Conclusions

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 Ivo Daalder, ‘What Vision for the Nuclear Future?’, The Washington Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 2, Spring 1995, p. 139.

² Hansard, 4 December 2006, Col.21.

³ Booth, ‘Debating the Future of Trident’, in Booth and Barnaby, p. 90.

⁴ Chalmers and Walker, Uncharted Waters, p. 103.

⁵ HC 986, Ev. 80.

⁶ Cm 6994, p. 5.

⁷ Robert Fox, ‘Trident: The Done Deal’, New Statesman, 13 June 2005, p. 19; Willett, ‘Questions for the Debate on the Future of the UK Strategic Deterrent’, RUSI Journal, vol. 150, no. 6, December 2005, p. 55; Taylor and Youngs, The Future of the British Nuclear Deterrent, p. 38.

⁸ Cm 6994, p. 7.

⁹ HC 986, Ev. 81.

¹⁰ Cm 6994, p. 31.

¹¹ Hare, ‘Should the Decision on Trident Replacement be a Subject of Public and Parliamentary Debate?’, p. 67; HC 986, Ev. 35.

¹² Tony Blair is ‘not prepared to engage in that hypothesis’, Hansard, 4 December 2006, Col.35.

¹³ Cm 6994, p. 18.

¹⁴ Rifkind, ‘The Role of Nuclear Weapons in UK Defence Strategy’, p. 34.

¹⁵ Gray, The Second Nuclear Age, p. 120.

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.