Introduction

Abstract

In December 2003 the British government announced that within a few years it would need to take decisions about the future of Britain's strategic nuclear deterrent. Exactly three years later, its plans were revealed in a White Paper. The existing Trident system is to be given a life extension, which includes building new submarines to carry the missiles, costing £15–20 billion. Britain has a substantial nuclear legacy, having owned nuclear weapons for over half a century. The strategic context for the deterrent has changed completely with the end of the Cold War, but nuclear weapons retain much of their salience. This Adelphi Paper argues that it makes sense to remain a nuclear power in an uncertain and nuclear-armed world.

Given that deterrence needs are now less acute, but more complex than in the past, the paper asserts that deterrence also needs to be aligned with non-proliferation policies, which seek to reduce the scale of threats that need to be deterred. Somewhat overlooked in current policy are appropriate measures of defence, which can raise the nuclear threshold and, if required, mitigate the effects of deterrence failure. It concludes that the government's decisions about the future form of the deterrent are very sensible, but cautions that they still need to be integrated into a broader policy that embraces diplomacy, deterrence and defence to counter the risks posed by nuclear proliferation.

Notes

This paper was funded by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust.

¹ Nicholas Witney, ‘British Nuclear Policy after the Cold War’, Survival, vol. 36, no. 4, Winter 1994–95, p. 97.

² Statement on the Defence Estimates 1996, Cm 3223 (London: The Stationery Office (TSO), May 1996): http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/mod/defence/deffc.htm.

³ For example, The Sunday Times lead article, 7 January 2007: ‘Revealed: Israel Plans Nuclear Strike on Iran’, by Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter.

⁴ Bagehot, ‘A Ticking Bomb: The Future of Britain's Nuclear Deterrent’, The Economist, 16 March 2006, p. 34.

⁵ Strategic Defence Review, Cm 3999 (London: TSO, July 1998), p. 17: http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/65F3D7AC-4340-4119-93A2-20825848E50E/0/sdr1998_complete.pdf.

⁶ Cm 3999, Supporting Essays, p. 5–1.

⁷ HC 986 House of Commons Defence Committee Eighth Report of Session 2005–06, The Future of the UK's Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: The Strategic Context (London: TSO, 30 June 2006), p. 13: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmdfence/986/98602.htm.

⁸ Delivering Security in a Changing World: Defence White Paper, Cm 6041-I (London: TSO, December 2003), p. 9: http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/051AF365-0A97-4550-99C0-4D87D7C95DED/0/cm6041I_whitepaper2003.pdf.

⁹ HC 986, p. 6.

¹⁰ The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent, Cm 6994 (London: TSO, December 2006), p. 7: http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/AC00DD79-76D6-4FE3-91A1-6A56B03C092F/0/DefenceWhitePaper2006_Cm6994.pdf.

¹¹ The decision to acquire the Polaris submarine-launched system was taken in the early 1960s, and the decision to replace it with Trident was taken in the early 1980s.

¹² The main sites being on the Clyde in Scotland and at Barrow-in-Furness, Derby, Aldermaston and Devonport in England.

¹³ Cm 6994, p. 7.

¹⁴ Tim Hare, ‘Should the Decision on Trident Replacement be a Subject of Public and Parliamentary Debate?’ in Ken Booth and Frank Barnaby, eds, The Future of Britain's Nuclear Weapons: Experts Reframe the Debate (Oxford: Oxford Research Group, March 2006), p. 68.

¹⁵ Cm 6041-I, p. 9. This statement is reiterated in Cm 6994, p. 12.

¹⁶ Overall numbers fell from about 65,000 in 1986 to around 20,000 by 2002. Tod Lindberg, ‘Nuclear and Other Retaliation after Deterrence Fails’ in Henry D. Sokolski, ed., Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, its Origins and Practice (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), p. 332.

¹⁷ Colin S. Gray, The Second Nuclear Age (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999), p. 25; Cm 6994, p. 5.

¹⁸ Michael Quinlan, ‘The Future of Nuclear Weapons: Policy for Western Possessors’, International Affairs, vol. 69, no. 3, May 1993, p. 487.

¹⁹ Cm 6994, p. 10.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeremy Stocker

Jeremy Stocker is a consulting Research Fellow at the IISS and a freelance defence analyst. He served as a Seaman Officer in the Royal Navy for 20 years, specialising in air defence, before transferring to the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) in 1996. Commander Stocker has seen active service in the Persian Gulf and in Afghanistan. He is now responsible for staff training in the RNR, based part-time at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham. He has a BA from the University of Reading and a Masters and PhD from the University of Hull. His book Britain and Ballistic Missile Defence 1942–2002 was published in 2004 by Frank Cass. He is a regular conference speaker and contributes to academic and professional journals on both sides of the Atlantic.