of BAE Systems, a company much favoured by Mr Blair’s Government, with its specialists pleading that commitments are needed now to maintain specialist submarine-building skills in Britain by maintaining a long-term order book in Barrow-in-Furness. We insist that there is enough time for an informed public debate, and it is not necessary—at least it is not possible—to reach an irrevocable decision now, before our current Prime Minister leaves office. It is also desirable to promote the widest possible consensus across the parties on such a major investment, linked to the long-term security of the United Kingdom. Yet, this debate has started at the wrong end, with the weapons system, not with the foreign policy objectives it is intended to serve or the potential threats from which it may protect us. Fifty years ago, when in the wake of the Suez debacle and the forced retreat from empire, the crucial decisions were taken to commit Britain to maintain its own nuclear deterrent, even at the cost of strategic dependence on the United States, the strongest argument advanced was one of status. Britain’s Conservative Government were determined to maintain our claim as a major world power, in spite of increasing difficulties in affording a weapons system that justified that claim. Harold Wilson’s Labour Government from 1964 accepted that world-power status remained essential for Britain. Apart from the nuclear deterrent, you will recall how he clung to the post-imperial dream of maintaining British forces east of Suez, until an exchange rate crisis forced withdrawal. One of his defence Ministers, Christopher Mayhew, had by then resigned and joined the Liberals in protest at that absurd and wasteful obsession with global power and international status. Without exception, all the experts who gave evidence to the Liberal Democrat working group dismissed the argument that Britain needs to maintain a nuclear deterrent in order to remain a great power with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Sir Michael Quinlan was explicit in dismissing this argument in his International Affairs article last year. In the Prime Minister’s Plymouth speech, 10 days ago, there were disturbing echoes of a foreign policy based on ““walking tall”” and ““punching above our weight””. I hope that we can all agree here that British defence spending should in no way be based on status or on weapons systems procured as a badge of status; British defence should serve the objectives of British foreign policy. This Government lack a coherent foreign policy, however. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, persuasively argued in the debate on the Queen’s Speech that new Labour’s foreign policy had collapsed in the aftermath of the Iraq adventure. The Prime Minister has tested the US/UK special relationship to destruction, demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that dependence on Washington does not bring additional influence in Washington. The Government’s determination to take Britain ““to the heart of Europe”” faltered as they preferred to cultivate the Murdoch press, leaving them without political credit at home or abroad for the modest achievements we have made in European co-operation. The first question in considering how vital procurement of a successor deterrent system is for Britain is whether we see this country’s long-term foreign policy as bound up with the projection of American power, as part of a multilateral European approach to global order, as standing alone in splendid isolation, or, like Switzerland, in non-combatant neutrality. I take it that no serious politician outside the ranks of the UK Independence Party foresees Britain’s future as one of splendid isolation. The question is whether our security, foreign policy and defence contribution will be made more within the transatlantic framework or the European one. The Prime Minister’s Plymouth speech committed Britain to maintaining a close and necessarily dependent relationship with the United States. If Britain is to remain the loyal supporter of US policy wherever that may take us, most of all in managing the intricate politics of the Middle East and the Muslim world, it is arguable that we do not need our own deterrent. American nuclear weapons are capable enough to protect us. I suspect that for some the argument for renewal rests on the fear that the American umbrella may not be sufficiently reliable, however loyally we follow its lead, and that Britain, far closer to the Middle East than the continental United States, is an easier target for a radical anti-western state. For American neo-conservatives and their Europhobe British supporters, Britain is ““Airstrip One”” of the American empire, facing a continent sliding into becoming ““Eurabia”” as it succumbs to the Muslim threat. I note that one of the leading proponents of the ““Eurabia”” thesis has been invited by Edward Leigh MP to speak shortly to an all-party group in the Palace of Westminster. In contrast, the Prime Minister’s Plymouth speech scarcely mentioned the European dimension to British foreign policy and defence in spite of the common approach that Britain, Germany and France have correctly taken towards Iran, in spite of our shared assumptions about the Middle East peace process, and in spite of the considerable contribution made by Britain towards European defence co-operation. It is common ground among many long-term defence planners that we can afford to maintain the capacity to project conventional forces beyond our region only through closer integration with our European neighbours. There is a contradiction between repeated admissions that Britain is unlikely ever again to be engaged in serious military operations without close co-operation with European or north American partners and continued silence on how an independent British nuclear deterrent fits in to such a pattern of ever closer collaboration. There is also a contradiction between this growing co-operation with neighbouring states of similar weight and size and continuing dependence on the United States for the supply and maintenance of crucial components of our nuclear weapons system. One of the issues we need to explore in the public debate which the Prime Minister has now launched and is now trying to pre-empt is how far long-term dependence on the United States for our deterrent system carries with it political dependence; that is to say, reluctance to disagree with American policy, even when it cuts across British interests, for fear of US pressure on nuclear resupply and intelligence co-operation. The risk of nuclear proliferation spreading from Israel and Iran across the Middle East now appears high. That justifies for the present the maintenance of a minimum nuclear deterrent as an insurance against a crisis in that region spilling across the Mediterranean to western Europe. Our party’s working group concluded that the cost of maintaining our current deterrent force was thus justifiable, that its operational life could be extended for a further five to 10 years at moderate cost, but that we could reduce both the number of boats and the number of warheads to three and 100 respectively, not only to contain costs but also to signal to other states that the British deterrent is a limited insurance against catastrophe, not a weapon for other purposes. Many noble Lords will have heard Richard Garwin of the US National Academy of Engineering on yesterday’s Radio 4 ““Today”” programme arguing on his way to give evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee that the life of the Vanguard submarines could be extended by 15 years or more without major additional expenditure. Two questions remain for the extended public debate on which politicians of all parties should be embarking. First, what are the likely threats against which we need to insure; and secondly, how high will the insurance premium be, how large will be the cost of replacement and what are the opportunity costs of investing in nuclear weapons rather than conventional systems? A moment’s reflection makes it clear that North Korean nuclear weapons, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, suggested, are unlikely to threaten Britain or western Europe, or that a British deterrent would add anything to Chinese, American or Russian systems in containing that rogue regime. But we all recognise the potential threats from oil-rich but stability-poor states across west Asia. It must be the highest priority of British foreign policy over the next five to 10 years, before crucial spending commitments have to be made on building a replacement deterrent system, to work with like-minded states to bring greater stability to the Middle East and thus avoid disorder from that region spilling over across Europe. The most depressing part of the Prime Minister’s Plymouth speech was his complete espousal of the American neo-conservative interpretation of the nature of the conflict and his insistence that we are engaged in a long war with a coherent enemy rather than struggling with a disordered region built on weak states and a younger generation in revolt against American hegemony. Several of the experts who advised the Liberal Democrat working group spoke of an insurance premium as the correct analogy for a replacement nuclear deterrent. The calculation to be made involves a careful balance between the severity of the threat and the steepness of the cost. Procurement of three boats will moderate the cost to some extent; but, unless in the years that we gain through extending the life of the current Trident system, some alternative delivery system becomes available, the costs of replacement will threaten to squeeze conventional weapons systems out of the defence budget. The Prime Minister’s answer in his Plymouth speech was simple: we must commit ourselves to a long-term increase, a further increase, in Britain’s defence spending. But he will no longer be in office to make the case for the higher taxation or lower civil spending that such a commitment implies. The opportunity costs of Trident replacement may thus be severe and will be justified only by the severity of the then threat to Britain. The advice that we received was that a moderate insurance premium was justifiable but that a steep premium against an unlikely ultimate risk, at the expense of other British contributions to global stability, was difficult to justify. So let us open a wider debate on Britain’s foreign policy and on the place of nuclear deterrence in that foreign policy. Let us not shut down discussion by appeals to Britain’s post-imperial status or to our allegedly unique diplomatic wisdom and responsibilities. Britain does not stand alone as we face an insecure and unstable world. We need to discuss which partners we should work most closely with to meet which potential threats and what mix of deterrence and diplomacy will prove most useful in shaping our shared approach. The commitment to procure such a major weapons system should be taken only after such a debate.