GLOBAL DIALOGUE
Volume 8 ● Number 1–2 ● Winter/Spring 2006—Nuclear Perils
Britain’s Trusty Trident? Neither Independent nor a Deterrent
Other countries that were subsequently to become declared nuclear-weapon states did not test until some time later: France’s first test came in 1960, and China’s in 1964. The question as to why Britain so vigorously pursued having its own atomic weapons is an interesting one, not least because it can help shed some light on why its government still wishes to maintain—and in the near future probably replace—Britain’s nuclear-weapon system. A National Status SymbolThe development of atomic physics during the 1930s was given extra impetus and urgency by the onset of war, and by the concern that German scientists might develop an atomic weapon. In Britain, the government established the Maud Committee to look into the viability of an atomic bomb. The committee found in 1941 that such a bomb was possible, and that it would take around two-and-a-half years to develop. The British government decided to go ahead with developing the bomb, and in early 1942, the US administration under Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to proceed along the same lines. In 1943, the Quebec Agreement established extensive US and British wartime co-operation on atomic matters, and by the end of 1944, almost all British scientists working on the bomb had transferred to the US Manhattan Project in Los Alamos.
The explicit decision to make independently a British bomb came in 1947, and it seems to have been taken primarily because of Britain’s sense of its role in the world. Britain was losing its empire and its great-power status, and it was thought that possession of atomic weapons could help it maintain its position at the top table of world politics. It became clear with the US Atomic Energy Act of 1946 that despite close US–British wartime collaboration over the bomb, the United States was not willing to share atomic knowledge with Britain, and so if Britain wished to have its own atomic bargaining chips then it had to produce them itself. This approach was perhaps most clearly summed up in 1957 by Aneurin Bevan, the Labour Party’s shadow foreign minister. Addressing Labour’s annual conference, he opposed a resolution which would have pledged a future Labour government not to test, manufacture or use nuclear weapons. Bevan asserted that if the resolution was passed, Britain “would go naked into the conference chamber”; Britain, he argued, had to retain its nuclear armoury in order to have any say in international negotiations. This attitude has remained prevalent in government—and to some extent among the British population—to the present day.
Britain’s first free-fall nuclear bomb, Blue Danube, went into service in November 1953, based on the device tested at Monte Bello. Production ceased in 1958 after the manufacture of around twenty bombs, which remained in service until 1962. Blue Danube was replaced by Red Beard, which was a lighter, more versatile tactical bomb. A variety of other bombs, including H-bombs, followed.
The “separate paths” approach taken by the United States and Britain to the manufacture and possession of nuclear weapons—an approach primarily driven by Washington—began to change in the late 1950s. Realising after the Suez crisis of October 1956 that it could not afford to go against Washington, Britain stepped up co-operation with the United States—a policy decision strengthened by the launch of the Soviet sputnik the next year. Following discussion between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1957, London in February 1958 signed an agreement with the United States to build fifteen missile bases in Britain—five each in East Anglia, Yorkshire and the Midlands. These were to house US nuclear-armed Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles, to be deployed as NATO weapons, with a range of fifteen hundred miles, capable of striking Soviet targets. Ballistic missiles were now seen as the delivery system of choice, preferable to manned aircraft.
Opinion polls showed that a majority of British public opinion opposed the creation of these nuclear bases on British soil. Opponents in Britain, and elsewhere in western Europe, argued not unreasonably that by hosting nuclear bases targeting the Soviet Union, the host countries would themselves become obvious targets for nuclear attack. Nevertheless, the bases were built, and in fact around 480 US nuclear weapons remain in western Europe today, located primarily in non-nuclear-weapon states. Some 110 are located at the Lakenheath airbase in East Anglia in Britain, 150 are stationed at three bases across Germany, 90 are in south-eastern Turkey, 90 in Italy, and 20 each in Belgium and the Netherlands.
While back in 1958 there was no legal obstacle to the deployment abroad of US nuclear weapons, since 1968, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has prohibited nuclear-weapon states from transferring “to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly” (Article I). Equally, the NPT bars non-nuclear-weapon states from locating other countries’ nukes on their own soil (Article II). So the arrangement situating US nuclear weapons in western Europe, enshrined through NATO, is doubly illegal. NATO, however, argues that it is not illegal, both because the NPT would not be binding during war, and because the nuclear sharing predates the treaty. The Mutual Defence AgreementBut the most significant event in 1958—which has had an even more profound impact, not just on Britain’s nuclear policy, but on its foreign policy more widely—was the signing of the US–British “Agreement for Co-operation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes”, generally known as the Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA). From this point onwards it really has been impossible to consider that Britain in any way has independent nuclear status.
Many believe that it is the MDA which underpins the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain on foreign and security issues. The British American Security Information Council (BASIC), a transatlantic non-governmental organisation (NGO) that examines global security issues, argues that the US government agreed to the MDA “on the understanding that Britain would continue to invest in nuclear weapons–related scientific research and development work as an ongoing contribution to the special relationship on defence collaboration—or risk having such access denied in the future”.1 The MDA, which was most recently renewed in 2004, is the most extensive nuclear-sharing agreement in existence. It allows co-operation on the design, testing and manufacture of nuclear weapons, on the development of defence plans, and on a range of other related matters. It permits the transfer of nuclear-warhead components, fissile material (plutonium and highly enriched uranium for making the bombs), missiles, submarine design specifications, and nuclear propulsion plants to power the submarines. In other words, it ensures that the three aspects of deployable nuclear weapons—warheads, delivery system and launch platform—are put together collaboratively by the United States and Britain.
What the MDA does not permit is the transfer of a complete nuclear warhead, hence Britain’s production of these—some would describe it as merely the assembly of US parts—at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston in southern England. It is argued that in this way the states involved avoid breaking Article I of the NPT. However, not all agree. A legal opinion sought by BASIC and other NGOs and activists concluded that “it is strongly arguable that the renewal of the Mutual Defence Agreement is in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”.2 Nevertheless, the British government renewed the MDA without parliamentary debate. Trident and Its PrecursorsIn 1960, Britain cancelled its Blue Streak ballistic missile programme, deciding instead to buy US missiles. In 1963, a sales agreement was signed for Britain’s purchase of US Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Although Britain retained a range of tactical nuclear weapons on ships and aircraft until the late 1990s, its primary nuclear capacity—Polaris, and its successors, the Chevaline upgrade and the Trident II, introduced from 1992 onwards—was US in origin and function.
The Polaris nuclear-weapon system consisted of four British-built submarines, each armed with sixteen US-built Polaris missiles mounted with British-built Chevaline warheads. The decision to replace the Polaris/Chevaline system with Trident was made, without any parliamentary discussion, in 1980, when the government announced that it was going to buy the US Trident C4 missile system as a replacement for Polaris (Polaris was set to reach the end of its life by the early 1990s, and if it was to be replaced a decision was due). As had been the case with Polaris, the Trident C4 missiles would be supplied by the United States, and the submarines and warheads would be British-made. This was to cost between £4.5 and £5 billion. However, in March 1982, the order was changed to the Trident D5 missile—a new system announced by Washington in October 1981 as part of the shift towards “counterforce” weapons, to give the United States nuclear-war-“winning” capabilities. Britain justified the move from the C4 order to the D5 by the need to retain “commonality” with the United States.
In fact, Trident was not merely a replacement for Polaris, it was actually a major expansion of Britain’s nuclear force, in contravention of Britain’s stated commitment to multilateral disarmament. Trident was particularly dangerous because it was not only a quantitative expansion of Britain’s nuclear force, but a qualitative one: it marked a change in the type of targets that Britain could attack. The Polaris system had three 200-kiloton warheads on each missile and had been modernised to have a number of dummy or decoy warheads on each missile as well. (This modernisation—the Chevaline programme—had actually been effected secretly during the 1970s, at a cost of £1 billion. Its implementation only emerged during a debate in parliament about nuclear weapons in January 1980.) But each Polaris missile could only be used against one target. The multiple warheads were designed to confuse anti-ballistic missile systems and would scatter over a specified area, perhaps ten miles apart—particularly suitable for targets such as cities. The major advance of Trident, however, is that the warheads are “multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles”, which can be independently aimed to achieve the destruction of a much greater range of targets and are accurate enough to destroy specific military sites such as missile silos and military command bunkers.
It is this system that Britain currently maintains. Trident consists of four British-built Vanguard-class nuclear-powered submarines, each carrying up to sixteen US Trident II D5 missiles. There are around three British-built nuclear warheads mounted on every missile, making about forty-eight warheads carried by each submarine. Each warhead can be aimed at a different target and each has eight times the explosive power of the bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945, which killed some 140,000 people.
Trident has not come cheaply. It appears that the original procurement costs for the existing system were around £12 billion, and that each year Trident costs the British people around £1.5 billion to run. The rebuilding of the dockyards at Plymouth to allow for the periodic refitting of the submarines that carry the nuclear weapons cost around £1 billion. Additional billions have recently been given to the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment for new buildings and facilities—widely assumed to be for the development of the planned replacement for Trident. Should Trident Be Replaced?Trident will reach the end of its service life in the 2020s. Given the length of time it would take to develop a replacement, a decision about whether or not Trident should be replaced is now due. Government sources have repeatedly said that a decision on this will be made during the current parliament, and there has already been much demand for a genuine and open debate from across the political spectrum. Considerable concern exists over the expenditures involved, because the full cost of developing a replacement, including missiles, submarines and base facilities, is estimated to be as much as £25 billion—the equivalent of building about one thousand new schools at today’s prices.
Britain’s defence secretary, John Reid, has recently bowed to this popular pressure and promised, in an interview in the Guardian newspaper, that an open debate will take place—in the country, the parliamentary Labour Party, and parliament—on the question of replacing Trident. This is to be welcomed, but anti-nuclear campaigners take the view that the terms of the debate must not be restricted to the case put forward by the defence secretary. Dr Reid is clearly committed to replacing Trident and argues that irrespective of current security concerns about international terrorism, Britain faces a long-term, more traditional type of nuclear threat and needs to plan accordingly. This approach appeals to a past view of nuclear weapons as a kind of security blanket that would supposedly never be used but that exists to “deter” attack. Reid is presumably playing on fears of either the re-emergence of Russia as a potential nuclear opponent, or the emergence as such an opponent of another nuclear-armed superpower, possibly China.
There are a number of fundamental problems with Dr Reid’s argument. First, if the possibility of being threatened anew by some nuclear state is a genuine concern for the British government, then rather than preparing for a future rerun of the edge-of-abyss nuclear nightmare of the Cold War period, surely it would do better to start working now towards nuclear disarmament? Britain should be playing a role in promoting disarmament, as required by the NPT, of which both Russia and China—as well as the United States, Britain and France—are signatories. Abolition of nuclear weapons is the only way to ensure that they are not used. Knowingly and willingly entering into a nuclear arms race that may last decades and that would entail a massive waste of resources—combined with the potential destruction of the planet—seems irresponsible in the extreme.
Second, Dr Reid seems to overlook completely the actual developments that are taking place with regard to new nuclear weapons. For some years now, both the United States and Britain have shifted towards nuclear first-use policies, even against non-nuclear-weapon states, and towards the development of tactical nuclear weapons designed for battlefield use. In its March 2005 Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, the United States strengthened this orientation, even talking of using nuclear weapons against conventional threats. Reid may invoke long-term threats and so-called deterrence, but it is widely believed that the British government plans to replace Trident with tactical nuclear weapons for actual use in wars. Taken together with Prime Minister Tony Blair’s readiness to legitimise pre-emptive war, as evidenced in his enthusiastic recruitment of Britain in the US-led invasion of Iraq, this is cause for great concern.
There is considerable rhetoric about the new nuclear threats which the world allegedly faces. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in September 2005, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, described Iran as threatening “the effectiveness of the global non-proliferation regime”. As is well known, there is no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons while exercising its right to develop civil nuclear power. What is evident to the vast majority of the international community is that the real nuclear threat comes from the United States, which sees nuclear weapons as part of a useable arsenal, even against non-nuclear foes. And Britain goes along with the US approach, while continuing to pay lip service to its NPT obligations.
Reid must not be allowed to get away with his disingenuous statements about “deterrence”, diverting attention from the real threats. He must not be allowed to shape the debate about Trident replacement on false premises.
There are very clear indications that the British government is out of step with public opinion on this matter. In an October 2005 Greenpeace/MORI poll on “British Attitudes to Nuclear Weapons”, it was discovered that a majority of the British public is opposed to replacing Trident. The poll found that when people were told that the full cost of Trident might be as much as £25 billion, a clear majority said no. In the past, support for unilateral nuclear disarmament has never passed 30 per cent. Looking at the findings as a whole, opposition to the use of nuclear weapons, whether in a first strike or in retaliation, is growing to unprecedented levels. When asked whether they would approve or disapprove of Britain using nuclear weapons in a war against a conventionally armed foe, only 9 per cent approved—and this in a country where the government has stated its readiness to use nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear-weapon states. Even in circumstances where a country had already used nuclear weapons against Britain, only 53 per cent approved of Britain using them in response. Public opinion has advanced in a non-nuclear direction in Britain, while government policy has not. British OptionsPeace activists and concerned legislators are currently pressing for a Green Paper in parliament—a written statement of the government’s proposed policy—to outline and debate all the different options on the future of Britain’s nuclear weapons. They are also urging that the final decision on the issue be taken by a vote in parliament, rather than behind closed doors as in previous years. Clearly, there is a range of possible options facing the government, including the following: (1) that Trident not be replaced with another nuclear-weapon system and that Britain act to fulfil its obligations to disarm under Article VI of the NPT; (2) that the lifespan of the Trident system be extended in the short term; and (3) that Trident be replaced with a system encompassing various new technologies, but one still likely to be based on nuclear-powered submarines. Several newspaper reports have suggested that the government has already secretly decided to replace Trident and that preparations may already have begun to procure new nuclear-weapons capabilities, even though the government denies this.
Peace activists believe that the first option—renunciation of nuclear weapons—is the only lawful and moral one. It is a path that has already been taken by other previously nuclear-armed states, including South Africa. It is also the one that is most likely to enable Britain to face the real security challenges of the twenty-first century. Today, however, this option may be the least likely to be adopted for a number of reasons, most importantly Britain’s current stance on nuclear weapons and its strong connection with the United States on nuclear and other defence issues, including Britain’s membership of NATO. Concerning the other two possibilities, the following observations can be made.
In the short term, the British government may delay making a decision on full replacement of Trident by funding a lifespan extension of the current system. This would then allow it, if necessary, to make a later decision on full replacement and to be involved in the designs and plans of the US Navy to replace its own Trident system by 2025. The United States is already taking steps in this direction by extending the hull life of its own Trident nuclear submarines and by putting a Trident II D5 “Service Life Extension Programme” into place. This programme aims to upgrade the Trident missile to a Trident II D5A by 2020.
But if the British government pursues full replacement now, there are a number of options from which it might choose. Regarding delivery platform and missiles, a more versatile, multi-role submarine, able to fire both nuclear-tipped long-range and conventionally armed Tomahawk missiles, might be procured as part of a Ministry of Defence project called the Maritime Future Underwater Capability, which is researching a future generation of nuclear-powered attack submarines.3 Another suggestion is that the new Astute-class nuclear-powered submarines being developed to replace Britain’s conventionally armed submarines might be adapted to provide nuclear-weapons capabilities.
As regards warheads, Britain could become involved in US research programmes looking at newer types of tactical nuclear weapons such as “mini-nukes”, warheads of less than five kilotons that are “tailored” and “enhanced” to allow improved targeting. Mini-nukes could be used on the battlefield—for example, against overground chemical and biological weapons facilities. “Bunker busters” are also a possibility. In July 2005, the US Senate approved funding of $4 million for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) or bunker buster research programme, and it was reported that new tests on four prototypes would be carried out later in the year. The bunker buster penetrates the earth to reach deeply buried targets such as nuclear bunkers and could be an upgrading of an existing US nuclear warhead, the B1. The bunker buster did receive a setback later in 2005 when it faced further opposition in Congress, and the proposal had to be dropped from the federal budget, but there is widespread concern that the Bush administration will find other means of funding this project. In America’s FootstepsUnderstanding the context in which these developments are taking place is key to being able to oppose them effectively, opposition which is absolutely vital given the current global instability caused by the British-backed US drive to war.
Perhaps the single document which most clearly shows the writing on the wall is the Bush administration’s “Nuclear Posture Review”, which was released to Congress in January 2002. It demonstrates an increasingly aggressive US nuclear-weapon stance that puts greater emphasis on the usability of nuclear weapons. The review established a so-called new triad of offensive strike systems (both nuclear and non-nuclear), reinforced the policy of nuclear first-use, and encompassed the development of new nuclear weapons.
In November 2003, the United States also overturned the Spratt–Furse prohibition, a law adopted in 1994 to ban research and development leading to the production of a low-yield nuclear weapon of less than five kilotons.
In March 2005, the Pentagon produced a draft “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations”, which speaks explicitly about integrating conventional and nuclear attack. The proposed new doctrine enshrines pre-emption in nuclear policy, lowers the threshold for nuclear use, approves the use of nuclear weapons against all forms of weapons of mass destruction, and sees a role for nuclear force even when the United States is threatened by conventional weapons. The text replaces “war” with “conflict” as a likely scenario for nuclear first-use, and sanctions the use of nuclear weapons against terrorists, or against states that “support their efforts”. The document asserts that no customary or conventional international law prohibits the use of nuclear weapons in war, and says that the United States will remain deliberately ambiguous about when it would use them.
Britain’s stance significantly reflects this more aggressive US posture. Principally, the Labour government dropped its adherence to a “no first-use” policy after it was elected in 1997. In 2002, Britain’s then–defence secretary Geoff Hoon made several statements indicating that nuclear weapons might actually be used not only in response to nuclear attacks, but pre-emptively against chemical and biological attacks, and against non-nuclear-weapon states.
Tony Blair’s government has also repeatedly asserted that Britain needs to maintain a nuclear system of deterrence. On 4 July 2005, John Reid told parliament that the Labour Party had “pledged no longer than two months ago in our manifesto … that we would retain the minimum nuclear deterrent, so that is our position.”
In April 2005, when questioned in a BBC interview about Trident replacement, Tony Blair responded, “Well, we’ve got to retain our nuclear deterrent, and we’ve had an independent nuclear deterrent for a long time … in principle I believe it’s important to retain our own independent deterrent”.
Of course, this commitment to a nuclear “deterrent” makes it highly likely that the Trident system will either be replaced or at least have its lifespan extended.
In addition, the government has reportedly made huge new investments in the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire, which produces and maintains Britain’s nuclear warheads. The money covers the recruitment of new scientists, the acquisition of various laboratories and equipment, and the construction of a massive new laser plant called Orion, which tests nuclear-warhead materials under conditions replicating a nuclear explosion. In July 2005, John Reid also announced that an additional £1 billion is to be invested in the Atomic Weapons Establishment over the next three years, purportedly to maintain the current system. But these investments may be intended to prepare the infrastructure to develop new nuclear weapons. The Atomic Weapons Establishment’s annual report for 2004/5 states, “We must also retain a capability to produce a successor weapon if the Government requires this in the future.”4 Complying with the NPTBut despite all these developments, the overwhelming weight of argument still comes down against replacing Trident—and this is certainly the case when international law and treaty obligations are taken into consideration. In December 2005, a legal opinion commissioned by the British NGO Peacerights advised that replacing Trident would contravene Britain’s obligations under Article VI of the NPT, which commits parties to the treaty to undertake “good-faith” negotiations on ending the nuclear arms race “at an early date”, and to negotiate “general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control”.5
In 1996, the International Court of Justice ruled that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law”.
In other words, a nuclear attack would be illegal, unless it could be carried out within the confines of humanitarian law, a situation many find impossible to envisage. We know very well from the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the effects of a nuclear attack are devastating to human life and the environment. Even mini-nukes or low-yield bombs can have at least one-third of the power of the Hiroshima bomb. A 2005 report by the US National Research Council warned that nuclear bunker busters could lead to more than a million civilian deaths if the target was in an urban area.6
The world today needs the reaffirmation of a global security framework, based not on the threat of terrible weapons of mass destruction but on international law, on compliance with and respect for treaties and UN resolutions, and on the peaceful prevention and resolution of conflicts. Peace activists and many concerned citizens in Britain believe that their country’s nuclear-weapon system is immoral and illegal. They recognise the futility of the notion of “deterrence”, the sheer disutility of nuclear weapons as a means of contributing to Britain’s security, and the increased risks presented to the international community by Britain’s pursuit of nuclear-weapons programmes. They will continue to urge the British government to comply with its obligations under Article VI of the NPT, to decommission the Trident programme, and to rule out any plans for future nuclear-weapon systems.
endnotes 1. BASIC/Oxford Research Group, “The US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement: Contributing to Vertical Proliferation?”, March 2005 [http://www.basicint.org/nuclear/NPT/2005rc/brief05.htm].
2. BASIC, the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, and Peacerights, “Mutual Defence Agreement and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”, joint advice by Rabinder Singh QC and Professor Christine Chinkin, Matrix Chambers, London, 20 July 2024 [http://www.basicint.org/nuclear/MDAlegal.htm].
3. See Tim Ripley, “Secret Plans for Trident Replacement”, Scotsman, 9 June 2004.
4. Atomic Weapons Establishment, “Annual Report 2004/5: Broadening our Horizons”, Aldermaston, UK, p. 2.
5. See Peacerights, “The Maintenance and Possible Replacement of the Trident Nuclear Missile System”, joint opinion by Rabinder Singh QC and Professor Christine Chinkin, Matrix Chambers, London, 19 December 2024 [http://www.peacerights.org/documents/legal_opinion_1205.doc].
6. US National Research Council, Effects of Nuclear Earth-Penetrator and Other Weapons (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005). |