Britain's Need for a Nuclear Deterrent

This thesis was originally published in the 2006 volume of Seaford House Papers selected from the dissertations of that year's Royal College of Defence Studies intake. It consists of two parts: the first being original analytical work, expanding and amalgamating essays written by the author during the preceding 12 months, and the second being original research undertaken at The National Archives (TNA) specifically for this RCDS dissertation. All endnote references are to TNA documents rather than to secondary sources.

Part I: Analytical Study – The Case for a Successor to Trident

Certainty and Deterrence

In the closing stages of World War II, a series of terrible aerial attacks devastated Japan. Tens of thousands were killed in each raid, but the Japanese still fought on – as had the Germans, under a similar weight of bombardment, until overrun by land forces. Yet, single atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved decisive, though the initial death toll in each city was no greater than that caused by conventional attacks on Tokyo and elsewhere. The real change wrought by the atomic bomb was not in the scale of the destruction inflicted, but in the absolute certainty that that destruction could not be avoided.

Before the nuclear era, war amounted to a massive throw of the dice. Hitler's career was a succession of such gambles, culminating in his disastrous decision to invade the Soviet Union. Japan gambled against equally huge odds by attacking the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor. It is extremely improbable that such acts of aggression would have occurred if defeat had been known in advance to be inevitable. Gamblers usually risk unacceptable losses only because they see a chance of victory against the odds. When the thousand‐bomber raids were launched against Germany and Japan, a whole range of outcomes was possible. At one end of the spectrum, mass bomber formations might have achieved their aim, destroyed their targets and returned to base with very few losses. At the other, they might have been intercepted and attacked, diverted from their targets – which would remain unscathed – and forced to suffer heavy losses, as on the infamous Nuremberg raid. Crucially, there was no way of knowing in advance what the result of such battles would be – until, that is, the coming of the atomic bomb. If Germany and Japan could have known in advance that their victims would invent nuclear weapons before the end of the wars they were preparing to launch, would they have dared to attack irrespective of the fate of all their major cities? The doctrine of deterrence holds that even reckless aggressors will not proceed in the face of total and unavoidable destruction.

Even before it had been tested, leading British defence scientist Sir Henry Tizard had advised the Chiefs of Staff that the only answer to the atomic bomb was to threaten its use in retaliation:

A knowledge that we were prepared, in the last resort, to do this might well deter an aggressive nation. Duelling was a recognised method of settling quarrels between men of high social standing so long as the duellists stood twenty paces apart and fired at each other with pistols of a primitive type. If the rule had been that they should stand a yard apart with pistols at each other's hearts, we doubt whether it would long have remained a recognised method of settling affairs of honour. ¹

This was only the latest in a long line of similarly hard‐headed but hopeful views. The motto: ‘If you desire peace, be prepared for war’ was essentially the same, as was the statement in the early days of aviation: ‘When German bombers can destroy London and British bombers can destroy Berlin, Germany and Britain will never again go to war.’ Nor is it generally realised that Alfred Nobel – of Peace Prize fame – was actually the inventor of dynamite. He thought that the destructive power of this new explosive would make war far too costly to contemplate.

Why the Tizard scenario of peace through mutually assured destruction stood the test of time better than those earlier arguments was the factor of certainty (or ‘assuredness’) which atomic weapons for the first time guaranteed. Earlier explosives, like dynamite, and earlier means of delivery, like manned bombers, still left the outcome of the encounter in doubt. Previously, where both sides were equivalently armed, the gamble of waging war seemed worthwhile because one of them could suffer total defeat while the other enjoyed total victory. There was, in short, too much uncertainty about the outcome. This no longer applied after 1945.

Morality and Deterrence

Since the dawning of the atomic age, some have found it impossible to accept the extreme ethical paradox that peace can best be maintained by possessing, and threatening to use, weapons which can instantly obliterate tens of thousands of people. Simply because nuclear weapons, if used, would cause hideous destruction and loss of life, it has often been argued that there is something immoral in their very possession. Yet, no weapon is moral or immoral in itself. Ethics enter the equation only when one considers the motivation for possessing weapons and the uses to which they are put.

If the consequence of possessing a lethal weapon is that nobody uses lethal weapons, while the consequence of not possessing any is that someone else uses his lethal weapons against you, which is the more moral course of action: to possess such weapons and avoid anyone being attacked, or to renounce them and lay yourself open to aggression? A consistent majority of British public opinion has had no doubt about the answer. Twenty‐five years ago, when working against the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), this author frequently commissioned professional pollsters to ask the following question: ‘Do you think that Britain should continue to possess nuclear weapons as long as other countries have them?’ The result was always the same: two‐thirds of the British people wished keep them and only a quarter disagreed. These proportions did not change when the Cold War ended and probably still apply.

If possession of nuclear weapons is inherently unethical, it is surprising (to put it mildly) that so large a majority of civilised people should time and again endorse it. They do so because it is both sensible and ethical to retain such weapons in a dangerous world, in order to reduce the probability of war breaking out.

The central problem which has to be faced by those who argue that merely possessing and threatening the retaliatory use of nuclear weapons is morally unacceptable, is the extreme level of destructiveness which conventional warfare had reached before the atomic bomb existed. If possessing a deadly weapon and threatening to use it in retaliation will avert a conflict in which millions would otherwise die, can it seriously be claimed that morality requires one to renounce the weapon and let the millions meet their fate? Even if the threat to retaliate is immoral, is it as immoral as the failure to forestall so many preventable deaths?

When such issues were being debated in the 1980s, the late Leonard Cheshire VC set out the scenario of an airport security guard who is the only person able to stop a terrorist from opening fire on innocent passengers. Most people would accept not only that it is morally correct for the guard to shoot the terrorist, but that it would be profoundly unethical for him to fail to do so. This is without prejudice to the fact that the guard might rightly regard it as a tragedy that he had to take anyone's life at all. Moral choices are, as often as not, choices to determine the lesser of two evils.

Only the most absolute of pacifists can doubt that it is better to threaten nuclear retaliation than to renounce nuclear weapons if the result of renouncing them is that they are actually used against one's own society. Nevertheless, no fewer than 20 Anglican bishops wrote in 2006 that:

we all agree that Just War arguments rule out the use of nuclear weapons … a deterrent is only effective if a potential enemy knows for certain it will be used. But the use of nuclear weapons would not be an option for us, as that would be nothing less than the mass murder of thousands if not tens of thousands of innocent civilians … it is morally corrupting to threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction even when there is no real intention of using them … Trident and other nuclear arsenals threaten long‐term and fatal damage to the global environment and its peoples. As such their end is evil and both possession and use profoundly anti‐God acts. ²

Apparently it is not only un‐Christian to use such weapons, it is irreligious even to retain them to prevent a war in the first place. Yet, if these arguments are valid, they are also timeless – applying to the past as well as to the present and future.

Thus, purely for the sake of argument (though it is very probably true), let us hypothesise that without the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki mass conventional warfare would have continued well into 1946, culminating in a fiercely‐resisted invasion of mainland Japan, the murder of the remaining Allied prisoners of war, and an overall death toll greatly exceeding the horrific losses in the two bombed cities. This poses a dilemma for the bishops. Would it have been better for many more to be killed in a continuing ‘conventional’ conflict, just as long as nuclear weapons were not used; or should it be accepted that the ghastliness of total war overrides the question of which weapons are used to minimise casualties by ending it as rapidly as possible?

The immorality of mere possession is even harder to argue: let us imagine that in August 1945 Japan had also possessed some atomic bombs and the ability to use them against America. Would this really have had no bearing on the US decision to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki – or would it actually have forced the President to call off his raids? If the latter, would the bishops then assert that the possession of such weapons, this time by the Japanese, would have been immoral even if preventing the US atomic attacks which, presumably, they deplore? To describe ‘both possession and use’ as ‘profoundly anti‐God’, also seems harsh on such senior clerics as the late Michael Ramsey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury when the question of a successor to the nuclear V‐bombers was being debated. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had written to him, in July 1963, acknowledging that:

The theological difficulty, as I understand it, is that these nuclear weapons are by definition so frightful and so indiscriminate that their use by a Christian man can, so it is argued, never be justified in any circumstances. Death, defeat and certainly material destruction should be willingly accepted if the only alternative is to unleash this horrible weapon. While, of course, any Christian must feel the force of this argument very strongly, I do not myself accept it as a valid reason for not possessing nuclear weapons. I think it is indubitable that their possession does tend to preserve peace and to prevent holocaust which it is the duty of Governments to avoid. Conversely, to give up nuclear weapons would in present circumstances be, in my view, to invite terrible disasters to fall upon our country and might, in the end, lead directly to a war which even if not in the end fought with nuclear weapons, would be the most horrible that the world has ever seen. ³

Responding to the Prime Minister, the Archbishop had replied:

I have never felt that the case for unilateralism is convincing, or one which a British Government could properly accept, though it means for a Christian a good deal of agony of mind in so concluding. I think that it confuses the moral question to dwell exclusively upon the question of nuclear weapons in as much as a general war, even without nuclear weapons, would be more indescribably horrible than the world has known before. ⁴

Changing Times and Changing Threats

Many of the people who oppose Britain's retention and replacement of nuclear weapons in the 21st century also advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament, despite the level of the Soviet threat, during the Cold War. There are, however, significant numbers who believe that what was necessary then no longer applies now. This brings us to the central problem of predictability.

From time to time wars break out in circumstances which were anticipated; but, more often than not, they arise totally unexpectedly. The Yom Kippur War in 1973 took even hypersensitive Israel by surprise. The Falklands War, nine years later, took Britain by surprise. The invasion of Kuwait in 1990 took everyone by surprise. And the attacks on 11 September 2001 took the world's only superpower by surprise. There was nothing new in any of this – as a detour into the archives strikingly illustrates: from August 1919 until November 1933 British defence policy was hamstrung by a prediction that the country would not have to fight a major power for at least a decade ahead. This had massively inhibited rearmament when the international scene darkened. Arguing against the so‐called Ten Year Rule in January 1931, when Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Sir Maurice Hankey observed:

As a nation we have been prone in the past to assume that the international outlook is in accordance with our desires rather than with the facts of the situation … We are also apt to forget how suddenly war breaks out. In 1870, a fortnight before the event, we were not in the least expecting the outbreak of the Franco‐Prussian War. The same was true in 1914. A fortnight after the murder of the Austrian Archduke, a debate took place in the House of Commons on foreign affairs. The European situation was hardly referred to at all. More attention was given to the preparations for the next Peace Conference! … There was no statement made on the subject of the European crisis in Parliament until July 27 … We really had, at the outside, not more than ten days’ warning … How foolish a Government would have looked that had reaffirmed an assumption of ten years of peace during the early part of 1914! ⁵

The onset of armed conflicts is inherently unpredictable. This is why it makes sense to keep in being an army, a navy and an air force during long periods of peace. The same applies a fortiori to the nuclear deterrent. Investment in armed forces in apparently peaceful times is analogous to the payment of premiums on insurance policies. No‐one knows when the accident or disaster against which one is insuring may happen: if one did, one could probably avoid it and save oneself the cost of the premiums! It is rare indeed that one can rule out the emergence of all major military threats, just because that posed by a particular potential enemy has fortunately receded.

With the benefit of hindsight, World War II is often regarded as a disaster predetermined by mistakes made at the end of World War I. Yet, in the 1920s, there was so little sign of an obvious enemy that each of Britain's three Armed Services prepared its hypothetical contingency plans against an entirely different theoretical foe: the Navy against Japan, the Army against Russia, and the Royal Air Force against France! In those days, the choice of possible enemy would seriously affect the nature of the defence policy designed to meet the threat. The flexibility of Britain's nuclear deterrent makes it much less dependent than conventional armed forces upon identifying the enemy in advance. Any country which emerges as a potential aggressor with mass‐destruction weapons, in the next three or four decades, will be vulnerable to retaliation from Trident or its successor – and this is the sort of timescale which has to be considered.

Each generation of the strategic nuclear deterrent functions for a period of 30 years or more. If Trident is replaced, its successor will not begin to be deployed until at least 2020. No‐one can possibly foretell what dangers Britain will face between then and 2050, just as the threats faced today would have seemed bizarre to politicians and planners in the 1980s. During periods of peace, democratic states naturally tend to scale down their conventional fighting services; but they try to do so in a way which is reversible should the international scene deteriorate. This option does not apply to the nuclear deterrent, which has always been set at the minimum level regarded as essential for credibility. Just as it makes sense to keep minimum conventional forces in being as an insurance policy against unpredictable future conventional threats, the same applies all the more strongly to a minimum strategic nuclear deterrent. There can be no more assurance that a nuclear or major chemical and biological warfare threat will not arise in the next half‐century, than that major land, sea or air threats will not have to be faced. If it is right to insure against the latter, it is essential to insure against the former.

After the Cold War

Apart from those always opposed to Britain's nuclear deterrent regardless of the level of threat, some politicians, some commentators, and even some military figures who used to support it, have now changed their minds. This is primarily because the Cold War is over, America appears to be the dominant world power, and the principal dangers today emanate from rogue regimes and stateless terrorist groups. Let us consider each of these in turn.

First, the ending of the Cold War removes the risk of nuclear confrontation with Russia as long as that country continues to tread, however hesitantly, the democratic path. It is significant that many prophets of nuclear doom during the 1970s and 1980s have been all but silenced by the change in East–West relations, even though enough nuclear weapons remain in US and Russian hands to destroy the world's main population centres with many warheads to spare. This illustrates the fact that it is not the weapons themselves which we have to fear but the nature of the governments that possess them. As soon as Russia turned away from totalitarianism, the main concern about her nuclear arsenal shifted from those devices under her control to those which might leach out from Russian stockpiles and into the hands of other regimes which are still potentially hostile.

Advocates of nuclear disarmament have traditionally ignored the propensity for dictatorships to go to war with dictatorships, and for democracies and dictatorships to clash, while few – if any – examples exist of democracies attacking each other. This suggests that it is right to accept the possession of nuclear weapons by democracies while applying different rules to dictatorships. There is no comparison between the two, and it is a constant failing of the disarmament lobby to try to project values of reasonableness, tolerance and goodwill onto states under the control of despots, fanatics and dictators. The ending of the Cold War rightly caused a reduction in international tension; but the impossibility of predicting the emergence of future threats from undemocratic regimes means that dismantling the deterrent remains a reckless gamble.

Second, America's current sole superpower status in no way lessens the case for an independent British deterrent. Nuclear weapons, by their very nature, have devastating potential even in very small numbers. Quite apart from the prospect of unpredictable major threats in the longer term, existing enmity on the part of near‐nuclear regimes like Iran suggests that unilateralism would be fraught with danger. It used to be pointed out that the British Polaris fleet had done nothing to deter Argentina from invading the Falkland Islands. Certainly, there never was a prospect of democratic Britain threatening to use its ultimate weapon except when its own national survival was at stake. What would have been the case, though, if Argentina had possessed even a few atomic weapons or other mass‐destruction devices? Without a nuclear force of their own, would the British have dared respond conventionally to the occupation of the Islands by a nuclear‐armed military junta?

Time and again the United Kingdom and the United States have stood together in international conflicts. If this pattern continues, the prospect could arise of a nuclear‐armed enemy regarding it as safer to threaten or attack the smaller of the two Allies. The danger would then arise of a possible miscalculation by an aggressor thinking that the US would not respond in kind to an attack with mass‐destruction weapons on British cities. Perhaps that might be a mistake, but there would be sufficient uncertainty for the attacker to discover it only when it was too late for everybody – instead of having been deterred at the outset by the knowledge that Britain had her own means of retaliation.

These considerations clearly bear on the third issue – that of rogue regimes. Several are already nuclear powers or on the verge of becoming so. The notion that they will abandon such a course in response to British unilateralism is totally unrealistic. Those who subscribe to it continually make the error of projecting civilised values onto extremist governments who actually hold them in contempt.

Turning, fourth, to the current emergence of non‐state terrorists, it is absolutely correct that strategic nuclear weapons are of no relevance whatsoever. Neither are aircraft carriers, main battle tanks, guided‐missile destroyers or any other heavyweight military equipment. The presence of a serious terrorist threat is clearly an argument in favour of expanded counter‐insurgency forces, and security and intelligence services. It is no argument at all for the abolition of those military capabilities which are designed to meet other types of threat which this country has faced in the past and may well face again in the future.

Nuclear Proliferation

Does proliferation make Britain's continued possession of nuclear weapons unethical? This might be arguable if a causal link could be shown between the UK deterrent and the decision of one or more named countries to acquire nuclear weapons. During the Cold War, the proliferation argument was often used by one‐sided nuclear disarmers in their campaign against Polaris, Trident and the deployment of cruise missiles. Yet, whenever asked to name a specific nuclear or near‐nuclear country which would be likely to abandon its nuclear ambitions if Britain unilaterally renounced hers, the CND and its fellow‐travellers were notably unforthcoming. Countries make the decision whether or not to seek a nuclear capability according to hard‐headed calculations of their own strategic interests. A quixotic renunciation by democratic Britain is not very likely to encourage any undemocratic state to follow suit. On the contrary, it is more likely to encourage any such state which views Britain as a potential enemy to redouble its efforts to join the weapons of mass destruction club, given that the means to threaten retaliation against nuclear, biological or chemical aggression would no longer exist.

What does the Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT) actually commit the United Kingdom to do? Article VI of the NPT is often referred to, but seldom quoted in full. This is what it states:

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

There are thus three obligations, only the first of which is time‐limited. This is to end ‘the nuclear arms race’ at ‘an early date’. Given that the United Kingdom – and, for that matter, France and China – have never engaged in a nuclear arms race, their policy of each having a minimum strategic nuclear deterrent does not fall foul of this provision. None of these countries has ever sought to match the nuclear stockpiles of Russia or the United States. Each has been content to possess a much smaller nuclear capability, provided that it is adequate to threaten an unacceptable level of retaliation if attacked. The same would apply to any replacement system for Trident. It is true that Article VI aspires to both ‘nuclear disarmament’ and ‘a Treaty on general and complete disarmament’ as well – but this is nothing more than an aspiration for the indefinite future. What it amounts to is nothing less than a world completely disarmed of all weapons of every description ‘under strict and effective international control’. This utopia would require several things to happen: the creation of a World Government; the establishment of foolproof methods of preventing clandestine rearmament; and, above all, a revolution in the minds of men so that warfare became redundant. Nothing in the Article requires worldwide nuclear disarmament to be achieved prior to worldwide conventional disarmament. This is just as well: to abolish all nuclear weapons in a world left bristling with all sorts of other deadly armaments would be to make the world safe again for the disastrous conflagrations which killed millions between 1914 and 1918 and between 1939 and 1945.

Conclusion to Part I: The Vindication of Deterrence

During the interwar years, the process of disarmament was taken to new heights of complexity, but it achieved only this: the peace‐loving democracies disarmed each other and themselves, while the rogues, the villains, the bandits, the dictators and the tyrants re‐armed in secret, threatened democracy and destroyed the peace of the world. After the final defeat of the Nazis, the democratic states faced a new challenge and a variation on an old dilemma. The challenge was that of confrontation with Soviet communism, the dilemma was whether to try to defuse it by disarmament or to contain it by deterrence. The fact that World War III did not break out is not, of itself, conclusive proof that containment by deterrence was successful. It is of the nature of deterrence that, whenever it works, its opponents can always argue that the war would not have happened in any case. Yet, the fact that there were so many small but deadly wars fought between client states of the superpowers – but not between the superpowers themselves – strongly suggests that the mutual threat of nuclear annihilation had something to do with the restraint exercised by the superpowers themselves.

The implications of this argument are not designed to cater for well‐intentioned democrats who desire only the best for their own people and who project their decency upon other states and societies. But the bloody history of the 20th century amply illustrates the depths of evil and malevolence which some ideologues and megalomaniacs are willing to plumb. As Dean of St Paul's Cathedral William Inge (1860–1954) sadly concluded: ‘It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism whilst the wolf remains of a different opinion.’

The purpose of the British nuclear deterrent remains what it has always been: to minimise the dreadful prospect of the United Kingdom being attacked by mass‐destruction weapons. It is not a panacea and it is not designed to deter every type of threat. Nevertheless, the threat which it is designed to counter is so overwhelming that no other form of military capability could manage to prevent it. The possession of the deterrent may be unpleasant, but it is an unpleasant necessity the purpose of which lies not in its actual use but in its nature as the ultimate ‘stalemate weapon’. And, in the nuclear age, stalemate is the most reliable source of security available to mankind.

Part II: Historical Study – Deterrence in the Polaris Era

The possible replacement of the United Kingdom's Trident deterrent by a successor system has sparked less controversy so far than similar choices in the past. Whereas Britain's decision to acquire its first nuclear weapons was shrouded in secrecy, there was much public debate about whether or not to replace the Valiant, Victor and Vulcan bombers. It is no coincidence that the period from 1958 to 1964 covered the ‘first wave’ of the anti‐nuclear movement, though there is little evidence from the archives that this directly worried Britain's Service Chiefs. What did cause them concern was the extent to which such anti‐nuclear sentiment might be shared by an incoming Labour government, given the party's recent trauma – under the late Hugh Gaitskell – on the issue of unilateralism.

Throughout the 1950s, defence planners knew perfectly well that relying upon the American nuclear umbrella to protect Western Europe would become increasingly unrealistic. Typical was a note by JIGSAW – the Joint Inter‐Service Group for the Study of All‐Out Warfare – which produced a series of (often contentious) papers:

We believe that in an era of mutual deterrence there is a possibility that the United States would not be prepared to use her strategic nuclear weapons against the USSR except in the event of a Soviet attack on her homeland … If such a change in USA policy were to take place the UK would not be able to shelter under the umbrella of American strategic nuclear weapons, and must have a capability to offer retaliation even in circumstances in which she alone were threatened by the USSR. ⁶

JIGSAW's predictions were apocalyptic and its conclusions uncompromising:

For the USSR the advent of mutual deterrence would mean the end of the period of overwhelming nuclear supremacy of the USA and the elimination of any fear that the USA might provoke a preventive war. In these circumstances the Soviet leaders would be free to follow a continuous development and expansion of their past policies and would have even greater opportunity and freedom for aggressive diplomacy. For the USA, on the other hand, mutual deterrence would mean that the threat of massive retaliation, which has been a cardinal point of her former stand against Soviet aggression, could only logically be evoked to prevent the USSR from attacking the USA directly … [F]or the coming era of mutual deterrence she urgently needs a realistic policy to replace the concept of massive retaliation against aggression in Europe … [Otherwise] there will be an increasing risk of war by miscalculation in which the USA would be faced with the unpalatable alternatives of accepting defeat in Europe or initiating the nuclear exchange … In considering future policy with regard to her deterrent forces, the United Kingdom must recognise that by 1970, if not before, the USSR would be able to deliver a nuclear attack which might kill 80% to 90% of the population of the British Isles … If the United Kingdom had no adequate means of retaliation of her own, she would be particularly vulnerable to Soviet ‘missile diplomacy’ directed against her purely national interests. A United Kingdom deterrent force, manifestly invulnerable to Soviet attack, would greatly strengthen the hand of the British Government in countering diplomatic threats of this kind; but it must be emphasised that Britain's nuclear capability could only be effective as a deterrent if it were sufficiently large and clearly invulnerable to pre‐emptive attack … With the possible emergence of China as a nuclear power, the United Kingdom will have an even more important part to play in the defence of the free world against communist expansion and infiltration. If, in the long term, Britain is to contribute to the nuclear deterrent in the Far East, the weapon system which she deploys in that theatre must be capable of operating independently of fixed bases. ⁷

Everything pointed to a mobile future deterrent system which would not tempt an aggressor to try to eliminate it by obliterating vulnerable RAF stations – and millions of British citizens in the process.

While successive Labour and Conservative governments had never doubted the need for a United Kingdom nuclear deterrent, by the time of the October 1964 general election this could no longer be taken for granted. In retirement, Lord Mountbatten was to become something of an icon for the anti‐nuclear movement, which was – and remains – fond of selectively quoting his 1979 speech at Strasbourg which rightly denounced theories of tactical nuclear warfighting and called for reductions in the levels of strategic stockpiles. As Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) at a crucial moment in its history, however, Mountbatten played a vital part in preserving the British nuclear deterrent. The minutes of the Chiefs of Staff meeting on 29 September 1964, just over a fortnight before the general election, make this crystal clear:

LORD MOUNTBATTEN said that he had in recent times normally kept available a draft study on the importance of the retention of the United Kingdom independent nuclear deterrent. This paper was intended for use, subject to the approval of the Chiefs of Staff, in the event of a new Government proposing to abolish this force. In view of the possibility of a Labour Government coming into power after the forthcoming General Election, he was arranging to have this paper brought up‐to‐date. … [H]e considered that [the Chiefs of Staff] were under a moral obligation to put the military aspects of the problem without delay to any Government which might consider abolishing our independent deterrent.

… In a recent discussion with the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, the latter had told him that his party was opposed to United Kingdom participation in the MLF [multi‐lateral nuclear force] and that if they came to power they would be most unlikely to agree to this. On the subject of the independent nuclear deterrent however the Leader of the party was known to be in favour of abolition; the majority of the party were in agreement and abolition was included in their election manifesto. There was nevertheless a body of opinion in the party who were uncertain on this point and it was possible that, if a strong case could be made out for retention, Labour policy on the subject could be reversed, provided that a face‐saving formula could be found. The best method of achieving this lay in convincing an incoming Labour Government that the Polaris submarine project was so far advanced that very large nugatory expenditure and impracticable conversion problems would arise if an attempt was made to convert the Polaris submarines (SSBN) into Hunter Killer submarines (SSKN).

So determined was Mountbatten to safeguard the Polaris programme that he proposed that each Chief of Staff should personally sign a paper designed to dissuade an incoming Labour government from adopting unilateralism:

This should state that it was the traditional responsibility of the Chiefs of Staff of the Services to defend these Islands against all forms of attack, and recall that this responsibility had originally been discharged by the Royal Navy with the Army in support, and then by the Royal Air Force up until the advent of the thermo‐nuclear weapon. The paper should go on to say that now and in the foreseeable future the Chiefs of Staff saw no way of continuing to discharge this defence responsibility except by the possession of a nationally controlled nuclear deterrent force, of such a capability that it could inflict upon any aggressor such a degree of damage as to outweigh any possible benefit which he might obtain from his aggression. The paper should conclude by asking that if the Government wished to do away with our deterrent force, they should formally absolve the Chiefs of Staff from further responsibility for the defence of the United Kingdom against attack.

In the ensuing discussion, it was pointed out that the Labour Party was claiming that the British independent nuclear deterrent:

was neither British nor independent and that it did not deter. The paper should include the military facts refuting this argument. There were no strings in the Polaris agreement to our independent use of the weapon in emergency and its capability against Soviet aggression had already been shown by the reports of the British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group (BNDS Group) Committee to be sufficient to deter Soviet attack.

Once again, there was scepticism about the reliability of extended deterrence:

The Chiefs of Staff paper should not be qualified by any reference to United States assistance. The first duty of the United States Government was to act in the best interests of their own country. It was always possible that an occasion could arise where support of United Kingdom policy was not compatible with these interests. ⁸

In the event, when the Committee next met on 6 October during Mountbatten's absence overseas, it was decided that the proposed paper – which had now been drafted – should be held back for use only as a last resort, since according to Acting CDS, General Sir Richard Hull:

From the point of view of the Chiefs of Staff it would deploy their complete argument, and this might be premature since the attitude of a Labour administration could not be known for certain until it had gained access to the true facts of the matter. Furthermore, it would be tactless to present an in‐coming Labour administration with a bald statement flatly opposing what had been a major plank in their Election platform. ⁹

Certainly the draft had pulled no punches:

With the arrival of nuclear weapons, all previous strategic concepts became outdated. Of our potential enemies, Russia is already capable of completely destroying organized life both in these Islands and in virtually the whole of the northern Hemisphere: China can be expected to have an increasingly effective nuclear capability within the next decade … [T]herefore the only practical method of preventing direct attack at home or indirect blackmail abroad available to us now and in the foreseeable future is the possession of a nuclear retaliatory capacity which can clearly inflict upon any potential enemy a degree of damage patently unacceptable as the price of aggression. It is this fear of the inescapable consequences that provides the only certain way of influencing nations against pursuing policies hostile to the survival of another [sic] and which thus provides the best guarantee of preserving world peace. This is the true meaning of deterrence.

Until there is a single political authority for the Western world and our rights as a sovereign nation have been abrogated to it, we must still be prepared to defend ourselves alone if necessary. With the uncertainties of the future, dependence wholly upon others for our defence would neither guarantee our ultimate safety, be a reasonable commitment for another national [sic] to assume, nor be convincing to our enemies; we cannot rely on triggering a nuclear response from an ally however close and satisfactory our ties with them [sic] might be. In the final analysis our ability to deter depends upon whether our potential enemies can see clearly that the decision whether or not to go to war over an issue of over‐riding national importance, rests squarely upon HMG and none other.

We, the Chiefs of Staff, are thus of the unanimous opinion that, in these circumstances, the only sure means of deterring attack upon the UK (and on our vital interests abroad) is to maintain a national nuclear force which is clearly under our ultimate sovereign control. This has indeed been the declared policy of successive governments since World War II … If a national nuclear capability is not to be maintained it follows that, no matter what directive we may be given, we can see no other rational military method by which we can continue to discharge our classical and collective responsibility for preventing attack on these islands or of exercising an effective military influence over any nuclear power that might oppose us. ¹⁰

Instead of this broadside, two less‐confrontational documents were prepared. The first comprehensively listed the components and capabilities of the current nuclear force – consisting principally of 104 V‐Bombers armed with British warheads; 24 more with American warheads; 9 squadrons of shorter‐range Canberras, and some 70 naval aircraft which could also be used in a nuclear strike role:

At present 13 V‐Bombers are held at 15 minutes readiness. In periods of tension when the V‐force would be dispersed over 36 airfields in the United Kingdom, the force could be airborne within two minutes of the order to go. (The minimum warning time of a nuclear attack on the UK is estimated at 3½ minutes.)

The reaction time of the Polaris submarines when in service will be one hour. Taking into account Russian defensive capabilities, in the light of our latest intelligence, and the low flying ability of the V‐Bombers, the V‐force could destroy some 20 Russian cities. The Polaris force, on the assumption that two submarines are always at sea, will have a comparable capability.

Estimates inevitably vary about the extent of destruction, the threat of which would deter Russia. Whatever may be thought of the deterrent effect of the threat of the destruction of 20 major cities, in theoretical isolation from any Allied attack, it has been estimated by the Joint Intelligence Committee that the destruction of even the five largest Russian cities would put the Soviet Union at an unacceptable disadvantage in relation to the United States. ¹¹

The second paper, endorsed almost on the eve of the general election, was an updated version of a December 1962 Chiefs of Staff memorandum. It stated the theory of deterrence in measured terms:

Nuclear weapons in conjunction with modern weapon‐delivery systems, whether airborne, sea‐based, or land‐based, can now threaten and, if used, accomplish the total destruction of entire nations. This threat of wholesale destruction is likely to remain the dominant military factor into the future.

There is no foreseeable military defensive system capable of providing the required degree of protection against an attack by nuclear weapons. The air defences of the United Kingdom have therefore been reduced to those necessary only to provide warning of an attack, to prevent unrestricted access to the air space over the United Kingdom, and to counter electronic jamming. The only counter to the threat of a nuclear attack is the ability to strike directly in retaliation. This is the basic military purpose for which a strategic nuclear capability is required … To form a valid deterrent to nuclear bombardment of the United Kingdom the strategic nuclear forces must fulfil three conditions:

1. They must be seen to be capable of inflicting more damage on the nuclear power envisaging such bombardment than it could accept as the price of nuclear attack on the United Kingdom.

2. They must be seen to be capable of inflicting this damage before, while, or after the United Kingdom was under nuclear bombardment.

3. They must be sovereign (independent) in the strictest military sense.

… [B]y ‘sovereign’ we mean that the final authority for the use of the strategic nuclear force must be retained by the United Kingdom Government. Its position need be no different from that of other nuclear or conventional forces which are committed to alliances but which remain in peacetime under United Kingdom control and are available for use if necessary in support of purely national operations. In order that such authority could be exercised, however, every element of the weapon system should be British owned, manned, maintained, and controlled. It is not necessary, however, that the equipment should be British produced. British strategic nuclear strike forces are committed to NATO in the same way as are other forces, thereby demonstrating that we have no deliberate ‘go it alone’ policy. However, a ‘go it alone’ capability remains and must always be an important consideration in the mind of any potential enemy. There can be no question of lack of resolution preventing our strategic nuclear capability from working as a deterrent to attack on the United Kingdom itself, since there can be no doubt that it would be used in retaliation.

How far the UK could rely on another country for nuclear protection was described as a matter for political judgement, but it was made clear that British military operations would more easily be inhibited or stopped by the threatened use of nuclear weapons against the United Kingdom, unless the United States offered its support. It was:

by no means certain that British, or indeed European, interests will remain coincidental with those of the United States in the future, and the French are clearly of the same opinion. In the past there have been no instances of automatic military support by the United States in the conditions leading to the outbreak of wars: indeed sometimes the reverse.

Possession of strategic nuclear forces gives us a special influence in the councils of the world and in particular in our relationship with the United States.

Some might claim that unilateral renunciation would contribute to the prevention of nuclear proliferation; but it would disqualify Britain from taking part in nuclear arms control negotiations and would not enable other countries to be convinced that Britain's disarmament was total, ‘since it would be impossible ever to be sure that no nuclear capability remained to a nation which had at one time possessed it’. ¹²

By 27 October 1964, the Labour government was in place and its Defence Secretary Denis Healey had requested what was described as a summary report on the basic military assumptions and concepts of operations underlying the British defence programme. This was duly produced, drawing heavily upon a paper originally approved in January 1962. Rather than emphasising the unreliability of the American guarantee, it more subtly stressed the danger of ‘miscalculation’:

if we were not capable of inflicting unacceptable damage on a potential enemy, that enemy might be tempted – if not now then perhaps at some time in the future – to attack in the mistaken belief that the United States would not act unless America herself were attacked. This deterrent capability is currently provided by the V‐Bomber force and from about 1970 onwards, is planned to be provided by the Polaris submarine force. ¹³

Attempts were soon being made to obscure the issue of nuclear independence by allocating the proposed Polaris force to an ‘Atlantic Nuclear Force’ under NATO. F. W. Mottershead, Deputy Under‐Secretary (Policy) in the Defence Secretariat, pointed out that ‘If we retained, by any means whatever, the capability to bring the force under national control then it would be politically very difficult to say that we had given up our independent nuclear deterrent’; but Sir Henry Hardman, the Ministry's Permanent Under‐Secretary, replied that the Secretary of State was known to favour retaining Britain's capability to recover the deterrent to national control ‘as an insurance against the break‐up of the NATO Alliance’, and Lord Mountbatten added that in order to encourage the government ‘to retain, in some form, our independent nuclear capability, it was essential that the proposals which they were putting forward should offer Ministers as many options as possible’. ¹⁴

The truth was, as Mottershead commented on 17 November 1964:

the Secretary of State had been trying to find reasons for retaining the Polaris force. To obtain political support for this, he would need to show some difference between the proposals now put forward and those approved under the previous administration. The withdrawal of the ‘supreme interest’ clause was unlikely in itself to be sufficient in this respect, unless accompanied by a reduction of the force to three or four boats. Present indications were that ministers were working on a reduction to three, but if the Chiefs of Staff were to state that rather than have three they would prefer to have none, he believed that the Secretary of State might give up the effort to retain the force at all. It might therefore be best if the Chiefs of Staff were to hinge their reply on the retention of a four boat force, observing that in 1963 they had recommended this number to the last administration. In any event … a force of three would theoretically give us one on station, except for a period of one month in every 52. It would be unfortunate indeed if this month were to coincide with a period of tension, and if it did it would surely not be beyond possibility to rearrange the schedule to cover it. ¹⁵

History knows that on the basis of considerations of this sort, which had far more to do with political face‐saving than with any objective assessment of strategic need, the planned five‐boat Polaris fleet was indeed reduced to four – effectively halving the number of missiles guaranteed to be continuously available. This in turn set in motion the events leading to the hugely expensive Chevaline upgrade programme, once it quickly emerged that the number of Polaris warheads initially deployed was inadequate.

Britain's nuclear deterrent had nevertheless survived, and it is worth briefly moving forward a few years, to a time when another change of government had occurred and Britain was becoming politically closer to Europe than ever before. Once again the Chiefs of Staff faced a potential crisis caused by political dogma – this time from a Conservative administration. So sensitive were the minutes of the discussion on Anglo‐French nuclear cooperation when the Chiefs of Staff Committee met on 9 March 1971 that only five copies were produced: one for the head of each Service, one for the Committee Secretary, and one for the Chief of the Defence Staff, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Charles Elworthy, who declared that:

the Prime Minister, Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and to a less extent the Secretary of State for Defence appeared to take the view that the United Kingdom's best interests lay in developing a successor weapon system to Polaris with the French – in short that we should throw in our lot with France – apparently disregarding the dire consequences that this could have for our present co‐operation with America. The military view, in so far as it had been developed in a restricted circle between himself and the Chief of the Naval Staff, was that nothing should be done which would in any way prejudice the very close and absolutely essential co‐operation which we at present enjoy with the United States and without which our own Polaris deterrent would become ineffective after only a few months. They had made their views clear to the Secretary of State, who had appeared to accept their point of view and to have been willing to represent it strongly to his colleagues.

Despite this, a ministerial meeting had taken place at which it seemed that ministers were determined to proceed down the Anglo‐French route. The record of that meeting showed it being claimed that Britain could not afford any successor system which the Americans might develop, regardless of the fact that ‘any Anglo‐French alternative would need to be highly sophisticated and would be bound to be at least as expensive’. The CDS was particularly alarmed that the British ambassador in Washington was to be instructed to make unofficial enquiries with the Americans to gauge their reaction to discussions being opened with the French: ‘any such discussions could well precipitate a complete shut down of American co‐operation. His anxiety was in no way relieved by the fact that the minutes were classified only Secret and did not have any code word or other instructions as to special handling.’

The Chiefs of Staff agreed that the CDS should write to the Defence Secretary recording their ‘grave reservations and apprehension about the course which Ministers appeared to be taking’. ¹⁶

At least, the need to maintain a deterrent one way or another had never been in doubt and, by the following spring, the Service Chiefs felt confident enough to approve a major paper on ‘The Rationale for the United Kingdom Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Force’. This took as its starting‐point the facts that current government policy was for Britain to possess a strategic nuclear capability, and that studies were underway on the future form it should take. The philosophy of nuclear deterrence was summed up in the following terms:

Deterrence implies the evident ability to inflict on the Homeland of a potential aggressor a degree of damage he would not regard as tolerable in the context of the objectives he might wish to obtain; together with the creation of sufficient belief in his mind that this damage might, in fact, be inflicted … The ultimate reason for the possession of strategic nuclear weapons by any Western nation is to ensure its own independence and survival by deterring attack on itself; the deterring of attack on those allies whose security is involved with its own may be a motivating factor but not the ultimate one.

Given that the concept of an independent deterrent inevitably ran counter to the idea of political solidarity with one's allies, it was admitted that:

the United Kingdom has tended presentationally to minimise ‘independence’ … [but] we find the Solidarity argument extended to the ultimate essentially unconvincing … United States military authorities acknowledge this issue frankly and regard the achievement by the Soviets of parity in strategic nuclear power as likely to inhibit United States’ decision‐makers from taking action which might escalate to the level of strategic exchange in any context apart from a direct threat to the security of the United States itself.

It was bluntly stated that ‘The United Kingdom capability is significant only because it is under separate national control and because it thus presents an added factor of uncertainty … at least the second centre of decision complicates the Soviet calculation of risks and deterrence is thereby enhanced’. In this way the danger of Soviet aggression would be reduced in circumstances where, rightly or wrongly, the Soviet Union assumed that America would not give a nuclear response to a limited attack in Europe.

Nevertheless, it had to be conceded that it was Britain's national interest which provided the fundamental justification for a separately controlled strategic system:

it is the argument of Ultimate Self‐interest – the argument in national terms – which does and should justify, as it always has really justified, our nuclear capability. Without this capability we are absolutely dependent upon the alliance and in the last resort, on the United States' will to provoke her own destruction on our behalf. This is the situation of all other European members of the Alliance, except France. All these arguments presuppose the ultimate ability of the British Government to use the deterrent independently if necessary in defence of vital interests; and it has been our consistent policy even within the Alliance to retain the ability to do so.

Unless or until Europe became a nation it would not be possible to consider the concept of a European deterrent as having any meaning. Only four of its component countries could conceivably develop a credible nuclear capability; but Germany was inhibited from doing so both by the 1954 Paris Agreement and by likely reaction in other capital cities. Italy's Communist Party would thwart any moves there towards acquiring a nuclear capability. This left only France – determinedly standing aloof from NATO – and the United Kingdom, whose vulnerability to conventional attack from a Soviet‐occupied Europe meant that a British threat to use nuclear weapons in defence of her allies might carry more conviction than an American one.

Although it was not believed that nuclear weapons had given the United Kingdom a seat at the ‘top table’ in the previous decade, national prestige would be diminished, ‘particularly in the European Community’, if her nuclear weapons were relinquished:

From this point of view the existence of the French deterrent is a strong political argument for continuing to have a British deterrent. France seeks to make political profit out of her strategic nuclear force and if she were the only European nation with this capability her prestige in Europe and in the Community might be even greater.

There were three central characteristics of a viable strategic deterrent: sufficiency, invulnerability and a belief in the will and determination of its possessor. The first involved the ability to exact a price which any aggressor would be unwilling to pay for the prize he coveted. The second involved awareness that the system would survive pre‐emptive attack, as would its lines of communication and control. Invulnerability must be constant, as arguably an ‘occasional deterrent is more dangerous to the possessor than none at all’. Finally, there could be ‘no justification for maintaining a force which is purely an adjunct to the United States’ deterrent and the use of which is entirely under American control. Our present dependence on the United States for material assistance, and our reliance for intelligence, does not amount to control.’

The main justification for the possession of a nuclear deterrent was to provide the ultimate guarantee of national security and sovereignty and to protect national interests where conventional defences were no longer effective: ‘Without it, the United Kingdom has no means of its own of deterring nuclear attack or large‐scale conventional aggression by a nuclear power, and countering nuclear blackmail. We would view such a situation with the gravest misgivings.’ ¹⁷

Conclusion to Part II: Lessons of the Polaris Experience

Despite the transformation of the international scene since the end of the Cold War, it is hard not to be struck by the similarity of the debates about Polaris then, Trident now, and their respective successor systems. The consistency of the classified military advice given to successive governments, even when these were motivated by unilateralist or Euro‐federalist agendas, is plain to see. Britain's military leadership never doubted the need for a separate nuclear deterrent if the country were to maximise its prospects of countering the threat of strategic nuclear attack or lower‐level nuclear blackmail during a conventional conflict. The question of prestige was only a subordinate factor – less important than the prospect of making the nuclear umbrella in Europe seem a little less threadbare. Regrettably, this did contribute to the commonly held view in NATO that ‘uncertainty’ rather than certainty was central to deterrence. As argued in Part I, it can never be pointed out too often that deterrence increases according to the certainty with which the potential aggressor can expect to incur retaliation. Obviously, it is better for him to be uncertain – rather than certain – that retaliation can be avoided; but better than both by far is his certainty that it cannot.

As the sides square up to each other for the Trident‐successor debate, ¹⁸ one can already see the resurrection of 40‐year‐old arguments that it will not be ‘independent’ and 40‐year‐old manoeuvres to ‘compromise’ by reducing the number of submarines or giving them hybrid roles. The moral arguments have not changed at all, and the only real alteration has been the disappearance (for the time being) of Britain's pre‐eminent, identifiable, nuclear‐armed adversary. The difference between the case for the deterrent in the 1960s and the case for it now is the extent to which the scenario of the past 15 years can be relied upon to persist for the next 50. There is no justification for any such assumption.

Notes

1 CAB 80/94: COS(45)402(0), Future Development in Weapons and Methods of War, 16 June 1945.

2 Letters, Independent, 10 July 2006. In 1983, the author published the then Group Captain Cheshire's lecture, ‘The Error of Pacifism’, for the Coalition for Peace Through Security as one of seven St Lawrence Jewry Talks collectively entitled Peace and the Bomb. It is therefore quite false of an educational website to claim that: ‘After the war, Cheshire … was a member of CND’ (www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWcheshire.htm). In the BBC's ‘Nagasaki–Return Journey’ (1985), Lord Cheshire defended the atomic bombings because ‘they saved more lives than they took’ (www.startrader.co.uk/wed_play/wed_ep_09.htm), and he remained one of the most articulate opponents of unilateral British nuclear disarmament until his death in 1992.

3 PREM 11/4283: Macmillan to Ramsey, 15 July 1963.

4 PREM 11/4283: Ramsey to Macmillan, 25 July 1963.

5 CAB21/2093: 19/10/201, The Basis of Service Estimates, 9 Jan. 1931.

6 DEFE 11/604: COS(JGW) (60)6, 11 July 1960.

7 DEFE 11/604: COS(JGW) (60)9, 8 Nov. 1960.

8 DEFE 32/9: COS 58th Mtg/64 (2) (Confidential Annex) (SSF), 29 Sept. 1964.

9 DEFE 4/175: COS 59th Mtg/64 (3) (Confidential Annex), 6 Oct. 1964.

10 DEFE 4/175: COS Sec Min 2971/2/10/64(Annex A), 2 Oct. 1964, attached to COS 59th Mtg/64 (3) (Confidential Annex), 6 Oct. 1964.

11 DEFE 4/175: COS Sec Min 3033/9/10/64 (Annex), 9 Oct. 1964, attached to COS 60th Mtg/64 (3) (Confidential Annex), 13 Oct. 1964.

12 DEFE 5/4: COS 278/64 (Annex), 14 Oct. 1964.

13 DEFE 5/155: COS 295/64 (Annex A), 29 Oct. 1964.

14 DEFE 32/9: COS(I) 5/11/64 (SSF), 5 Nov. 1964.

15 DEFE 32/9: COS 68th Mtg/64(3) (Confidential Annex) (SSF), 17 Nov. 1964.

16 DEFE 32/21: COS 10th Mtg/71(5) (Confidential Annex) (SSF), 9 March 1971.

17 DEFE 5/192/45: COS 45/72 (Annex A), 25 April 1972.

18 On 14 March 2007, some six months after the completion of this paper, the House of Commons voted by 409 to 161 ‘to take the steps necessary to maintain the UK's minimum strategic nuclear deterrent beyond the life of the existing system’. The size of the Government's majority concealed the fact that the motion was carried only due to the support of the Conservatives, as 87 Labour MPs joined with the Liberal Democrats in opposing it.