Future Nuclear Capability

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 Cm 6994, p. 26.

² Cm 6994, Annex B.

³ Dorman, ‘Prestige Purchase’, p. 13; Willett, ‘Questions for the Debate’, p. 54.

⁴ Smart, The Future of the British Nuclear Deterrent. Smart's conclusion was confirmed by the MoD three years later: Defence Open Government Document 80/23, p. 21.

⁵ HC 1558, para. 22.

⁶ Quinlan, The Future of Deterrent Capability for Medium-Sized Western Powers, p. 13.

⁷ Cm 6994, p. 22.

⁸ Cm 6994, p. 25.

⁹ Cm 6994, p. 39.

¹⁰ See also Clarke, ‘Does My Bomb Look Big in This?’, p. 50; Willett, ‘Questions for the Debate’, p. 55; Quinlan, ‘The Future of United Kingdom Nuclear Weapons’, p. 635; Hare, HC 986, Ev. 37; RUSI in HC 986, Ev. 70.

¹¹ Taylor and Youngs, The Future of the British Nuclear Deterrent, p. 39.

¹² Cm 6994, p. 11.

¹³ HC 986, p. 31.

¹⁴ Cm 6994, p. 12.

¹⁵ Cm 6994, p. 26.

¹⁶ Polmar, ‘Strategic Submarine Progress’, p. 86.

¹⁷ Cm 6994, p. 31; the exchange of letters on the subject between Blair and Bush is available at: www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page10657.asp.

¹⁸ Ainslie, The Future of the British Bomb, p. 33.

¹⁹ Cm 6994, p. 12.

²⁰ Cm 6994, p. 5.

²¹ HC 1558, p. 7.

²² Cm 6994, p. 26.

²³ For a good summary of the role and operation of AWE, see House of Commons Defence Committee Fourth Report of Session 2006–07, HC 59, The Future of the UK's Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: The Manufacturing and Skills Base (London: TSO, 12 December 2006), pp. 32–5: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmdfence/59/59.pdf.

²⁴ For details, see: www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/rrw.htm.

²⁵ Bill Sweetman, ‘Nuclear Family Planning: Fewer, Smaller and Safer Warheads for Future Generation’, Jane's International Defence Review, January 2006, p. 62.

²⁶ See HC 59, p. 38.

²⁷ Cm 6994, p. 13.

²⁸ Until 1998, submarines usually deployed with 60 warheads (Hansard, 30 July 1998, Col.449). Thereafter, submarines on patrol carried fewer than 16 missiles, including some configured for the single-warhead sub-strategic role.

²⁹ Cm 6994, p. 9.

³⁰ Hansard, 4 December 2006, Col.22. It is interesting to note that the 25-year life apparently runs from the time the submarine is launched, rather than when it enters service.

³¹ Hansard, 30 June 2004, Col.358W.

³² Cm 6041-I, para.3.11.

³³ HC 1558, p. 8.

³⁴ Cm 6994, p. 10.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ For example, Memorandum from the British American Security Information Council, HC 986, Ev.120.

³⁷ HC 986, p. 33; HC 59, p. 12.

³⁸ John F. Schank et al., The United Kingdom's Nuclear Submarine Industrial Base (Santa Monica CA: RAND Corporation, 2005).

³⁹ Ibid., vol. 2, p. 8; HC 59, p. 16.

⁴⁰ Jane's Defence Weekly, 30 August 2006, p. 13.

⁴¹ For an update on the Astute programme, see Richard Scott ‘Back from the Brink’, Jane's Defence Weekly, 22 March 2006, pp. 34–7.

⁴² Author conversation with MoD official, August 2006.

⁴³ Cited in Hartley, ‘The Economics of UK Nuclear Weapons Policy’, p. 683.

⁴⁴ Cited in Richard Scott, ‘Can UK Nuclear Submarine Industry Retain Critical Mass’, Jane's Navy International, July/August 2006, p. 14.

⁴⁵ Murray Easton, ‘Future Submarines’, RUSI Defence Systems, vol. 9, no. 2, Autumn 2006, pp. 44–6.

⁴⁶ HC 59, pp. 9–10 contain a good summary of the entire supporting infrastructure.

⁴⁷ HC 986, Ev. 10.

⁴⁸ Defence Open Government Document 80/23, p. 21.

⁴⁹ Cm 6994, pp.25–6.

⁵⁰ HC 986, Ev. 39.

⁵¹ HC 986, Ev.141.

⁵² Jane's Defence Weekly, 21 September 2005, p. 13.

⁵³ The Royal Navy's first SSN, HMS Dreadnought, had a US-supplied reactor pending development of a British plant for later boats. More recently, some American expertise has been used to get the Astute programme back on track.

⁵⁴ Willett, ‘Astute, Trident and SSGN: Land Attack for the Royal Navy Submarine Service’, RUSI Defence Systems, vol. 8, no. 1, Summer 2005, p. 106.

⁵⁵ Cm 6994, p. 26.

⁵⁶ Hartley, ‘The Economics of UK Nuclear Weapons Policy’, p. 679. The prime minister said in the House of Commons that the Vanguard-class cost £14bn in today's prices. He presumably meant the cost of the original Trident programme as a whole, of which the submarines represented about 29%.

⁵⁷ Author conversation with MoD official, August 2006.

⁵⁸ Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology The Nuclear Energy Option in the UK, Postnote no. 208, December 2003, p. 1.

⁵⁹ J.N. Fradgley, Nuclear Energy: Threat or Opportunity?, Seaford House Papers (Shrivenham: UK Defence Academy, 2005), p. 217.

⁶⁰ Fradgley, Nuclear Energy, p. 225.

⁶¹ The Scottish question was examined in Chalmers and Walker, Uncharted Waters. Most of their analysis remains entirely pertinent today, and this short section draws extensively upon it.

⁶² Sunday Telegraph, 27 November 2006.

⁶³ Chalmers and Walker, Uncharted Waters, p. 89.

⁶⁴ Ibid., chapter 5.

⁶⁵ Richard Scott, ‘Can UK Nuclear Submarine Industry Retain Critical Mass?’, p. 18.

⁶⁶ HC 986, 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.