Maintaining the ‘Moscow Criterion’: British Strategic Nuclear Targeting 1974–1979

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse British strategic nuclear targeting between 1974 and 1979, prior to the successful completion of the sophisticated modification to Polaris submarine-missile system codenamed Chevaline. It will use as its starting point the parameters for UK strategic nuclear targeting, and the foundation of the ‘Moscow Criterion’, prior to the deployment of Britain's Polaris submarines which began in 1968. It will then discuss the recommendation by the Chiefs of Staff to retarget Polaris in 1975/76 and the implications of that recommendation in terms of the British approach to strategic nuclear deterrence. The article will conclude with an assessment of these retargeting decisions on the decision to replace Polaris with the US Trident system in 1980.

Key Words:

• Chevaline
• Nuclear
• Targeting

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor John Baylis, Lord Owen, and Sir Michael Quinlan for helpful advice given during the preparation of this article. The author would also like to express gratitude to several senior officials who contributed on the strict condition they were not identified. Their contribution is referenced by ‘confidential correspondence’. Any errata, omissions or inaccuracies of fact or interpretation lie solely with the author.

Notes

¹Lawrence Freedman, ‘British Nuclear Targeting’, Defence Analysis 1/2 (1985), 81–99; Ian Clark and Nicholas Wheeler, The British Origins of Nuclear Strategy 1945–1955 (Oxford: OUP 1989), 210–29; Ian Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994); John Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence: British Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1995), 319–58.

²Sqn Ldr Roy Brocklebank, ‘Bomber Command 1960s’, presentation made at the UK Space Conference, Charterhouse, Surrey, UK, 28 March 2008.

³However neither SHAPE nor SACLANT (Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic) was privy to information concerning the patrol lanes of UK Polaris. Confidential correspondence, 19 Feb. 2008. SACLANT was always an American admiral with a British deputy.

⁴Like SACLANT, SACEUR was always an American officer with a European deputy (and usually British).

⁵Confidential correspondence, 19 Feb. 2008. For information on the origins and evolution of the SIOP see Desmond Ball ‘The Development of the SIOP’, in Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson (eds.), Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1986), 57–83 and William Burr, NSA Website, ‘The Creation of SIOP 62’, <www.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB130/index.htm> and ‘The Nixon Administration, the SIOP and the Search for Limited Nuclear Options, 1969–1974’, <www.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB173/index.htm>, accessed 25 July 2007.

⁶The distinction between a request and an order to use nuclear weapons were intimately bound up with the British constitution. Discussion of these issues, and the ‘two-man rule’, can be found in [Kew, United Kingdom, The National Archives] PREM [Records of the Prime Minister's Archive] 13/2571, DWH to Prime Minister Polaris – Command and Control of Firing Orders, 21 March 1967; PREM 13/2571, HW to Secretary of State for Defence, 10 April 1967; PREM 13/2571, John Burrough to A.N. Halls, 2 May 1968; PREM 13/2571, Note for the Record, 29 June 1968. See also Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (London: Penguin 2002), 171–93 and Stephen Twigge and Len Scott, Planning Armageddon: Britain, the United States and the Command of Western Nuclear Forces, 1945–1964 (Amsterdam: Harwood 2000), 12, 83–5, 88, 202, 210–12 and 321.

⁷This phrase originates under the Anglo-American Nassau Agreement of Dec. 1962 when agreement was reached to purchase Polaris.

⁸These two plans were encoded onto computer tapes on board Britain's four Polaris submarines as target packages (known by the Russian designation Teatre Voyenkh Destivii – TVD). There were hundreds of tapes with the choice being made in London which to take on patrol. While on patrol the submarine captain also had his own target list (e.g. in case of missile failure). Lawrence Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1980), xiii–xiv.

¹¹Private correspondence with Sir Michael Quinlan, 15 Aug. 2006.

⁹For background information see John Baylis, ‘British Nuclear Doctrine: The “Moscow Criterion” and the Polaris Improvement Programme’, Contemporary British History 19/1 (Spring 2005), 53–65.

¹⁰Deputy Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence, 1977–1981.

¹²This revision was driven by the recommendations of the British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group in 1961. Still, as Clark and Baylis show, even these figures need interpretation and the fine detail of the targeting arrangements in this period is still obscure. Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy, 382–94 and Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence, 304–12.

¹³[Kew, United Kingdom, The National Archives] DEFE [Records of the Ministry of Defence] 13/350, PS to S of S, The Case for 5 SSBNs, 19 Oct. 1964.

¹⁴Ibid. On JIGSAW studies see files within the class, DEFE 19/91 and Richard Moore, ‘A JIGSAW Puzzle for Operations Researchers: British Global War Studies, 1954–1962’, Journal of Strategic Studies 20/2 (June 1997), 75–91.

¹⁵Confidential correspondence, 7 April 2006. For the amount of damage required see Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence, 220–362.

¹⁶PREM 15/1360, ACO(W)600/2/630 Notes on a meeting held at Crystal City, Alexandria, VA at 1030hrs 28 Aug. 1973, 29 Aug. 1973.

¹⁷Geoffrey Kemp, ‘Nuclear Forces for Medium Powers: Part 1: Targets and Weapons Systems’, Adelphi Papers 106 (Autumn 1974) and Geoffrey Kemp, ‘Nuclear Forces for Medium Powers Parts II and III: Strategic Requirements and Options’, Adelphi Papers 107 (Autumn 1974). Slightly less detailed discussion can also be found in the earlier work by Andrew Pierre, Nuclear Politics: The British Experience with an Independent Strategic Force 1939–70 (Oxford: OUP 1972), 294–6 and 305–11.

¹⁸Ian Smart, ‘British Foreign Policy to 1985: The Future of the British Nuclear Deterrent: Technical, Economic and Strategic Issues’, International Affairs 53/4 (Oct. 1977), 557–71.

¹⁹Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 47, 54, 60. In 1986 Freedman followed this up with two other (almost identical) analyses of British nuclear targeting. Lawrence Freedman, ‘British Nuclear Targeting’, 81–99 and Lawrence Freedman, ‘British Strategic Nuclear Targeting’, in Ball and Richelson, Strategic Nuclear Targeting, 109–26.

²⁰The Trident decision also prompted the release of more official government information on the targeting requirements of the UK deterrent in the form of Defence Open Government Document 80/23 (London: HMSO 1980).

²¹Freedman, ‘British Nuclear Targeting’, 81–99.

²²Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1989), 283–330.

²³John Baylis and Kristan Stoddart, ‘Chevaline: The Hidden Programme, 1967–1982’, Journal of Strategic Studies 26/3 (Dec. 2003), 124–55 and Baylis, ‘The “Moscow Criterion”’, 53–65.

²⁴Kristan Stoddart, The Sword and the Shield: Nuclear Weapons and International Security since 1945, Volume 4, 1970–1976 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, forthcoming), Ch.1.

²⁵Frank Panton, ‘Polaris Improvements and the Chevaline System 1967–1975/6’, Prospero Proceedings from the British Rocket Oral History Conferences at Charterhouse 1 (Spring 2004), 114.

²⁶ Ministry of Defence: Chevaline Improvement to the Polaris Missile System, Ninth Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, Session 1981–82, HC 269 (London: HMSO 1982), vi and 1 and confidential correspondence, Oct. 2002.

²⁷DEFE 13/1039, Polaris Improvements, 26 Sept. 1975.

²⁸Labour Party Manifesto, <www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/man/lab74oct.htm>,  accessed 9 May 2008.

²⁹DEFE 13/1039, M.C. to S of S, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 10 Nov. 1975.

³⁰DEFE 13/1039, M.C. to S of S, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 10 Nov. 1975. Four new Soviet ‘Pillbox’ ABM radars now faced all directions. The north-west radar detected and tracked the targets so that the battle management systems could decide which to intercept and when to launch their ABMs. The radar facing the south-west ran the interceptions. Against threats emanating from outside the ‘Dog House’ and ‘Cat House’ radars these roles were switched. Confidential correspondence, 6 April 2006.

³¹The project produced annual estimates of the effectiveness of Polaris (and later Chevaline) using a constantly revised database derived from intelligence through the Soviet ABM Intelligence Committee (SABMIC) and interpreted for modelling purposes by the Soviet ABM Assessment Committee (SABMAC). There was also a committee that involved the Royal Navy and the establishments which ran on throughout the lifetime of Polaris and considered all aspects of the use of the weapons and their targeting. Confidential correspondence, 6 April 2006.

³²DEFE 13/1039, M.C. to S of S, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 10 Nov. 1975.

³³Patrolling in the Mediterranean was not an easy option due to the distances involved with the low optimum speed of the SSBNs a significant operational impediment. Confidential correspondence, 14 May 2008.

³⁴Ibid.

³⁵For targeting arrangements prior to 1975 see Baylis, ‘British Nuclear Doctrine’, 53–65.

³⁶DEFE 13/1039, M.C. to S of S, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 10 Nov. 1975.

³⁷Ibid. This was the reason why the in-service date for Chevaline had originally been 1978. PREM 15/1359, MO 18/1/1 Appendix 1 to Annex B Future Super Antelope Background, 11 April 1972.

³⁸For the 1972 assessment for nuclear deterrence see DEFE 5/192/45, The Rationale for the United Kingdom Strategic Deterrent Force, 25 April 1972.

³⁹DEFE 13/1039, M.C. to S of S, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 10 Nov. 1975.

⁴⁰It has been suggested these views ignore the fact that the defence would degrade to selective defence of their key assets. Confidential correspondence, 6 April 2006.

⁴¹DEFE 13/1039, M.C. to S of S, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 10 Nov. 1975. Somewhat contrasting views of British nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are presented in his autobiography. Michael Carver, Out of Step: The Memories of Field Marshal Lord Carver (London: Hutchinson 1989), 536–57.

⁴²DEFE 13/1039, M.C. to S of S, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 10 Nov. 1975.

⁴³DEFE 13/1039, J.F. Mayne to Secretary of State, 18 Nov. 1975.

⁴⁴Denis Healey regarded it ‘as one of my mistakes as Chancellor not to get Chevaline cancelled’. Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (London: Penguin 1990), 313.

⁴⁵DEFE 13/1039, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 27 Nov. 1975.

⁴⁶The Ministerial Committee on Nuclear Policy was formed in Sept. 1966 as an executive inner-Cabinet committee made up of between four and five senior ministers including the Prime Minister. This permanent committee was intended to be the locus for ‘High Policy’ and was the most influential of all the various bodies associated with British nuclear weapons policy. On its formation see CAB[inet Office Records] 134/3120, PN(66)1, 30 Sept. 1966. For the meaning of ‘High Policy’ see David Alan Rosenberg, ‘The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945–1960’, International Security 7/1 (Spring 1983), 3–71.

⁴⁷DEFE 13/1039, J.F. Mayne to Secretary of State, 18 Nov. 1975.

⁴⁸Ibid.

⁴⁹DEFE 13/1039, Prime Minister Polaris Improvements, 18 Sept. 1975.

⁵⁰DEFE 13/1039, J.F. Mayne to Secretary of State, 18 Nov. 1975.

⁵¹Ibid.

⁵²DEFE 13/1039, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 27 Nov. 1975.

⁵⁴DEFE 13/1039, M.C. to Secretary of State, 31 March 1976.

⁵³The Chekhov radar (known in the West as the Cat House) was declared operational on 29 Oct. 1976. Pavel Podvig, ‘History and the Current Status of the Russian Early Warning System', Science and Global Security 10/1 (2002), 27–9. Podvig's work also reveals that British intelligence assessments of Soviet ABM developments were accurate.

⁵⁵He was also waiting for a major report on the progress and costs of Chevaline to be issued. DEFE 13/1039, J.F. Mayne to Secretary of State, 1 April 1976.

⁵⁶Present at the meeting were Roy Mason (Secretary of State for Defence), Bill Rodgers (Minister of State for Defence), Sir Michael Carver (CDS), Sir Frank Cooper (Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the MOD), Professor Hermann Bondi (Chief Scientific Advisor in the MoD), E.C. Cornford (Procurement Executive), Sir Edward Ashmore (Chief of the Naval Staff), A. P. Hockaday (Deputy Under-Secretary of State, Policy), Victor Macklen (Chief Adviser, Projects and Nuclear) and John Mayne (Private Secretary to Secretary of State for Defence). DEFE 13/1039, Record of a Meeting in the Defence Secretary's Office held on Thursday 27 May at 2.30pm, 1 June 1976.

⁵⁷Ibid.

⁵⁸Ibid.

⁵⁹Ibid.

⁶⁰DEFE 13/1039, R.M. to Prime Minister, 11 June 1976.

⁶¹Crosland was Foreign Secretary for a little over ten months. He died suddenly in Feb. 1977.

⁶²DEFE 13/1039, Record of a Meeting in the Defence Secretary's Office held on Thursday 27 May at 2.30pm, 1 June 1976. TNA, DEFE 13/1039, R.M. to Prime Minister, 11 June 1976. DEFE 13/1039, Frank Cooper to Secretary of State, 25 June 1976.

⁶³Transcript of ‘The Chevaline Experience and the First Trident Decision, 1967–1980’, Witness Seminar held at Charterhouse, Surrey, UK, 13 April 2007 conducted by the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, University of Southampton, UK.

⁶⁴Private correspondence with Lord Owen, March 2006. See also Chevaline Witness Seminar, Charterhouse, 13 April 2007.

⁶⁵DEFE 13/1039, Record of a Meeting in the Defence Secretary's Office held on Thursday 27 May at 2.30pm, 1 June 1976.

⁶⁶Ibid.

⁶⁷Ibid.

⁶⁸DEFE 24/895, F.W. Armstrong, Chevaline: Vote Arrangements, 7 June 1976.

⁶⁹Ninth Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, v, 15, 20.

⁷⁰This was the title of Hennessy's 2002 book.

⁷¹DEFE 24/895, Frank Cooper to DUS(FB), Nuclear Weapons Research, 8 Nov. 1976.

⁷²These were some of the findings of the Public Accounts Committee inquiry on Chevaline in 1982.

⁷³DEFE 24/895, AUS(OR) Chevaline – Effects of Vote Transfer, 6 July 1976.

⁷⁴Hansard, House of Commons Debates, <www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm198889/cmhansrd/1989-02-15/Debate-12.html#Debate-12_spnew28>, accessed 13 Sept. 2002.

⁷⁵DEFE 24/895, Polaris Improvements, 6 Aug. 1976.

⁷⁶DEFE 24/895, M. Gainsborough to CPE (Mr Hall), Polaris/Chevaline Costs, 14 Oct. 1976.

⁷⁷Ninth Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, v, 3.

⁷⁸Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 54

⁸⁰Hansard, House of Commons Debates, <www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm198889/cmhansrd/1989-02-15/Debate-12.html#Debate-12_spnew28>, accessed 13 Sept. 2002.

⁷⁹DEFE 25/335, J.F. Howe PS/PUS, Chevaline Costs, 22 June 1978.

⁸¹DEFE 25/335, Chevaline Progress Report, 7 July 1978.

⁸²DEFE 25/335, Chevaline Progress Report, January 1979 Report to Secretary of State, Jan. 1979.

⁸³Ibid.

⁸⁴S.C. Metcalf and R.L. Dommett, ‘An Introduction to Chevaline’, Proceedings from a conference on The History of the UK Strategic Deterrent: The Chevaline Programme, held at the Royal Aeronautical Society, London, 28 Oct. 2004.

⁸⁵DEFE 25/335, Chevaline Progress Report, January 1979 Report to Secretary of State, Jan. 1979.

⁸⁶DEFE 25/335, D.W.H. to Prime Minister, Chevaline, 26 Jan. 1979.

⁸⁷Healey, The Time of My Life, 456.

⁸⁸Ibid.

⁸⁹DEFE 25/335, David Owen to Prime Minister, Chevaline, 1 Feb. 1979.

⁹⁰DEFE 25/335, F.M. to Prime Minister, Chevaline, 9 Feb. 1979.

⁹¹Bill Jackson and Dwin Bramall, The Chiefs: The Story of the United Kingdom Chiefs of Staff (London: Brassey's 1992), 385–6.

⁹²DEFE 25/335, F.M. to Prime Minister, Chevaline, 9 Feb. 1979.

⁹³DEFE 25/335, Bryan Cartledge to Roger Facer, 6 Feb. 1979.

⁹⁴DEFE 13/1039, Record of a Meeting in the Defence Secretary's Office held on Thursday 27 May at 2.30pm, 1 June 1976.

⁹⁵This was a highly secret committee that even lacked a Gen number normally assigned to Labour government sub-committees.

⁹⁶DEFE 25/325, Terms of Reference for a Study of Factors Relating to Further Consideration of the Future of the United Kingdom Nuclear Deterrent, undated 1978.

⁹⁷James Callaghan, Time and Chance (London: Collins 1987), 553.

⁹⁸These were respectively, the Permanent Under-Secretaries at the FCO (Sir Michael Palliser), the MoD (Sir Frank Cooper) and Treasury (Sir Douglas Wass) all of whom were coordinated by Sir John Hunt (Secretary to the Cabinet) acting as Chair. For personal recollections of the Duff–Mason Report see also the edited transcript of the ‘Cabinets and the Bomb’ Workshop, held at the British Academy, 27 March 2007. Available from, <www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/review/perspectives/0703cabinetsandbomb-1.html>, accessed 10 May 2008.

⁹⁹Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 60.

¹⁰⁰For an insiders view see Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (Oxford: OUP 2007), 323–9.

¹⁰¹DEFE 25/335, M.E. Quinlan DUS(P) to PS to Secretary of State, Briefing New Ministers, 2 May 1979.

¹⁰²Jackson and Bramall, The Chiefs, 385.

¹⁰³In Oct. 2005 a request by the author to the Cabinet Office to declassify it was turned down on grounds of national security.

¹⁰⁴DEFE 25/335, The Future of the UK Nuclear Deterrent, 13 Aug. 1979.

¹⁰⁵Ibid.

¹⁰⁶Ibid.

¹⁰⁸Ibid.

¹⁰⁷Ibid.

¹⁰⁹Ibid.

¹¹⁰Ibid.

¹¹¹Ibid.

¹¹²Ibid.

¹¹³Ibid.

¹¹⁴Ibid.

¹¹⁵Ibid.

¹¹⁶Ibid.

¹¹⁷David Owen, Time to Declare (London: Penguin 1992), 381.

¹¹⁸Owen, Time to Declare, 381 and Peter Hennessy, Muddling Through: Power, Politics and the Quality of Government in Post-war Britain (London: Indigo 1997), 124.

¹¹⁹Hennessy, Muddling Through, 125.

¹²⁰Ibid.

¹²¹Stoddart, ‘British Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy’, 225–56.

¹²²Quoted in Hennessy, Muddling Through, 124.

¹²³Hennessy, Muddling Through, 123–7.

¹²⁴Ibid. and private correspondence with Lord Owen, March 2006.

¹²⁶DEFE 13/1039, Frank Cooper to Secretary of State, 25 June 1976. Frank Cooper was Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the MOD between 1976 and 1982.

¹²⁵DEFE 5/192/45, The Rationale for the United Kingdom Strategic Deterrent Force, 25 April 1972.

¹²⁷Healey, The Time of My Life, 313.

¹²⁸Private correspondence with Sir Michael Quinlan, 23 Oct. 2002.

¹²⁹The protocol to the ABM Treaty signed in July 1974 limited the Soviet Union to protecting Moscow with an upper ceiling of 64 interceptor missiles and also removed the option of defending two sites simultaneously.

¹³⁰DEFE 13/1039, Meeting British National Criteria for Strategic Deterrence, 10 Nov. 1975, DEFE 13/1039, Frank Cooper to Secretary of State, 25 June 1976.

¹³¹DEFE 13/1039, M.C. to Secretary of State, 31 March 1976.

¹³²DEFE 25/335, David Owen to Prime Minister, Chevaline, 1 Feb. 1979.

¹³³Ibid.

¹³⁴Hennessy, Muddling Through, 124–5.

¹³⁵DEFE 5/192/45, The Rationale for the United Kingdom Strategic Deterrent Force, 25 April 1972.

¹³⁶This was the figure given in 1980 when the project was announced. It equates to £4,200 million in 2004 prices and even this official estimate is controversial. For more information see Philip Pugh, ‘Chevaline: Costs and the Wider Context’, Proceedings from a conference on The History of the UK Strategic Deterrent: The Chevaline Programme, held at the Royal Aeronautical Society, London, 28 Oct. 2004.