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Trident

It is a great pleasure to follow my successor, the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), as Chair of the Defence Committee. I share his concerns and, despite my previous views, I long ago reached the conclusion that nuclear weapons are a disagreeable necessity. Some say that we should retain strong conventional weapons, but I tell them that conventional weapons can be even more destructive than many nuclear weapons, so I cannot see the morality in bombing the hell out of cities with vast numbers of conventional bombs. There is no morality in that argument. I am not an historian, but I am interested in history, and after the events of 1989 there was a naive belief that world peace was breaking out. That never happened. If we consider the past 400 or 500 years, we can see that major treaties that were meant to end warfare never did. Westphalia, Utrecht, Versailles and events after the second world war were followed not by the outbreak of peace, but by endless wars. One reaches the regrettable conclusion that if one takes the over-confident, liberal view—it is called that, but it does not have anything particular to do with the Liberal party, although I do not mean to be disparaging—[Hon. Members: ““Go on!””] No, I will not be disparaging. Liberal Members are looking very uncomfortable, having conceded the need for nuclear weapons in principle. I do not mean to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, but they have conceded the principle; now we are arguing not about the cost, but about the timing. The fact that they have conceded that principle is, in my view, a welcome step forward. We are living in a highly dangerous world. To throw one’s conscience at countries that do not share those liberal values is highly dangerous. I hate to be called a realist—although I have been called worse—but we have to accept the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. A single submarine sailing the channels and oceans will not be the deciding factor in a nuclear conflict—it is just one submarine on patrol—but whatever phraseology one uses, whether or not we like the concept of insurance, it is a price worth paying. As almost everyone who makes the deterrence argument has said, it is a bluff; we never want to use the weapon, but it can deter others from using their weapons against us. The question has been asked, how do we deter terrorists? It is not easy, but we should read French strategic thinking, because the French have thought deeply about the issue. They promise retribution to any state that arms terrorist organisations—not a full nuclear strike, but a response nasty enough to deter.