Nuclear Non-Proliferation

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 John Deutch, ‘A Nuclear Posture For Today’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 84, no.1, January/February 2005, p. 51.

² For example, Jonathan Schell, ‘The Folly of Arms Control’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 79, no. 5, September/October 2000, p. 23.

³ Cm 6994, p. 8.

⁴ Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles, p. 683.

⁵ Michael Krepon, Cooperative Threat Reduction, Missile Defense, and the Nuclear Future (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 169.

⁶ Gray, The Second Nuclear Age, p. 98.

⁷ Kenyon and Simpson, Deterrence and the New Global Security Environment, p. 19.

⁸ HC 407, p. 28.

⁹ Gray, The Second Nuclear Age, p. 59.

¹⁰ For example, William Walker, Weapons of Mass Destruction and International Order, Adelphi Paper 370 (London: IISS–Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 6.

¹¹ MccGwire, ‘Comfort Blanket or Weapon of War’, p. 640.

¹² HC 986, Ev. 93.

¹³ Remarks at IISS–Oxford University conference on Challenging Deterrence Oxford, 14–16 December 2006.

¹⁴ George H. Questor, ‘The Unavoidable Importance of Nuclear Weapons’, in Baylis and O'Neill, p. 32.

¹⁵ Cm 3999, p. 5–9.

¹⁶ Cm 6994, p. 7.

¹⁷ MoD and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent, Fact Sheet 3.

¹⁸ Lewis, ‘Nuclear Disarmament Versus Peace in the 21st Century’, p. 53.

¹⁹ Quinlan, ‘Aspiration, Realism and Practical Policy’, p. 52.

²⁰ Malcolm Chalmers and William Walker, Uncharted Waters: The UK, Nuclear Weapons and the Scottish Question (Phantassie: The Tuckwell Press, 2001), pp. 86–7.

²¹ Cm 6994, p. 13.

²² Freedman, ‘Eliminators, Marginalists and Disarmament’, p. 59.

²³ Gray, The Second Nuclear Age, p. 106.

²⁴ Chalmers and Walker, Uncharted Waters, p. 86.

²⁵ Cm 6994, Annex A.

²⁶ Cm 6994, p. 30.

²⁷ Deutch, ‘A Nuclear Posture for Today’, p. 58.

²⁸ For good reviews of the PSI, see Joel Doolin, ‘The Proliferation Security Initiative: Cornerstone of a New International Norm’, Naval War College Review, vol. 59, no. 2, Spring 2006, and Mark J. Valencia, The Proliferation Security Initiative, AdelphiPaper376(London:Adelphi Paper 376 (London: IISS–Oxford University Press, 2005).

²⁹ Mark Fitzpatrick, ‘Weapons Watch’, The World Today, vol. 62, no. 2, February 2006, p. 11.

³⁰ Walker, WMD and International Order, p. 74.

³¹ HC 986, Ev. 62.

³² Atomic Weapons Establishment, AWE Annual Report 2004/5 (Aldermaston: AWE, 2005), p. 11.

³³ For a full examination of the Libyan case, see Bowen, Libya and Nuclear Proliferation: Stepping Back From the Brink, Adelphi Paper 380 (London: IISS–Taylor & Francis, 2006).

³⁴ Iran's WMD programmes are examined at length in IISS, Iran's Strategic Weapons Programmes: A Net Assessment (London: IISS, 2005).

³⁵ Wade L. Huntley, ‘Rebels Without a Cause: North Korea, Iran and the NPT’, International Affairs, vol. 82, no. 4, July 2006, p. 732.

³⁶ Scott D. Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, 2nd edn (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003), p. 3.

³⁷ Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles, p. 218.

³⁸ Gray, The Second Nuclear Age, p. 82; Fearey et al., ‘An Analysis of Reduced Collateral Damage Nuclear Weapons’, p. 321.

³⁹ HC 407, p. 39.

⁴⁰ Schell, ‘The Folly of Arms Control’, p. 41.

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.