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Defence in the World

The point about the reliance on the American nuclear deterrent is this: we cannot rely on an American nuclear deterrent to act as a cover for our conventional forces when they are engaged against a country that might or might not have a nuclear weapon. The example of the Falklands was given and we were told that the strategic nuclear deterrent did not deter General Galtieri. Of course it did not—democracies do not use nuclear weapons to deter conventional aggressors. However, that was the wrong the point. What should have been said was that if General Galtieri had had a nuclear weapon, however crude, would we then have dared to retake the islands conventionally, knowing that he could have unleashed that on us and we would not have been able to deter him? The nuclear deterrent has two functions, not only the one that the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton mentioned. It has the function of deterring strategic nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction attack against this country, and it has the function of ensuring that if our armed forces ever need to go into battle conventionally, they cannot be prevented from doing so by an opponent having even a crude mass destruction weapon. As for why we cannot solely rely on the American deterrent, it is quite simple: we are the principal ally of the United States and we go to war often alongside it, and there is a danger that an opponent might think that even though the Americans might well retaliate on our behalf to an attack with mass destruction weapons, the opponent might make the mistake of thinking that it would not and that it was easier to go after the smaller of the two allies. That mistake, with all its fatal consequences for all concerned, is done away with by our independent nuclear deterrent being under our independent control. Time is defeating me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I just say, in terms of what has been said about Iraq and Afghanistan, that in Iraq and Afghanistan there are doctrinal differences between our approach and that of our American allies. I believe that if we are the principal ally of the United States of America—the one country of a certain size, for there are other small countries, on which it knows it can rely—it needs to take our representations seriously, particularly in the field of counter-insurgency campaigning. I mean no insult to the record of the American armed forces when I say that Britain’s achievements in counter-insurgency campaigns in the past feature lessons that can usefully be learned by our allies, and that, along with some of my colleagues, I am not entirely sure that they are always prepared to listen and take those lessons on board.