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Nuclear Disarmament

My Lords, having lived for much of my professional life under and, indeed, intellectually fully accepted what I might even describe as the theology of Britain’s nuclear deterrent, with all its political overtones; commanded a division in the field in West Germany at the height of the Cold War, the tactical performance of which depended to a great extent on the back-up and background threat of NATO’s nuclear weapons; been Chief of the Defence Staff when our own nuclear deterrent was, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, capable of a 15-minute response; and shared with many others a comforting feeling that the balance of nuclear terror was indeed contributing to stability and the absence of aggression in Europe, I feel that I may be more qualified to offer some views on my noble friend Lord Hannay’s timely Motion than some who may be excessively influenced by political or emotional factors which, valid as they are to them and to others, must be somewhat extraneous to the core issue of an effective defence of this country against any realistic threat. The first point I feel I must put forward, not for the first time, is that if this country and our allies are really serious about wanting not only to curb nuclear proliferation but to bring about a nuclear-free world as soon as that is practical, and not just pay it lip service, it cannot be anything but the worst possible example if we, in our key international position, make firm plans and spend vast amounts of money that we cannot afford to give ourselves a continued national strategic deterrent capability for the next 50 years, based on an age-old but now fallacious argument—which others might, not unnaturally, feel encouraged to follow—that even in a manifestly changing world no self-respecting nation can afford to be without such a weapon if it is to be properly defended. I say this particularly because there are a number of alternative options to which we could subscribe that would make a positive contribution to the nuclear proliferation negotiations, instead of the extremely negative one. Having thought deeply since the end of the Cold War about possible future threat scenarios, however bizarre and including nuclear blackmail, in which our own nuclear deterrent, let alone its usage, might just have any relevance at all, I now take the view—very simplistically, and no doubt many will say over-simplistically—that we really no longer need an all-singing, all-dancing successor to Trident. This is for four simple reasons: it does not deter any threat likely to face us in the future; in a globalised world, it cannot really be used under any relevant circumstances; it is not independent in any useful sense, and we certainly cannot afford it. However, I do accept that if we were, as my noble friend pointed out in his masterly introduction, to make the logical conclusion from these perfectly valid points it is improbable that others would necessarily follow our example. But even if our Government were not, for political reasons, prepared to go the whole hog for fear that the country might—in a still dangerous world, with the possibility of nuclear weapons getting into the wrong hands—take fright and imagine that we were giving away something fundamental, while the French retained theirs, there is still much that we could do positively which could be looked at most carefully in the context of the long-awaited defence and security review. Particularly, we could delay as long as is humanly possible any firm decisions on replacing the existing Trident SSBN fleet to give us more flexibility in negotiations. That would be made easier by being prepared to accept a gradually reduced fleet of three, or even two, submarines with some theoretical loss of effectiveness over a period and far more reliance on intelligence. But do we really need round-the-clock alertness? That assumption should be seriously challenged. Putting Tomahawk cruise missiles on submarines with a nuclear and/or conventional capability to take out pinpoint targets, and improving utility and credibility without abandoning any uncertainty altogether, are other ways to make a significant and positive nuclear disarmament point. Those points have been made most strongly and effectively by my noble friends Lord Owen and Lord Ramsbotham. Nor should we despair of trying to come to some agreement with the French about a joint move to such disarmament; for once that unilateral straitjacket was removed or loosened I believe that the whole country would soon be in favour of stepping down the nuclear ladder—as a useful research paper recently described it—and of doing so comparatively quickly; and the whole country would be absolutely right.