This may come as a shock to many but it is central to the debate going on today on whether or not the UK should commit to the next generation of the Trident nuclear missile system.
Thanks to an article by Dan Plesch in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday, we now know that Britain has no independent nuclear deterrent.
Our Vanguard submarines simply carry nuclear weapons made by America at the ‘British’ bomb factory at Aldermaston – privatised and sold to American companies managed by Lockheed Martin and using American explosive nuclear materials, machine tools and electronics.
There is a school of thought that argues that, regardless of where it comes from, our deterrent is independent so long as it is Britain that fires it.
We can forget abut that too.
As long ago as 1980, Air Vice-Marshal Stuart Menaul (described by Plesch as ‘one of the great hawks of the era’), wrote: ‘Britain no longer has an independent nuclear deterrent…strategic considerations as far as Britain is concerned are no longer relevant…it could only be used after authority for the use of nuclear weapons had been conveyed from the President of the United States to SACEUR [the US general at NATO]‘.
This means that we may not independently choose to fire the missile we buy from America, host and store at Faslane in Argyll.
We have to ask American permission to do so and the response to such a request goes first to an American military officer ad not to the British Prime Minister.
Plesch’s article cites first a Whitehall conference speech made back in 2005 by defence specialist, Dr Julian Lewis MP. He said: ‘Britain’s ability to continue with nuclear weapons without US support becomes very slim to the point of invisibility’.
He then moves bang up to date and most tellingly, revealing that in 2010, the American Admiral in charge of the US Trident programme, Stephen Johnson, said, in his annual report to Congress that the big score in ‘sustainment of our (the USA’s) sea-based deterrent’ was sending to sea after a refit, HMS Victorious – a British Vanguard-class submarine,
Admiral Johnson then went on to list the British Trident-carrying Vanguard submarines along with the American ones – as ‘Todays Force’. The sense – th fact – of ownership by the USA of the UK’s only nuclear weapon system is quite clear.
We are also in a position where the new Trident missiles are of a significantly different size to the existing ones, meaning that we cannot save cost by extending the service lifecycle of our four Vanguard-class submarines that carry it.
If we go for Trident II we will have to build new submarines to carry it because the new missiles will not fit in the launch tubes of th current Vanguards. The replacement submarine is already in design, held back by the fact that the Americans could not commit to a final size for the new missile.
Violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty forbids the direct or indirect sharing of missiles by those countries that have them. America and the UK have long been in open breach of that Treaty.
Because Britain is fearful of having this issue formally raised it turns a blinkered eye to China’s nuclear support for Pakistan and Russia’s and America’s for India.
The irony is that our own breach of the rules to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons is fostering that very proliferation elsewhere in the world because we are in no position to draw attention to it. We cannot throw the first stone.
The Mutual Defence Agreement
The contract under which we are in fee to America for a nuclear deterrent we cannot use independently is the Mutual Defence Agreement, renegotiated every ten years.
This was last done in 2004, under Tony Blair and shortly after we went into Iraq alongside the Americans. The suggestion is that the privilege of being allowed to continue to buy Trident was the price paid for our involvement in Iraq.
The Agreement is due for renegotiation again in 2014.
The coalition Government looks like it will delay any decision until after the next UK general election in 2015.
The argument for retaining Trident looks increasingly unsustainable.
- It is an outdated weapon with no part to play in today’s warfare.
- It is massively expensive and hard to justify against a background of the deep cuts to public sector spending we need to make to start to pay down our unprecedented debt levels and which will hit every individual in the country and the poorer particularly hard.
- It does not involve any development in British technology and it not in any way a ‘British’ weapon.
- We cannot fire it without indirect permission from America.
This is no deterrent.
Moreover, we see the warheads stored at the Ministry of Defence facility at Coulport in Argyll’s Rosneath peninsula, loaded to and unloaded form the Vanguard submarines based nearby at Faslane in Argyll, where a crane has just dropped a ramp onto HMS Astute, the first of the UK’s newest hunter-killer attack submarines.
Such an accident – whose probability is admittedly high – could as easily have seen a crane dropping a warhead during loading or unloading – in what is admitted to be a real risk at Faslane of a dangerous nuclear incident.
And for what? Jobs? The dead cannot work. And submarines – like the new Astute, do not have to carry nuclear missiles.
The Scottish Government’s plans for the non-nuclear continuation of Faslane as the UK;s submarine base have much to commend them.
The image above – of a Trident missile being fired from a British Vanguard-class submarine, is in the public domain.
Note: This link is also worth reading.
Absolutely right, the fabled ‘independent deterrent’ is no more independent than Ford UK is from Ford USA. However now that UK Plc is almost bankrupt the military delusions of grandeur & ‘big power status’ are a nonsense that we can no longer afford.
Yet another reason why Scotland needs to regain independence and the decision making powers to knock this folly on the head.
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Your not seriously saying that you have only just found out that the UK’s ‘ independent ‘ nuclear deterrent is not so independent.
My brother, an officer still in the army after 26 years service, told me many, many years ago that the independance of our nuclear weapons was just an illusion to maintain our status has some kind of world power. We are the U.S’s first line of defence and we cannot even launch them without U.S. say so.
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For Mark McCormack: We admit that, even with a committed and, we thought, well informed anti-nuclear stance, we had no idea that the UK actually has to ask permission from the USA to fire the missiles it has bought from them.
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It is an article of faith for the SNP, CND etc. that the UK’s nuclear deterrent is “useless” because it is not “independent” – “the Americans have the launch codes” and so on.
This would mean that every Prime Minister since Harold Macmillan, who negotiated the Nassau Agreement with Kennedy in 1962, has been lying. You might think, as I do, that this is a little far-fetched.
In fact there shouldn’t really be any room for debate on this topic any more (apart from the fact that SNP and CND adherents base their position entirely on emotion, and not facts) because some enterprising soul made an FOI request to the MOD back in 2005. The key passages of the response are:
“2. Does the government of the United States of America have any involvement in the use of nuclear weapons by the British government?
No. But in the event of the contemplated use of UK nuclear weapons for NATO purposes,
procedures exist to allow all NATO Allies, including the US, to express views on what was
being proposed. The final decision on whether or not to use nuclear weapons in such
circumstances, and if so how, would, however, be made by the nuclear power concerned.
3. Can the government of the USA prevent, veto or forbid the UK to use its own nuclear weapons?
No.
4. Does the British government have to tell the US government if it intends to use nuclear weapons?
No. But the US would be involved in any consultation process at NATO as described in the
answer to your second question.”
In 2006 the the Commons Defence Select Committee went into all this in more detail.
The key testimony was from (the now late) Sir Michael Quinlan, former Permanent Secretary at the MOD, and Commodore Tim Hare, former Director of Nuclear Policy at the MOD.
“80. It is important to distinguish between two different types of independence: independence of acquisition and independence of operation. We heard that independence of acquisition is what the French have opted for at a significantly higher cost to the defence budget. Independence of operation is an alternative concept of independence and it is this which the UK has opted for at a lower price.
81. Sir Michael Quinlan told us that the UK’s decision to choose independence of operation meant that “in the last resort, when the chips are down and we are scared, worried to the extreme, we can press the button and launch the missiles whether the Americans say so or not”.[67] He argued that the decision to fire is an independent, sovereign decision. The United States “can neither dictate that the [UK's] force be used if HMG does not so wish, nor [can it] apply any veto—legal or physical—if HMG were to decide upon [its] use”.[68]
82. Commodore Hare told us that “operationally the system is completely independent of the United States. Any decision to launch missiles is a sovereign decision taken by the UK and does not involve anybody else”. He told us that the United States does not have a “technical golden key” which can prevent the UK from using the system.[69]
83. The potential disadvantage of the UK decision to forego independence of acquisition is that “if, over a very long period, we became deeply estranged from the Americans and they decide to rat on their agreements, we would be in… great difficulty”.[70] Commodore Hare told us that such a risk was, in reality, “very low” and that, ultimately, “one must balance that risk against the enormous cost benefits that we have in procuring an American system to house in our submarines. That should not be underestimated”.[71]”
Now this is good as it really does cover all the issues (and you can also read the various witterings from Greenpeace, CND etc elsewhere in the report, and note that they do not actually disagree in anyway on the topic of operational independence).
The UK nuclear deterrent is entirely independent of the US in the operational sense – i.e. we can fire the thing if and when we like.
However, it is also “less independent” than the French one, since we do not own, and have not designed and built, our own missiles. Instead, we have title to 58 missiles at any one time out of the combined US/UK Trident missile pool, on a sort of leasehold basis. The missiles are maintained at the USN base at King’s Bay, Georgia. We have, however, designed, built and own our own submarines and warheads. And at any instant, 32 (i.e. two sub-loads) of missiles will be physically present on UK-owned submarines, plus an unknown number at Coulport.
This would only become relevant on a longer timescale. I.e., if we fell out entirely with the Septics, then over the course of a few years the UK deterrent would gradually become less usable as the Trident missile bodies became due for maintenance in the US. Eventually – after four-five years? – the UK deterrent would be unusable in its present form.
One can imagine various forms of emergency – and expensive – remedies. Crash-development of indigenous UK missiles. Purchase of French missiles and mating to the Trident subs. Conversion of ex-Trident warheads to air-droppable form. All technically possible.
The upside of this capability-sharing with the Yanks is that we’ve ended up with a deterrent which is much cheaper than the French one, and also much better – i.e. more throw-weight, longer-ranged, more warheads per missile, etc. The French are only acquiring a similar capability to Trident as they replace their M45 missiles with the M51 – which is only due to happen over the next decade.
Now I realise that some may not believe either of the above two sources as they both emanate from the UK government. You know, it’s the usual “It’s all lies!” response.
So it might also be beneficial to look at some media coverage of the issue, in particular the Radio 4 / Peter Hennessy documentary “The Human Button” broadcast in December 2008. This contained some very interesting, sensitive and even sensational material. It is notable, for example, that the UK regards ministers as being outside the military chain of command, and so PMs and Defence Secretaries cannot “order” nuclear strikes, only authorise them. It’s also interesting that, in the context of the Cold War threat from the Soviet Union, the UK had such a fatalistic view of things that we assumed that if deterrence failed, the PM and the cabinet would be gone. The decision to retaliate (or not) thus fell on the captains of the bomber subs at sea, hence the “Last Resort Letters” locked in their safes.
More pertinent to this topic, though, is the statement by Denis Healey (Defence Secretary in the late 60s) that he would not have authorised a British nuclear retaliation, even if the Soviet strike was already on its way in or, indeed, landed. By contrast, Jim Callaghan would have retaliated, although with a heavy heart.
The key thing is that neither of them say “Of course it wouldn’t have mattered because we’d have needed American permission anyway.” Clearly because that simply wasn’t the case.
Those interested in more are directed to the recent Peter Hennessy book “Cabinets and the Bomb”, which includes a vast amount of declassified PRO documents on the UK deterrent over the years. Again, no mention of any “US veto”. Various chunks of the book and a transcript of an associated discussion meeting – involving a bunch of former Defence Secretaries and MOD Perm Secs – are available here.
So, the only conclusion I can reach is that, whatever one thinks about the morality and/or cost-effectiveness of UK Trident, it really is “independent” in the sense that the UK government has the technical ability to fire the thing off as and when it likes.
That makes it an effective deterrent.
It is less “independent” than, say, the French one only in the sense that if we fell out with the US over missile maintenance then we would lose our deterrent capability over a timescale of a few years. That’s the price for getting a deterrent which is both cheaper and qualitatively better than the French one.
Given that it’s something we hope never to use – and indeed if we had to use it, it would have failed – that looks like the right choice to me.
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Has an SNP man who lives just down the water from Faslane I have never made the miskate of believing that our nuclear deterrent is unless. I believe it is far to dangerous and immoral.
While no one doubts that the UK government and our Armed Forces have the ‘ technical ability ‘ to push the button, the real qustion is ‘ Do they have permision from our American allies to act totally independently ?’ or has it seems from the Dan Plesch article…they would have to ask permision from the Americans before they could push that button and what would happen if they said No.
And has to one of the questions you pose above…Yes …all Governments lie and have done so since the begining of time, all for the greater good of course.
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Immoral, illegal and indefensible on any basis.
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