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Trident

The trivialisation of the UK’s nuclear deterrent

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By Christy Quinn:

Nuclear Submarine HMS Vanguard Returns to HMNB Clyde, Scotland
Nuclear Submarine HMS Vanguard Returns to HMNB Clyde, Scotland. Photo: MoD, Tam McDonald (CC 2.0)

There is no more serious and pressing question in UK defence policy than the role of the nuclear deterrent. One thermonuclear warhead found in the D5 trident missile has an effective explosive yield up to 100 kilotons of TNT; over 5 times the power of the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. Each D5 missile can carry up to 5 warheads. Each of the four British Vanguard-class submarines carries an estimated 8 missiles at any one time. The destructive power that the UK wields globally on a daily basis is hard to comprehend. What circumstances would allow for the use of such terrible and indiscriminate destruction are equally hard to imagine.

The cost of upkeep is vast and growing. The cost of replacing the four ageing submarines when their service life expires was estimated by the UK Government in 2011 at £25 billion. For comparison, the total UK defence budget in 2016 is £43.1 billion. A report by the Royal United Services Institute have estimated that renewing the UK deterrent will consume up to 35% of the Defence procurement budget by the early 2020s. At the same time, UK defence spending as a share of national income is falling, with the UK likely to miss its 2% of GNI spending commitment as part of NATO by the beginning of the next parliament.

Clearly then, the decision over the future of the nuclear deterrent is one that policymakers across the armed forces, civil service and all political parties have had to grapple with in a serious and thoughtful manner. This makes the recent intervention by the current Secretary of State for Defence and Conservative Party candidate for Sevenoaks, Michael Fallon, difficult to understand.

In an op-ed for Wednesday’s edition of The Times, Fallon suggested that if the Leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, were to be made Prime Minister following the election on 7 May, he would “barter away our nuclear deterrent” in return for the support of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in government, who oppose the renewal of Trident. As Ed Miliband ran against his brother, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, for the Labour Leadership in 2010, electing Labour as the largest party in the House of Commons would mean that Ed Miliband would be willing to “betray” the UK’s national defence just as he had “stabbed his own brother in the back”.

Ed Miliband has already stated in several recent interviews that he would not negotiate with the SNP over the renewal of the deterrent. But to dismiss these comments as mere electioneering would be to dismiss the serious damage being done to the discussion over defence policy. If suggestion of being able to merely consider whether to maintain the nuclear deterrent in its current form is “betraying” the defence of the realm, then there are many more traitors than Miliband.

Many senior and retired staff in the armed forces have advocated, both publicly and privately, that the running costs and renewal program for Trident is degrading the defence capacity of the UK by draining funds for conventional military spending. There are also serious questions over whether a nuclear deterrent is currently serving the strategic basis on which its existence is justified; deterring aggression from a hostile state. Rory Stewart, Chair of the Commons Select Committee on Defence and a supporter of Trident renewal, has made the point that if the UK is unwilling to meet its commitments of 2% defence spending to NATO, then the deterring ability of Trident will be fatally undermined by demonstrating that Britain is not committed to the collective defence of other treaty members.

Taking the position that agreeing to any discussion of the purpose and utility of the nuclear deterrent is a “stab in the back” will make it harder, not easier, to form a coherent and effective policy of national defence. There is a valuable debate to be had about what place the nuclear deterrent has in a chaotic and unpredictable global security environment. The Secretary of Defence should know better than to trivialise it.

Christy Quinn studied International History at the London School of Economics & Political Science and is currently reading for an MA in Intelligence & International Security at Kings College London. His research interests are cyber security, national security strategy and the Asia-Pacific region. He is a Guest Editor at Strife. Follow him @ChristyQuinn. 

Is Trident relevant?

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By Christy Quinn:

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The Trident Commission, comprised of representatives of the three major parties and members of the UK defence establishment and organised by the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), represents the latest attempt to evaluate the necessity of the UK nuclear deterrent and its renewal.[i] Unfortunately, it has simply ended up restating many of the existing contradictions of UK nuclear strategy.

Historically the UK government has justified maintaining its own nuclear arsenal as the necessary price of remaining a world power in an era dominated by the United States. Thankfully the Commission has recognised the declining role of nuclear power in international diplomacy and looked primarily at how Trident contributes to the UK’s national security. It has ended up focusing its requirement for retaining a UK nuclear deterrent around the hypothetical “nuclear blackmail”scenario, where an aggressive nuclear-armed state threatens nuclear attack unless its needs or objectives are met. However, the Commision provides very little evidence about the likelihood of such a scenario and when policymakers in unfriendly countries would consider it in their interests. Indeed, it is highly likely that such behavior would be counterproductive in turning such states into ‘pariahs’, resulting in diplomatic and economic isolation.[ii] The primary example of brinkmanship resembling nuclear blackmail in recent years has been North Korea, which has periodically raised tensions with the US and South Korea in order to extract economic concessions. However, the report rightly notes the isolation of the UK from the South Asian strategic theatre and its small role in the conflict, to the extent that the UK’s nuclear deterrent is not relevant.

Special attention in the report was given to Russia, where Russian involvement in the Ukrainian conflict and the perceived threat to the Baltic states have forced a reassessment of the likelihood of Russian aggression against NATO member states. If Russia were to blackmail the UK to comply with its political objectives under threat of nuclear attack, it would have to assume that it faces no risk of nuclear retaliation. Russia would also have to assume that the US has also disarmed. There is frankly no possibility of the US completely disarming and withdrawing the nuclear umbrella over its NATO allies while there are any potentially unfriendly nuclear states still in existence. France conceivably may also have a problem with its EU partner, NATO ally and close neighbour being threatened with nuclear annihilation. In this reading, the United States’s nuclear deterrent and its willingness to protect its allies is the only one necessary to prevent nuclear blackmail. If Russia threatened to attack UK territory or bases with nuclear weapon, the US would be expected to honour Article 5 and defend Britain with any means necessary.[iii] Would the US stand idly by if London, a global trading centre and a key base of Western geopolitical power, suddenly disappeared under a rain of thermonuclear missiles? It’s a very hard scenario to imagine outside of a Hollywood thriller.

Furthermore, the report also confirms that the UK nuclear deterrent is entirely dependent upon US support and cooperation. Whilst the operational decisions for Trident are made by the Prime Minister, the UK only possesses Trident with the explicit support and technical cooperation of the US. If the US did withdraw its support for maintaining the UK nuclear deterrent, it would take “months rather than years” for their operational ability to expire due to shared maintenance agreements for the missiles and warheads.[iv] Many key components for the missiles are manufactured exclusively in the US. Even in the event of a renewed deterrent that featured an entirely new warhead and vehicle design, the prohibitive cost of starting from scratch would force the MoD to depend at least partially on US designs compatible with UK submarine designs.

Another major problem facing Trident is its lack of deterrent against the most likely form of nuclear attack; where a terrorist group, either with or without the help of an unfriendly state, detonates a mobile, low-yield nuclear weapon in a populated area. One of the most discussed scenarios in security circles is political instability in Pakistan leading to the country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands.[v] If the terrorist group were evidenced to have obtained its warhead from Pakistan’s military or intelligence units, what would constitute proportionate response? Does Mutually Assured Destruction apply to state-sponsored terrorism? Do the residents of Islamabad warrant nuclear retaliation due to the actions of their government, or rogue actors within it? If there was no evidence of state sponsorship and the attack was entirely conducted by non-state actors, who or where warrants retaliation? Trident answers none of these questions. It is a strategic relic from another age that the UK’s defence establishment cannot face up to losing, despite its diminishing value in the 21st century.

 

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Christy Quinn is an incoming student for the MA in Intelligence & International Security at the War Studies Department of Kings College London and is a graduate of International History at the London School of Economics. His primary research interests include cyber security, diplomacy & strategy, economic history and the SE Asia and MENA regions. You can follow Christy on Twitter @christyquinn

 

Bibliography

UK Cabinet Office. “Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR)”, HM Government, 2010.
T.C. “Accounting and the Bomb”, The Economist, 30 July 2010.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2010/07/britains_nuclear_weapons

NOTES

[i] BASIC, “The Trident Commission: Concluding Report”, British American Security Information Council (BASIC), 2014.
[ii] Sechser, Todd S. and Fuhrmann, Matthew, Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail (2012). International Organization, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2135028
[iii] North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), “What is Article 5?”NATO. http://www.nato.int/terrorism/five.htm
[iv] Taylor, Richard N. “UK’s nuclear deterrent entirely dependent on the US –cross party report”, The Guardian, 1 July 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/defence and-security-blog/2014/jul/01/trident-nuclear-weapons-uk
[v]“What US could do if Pakistan loses control over nukes”, Global Security Newswire, http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/what-us-could-do-if-pakistan-loses-control-over-nukes/