This article is based on one previously published by Commander Rob Forsyth, Royal Navy in the February 2016 issue of The Naval Review. Commander Forsyth argues that, far from being 'independent and keeping us safe' as claimed, the cost of Trident and its replacement is making UK less safe by crippling our military capability.
TRIDENT - IS IT KEEPING US SAFE?
The 2015 election failed to stimulate any debate on defence at all, never mind the nuclear deterrent (stand fast the SNP); the general public is blindly and trustingly accepting the Government's policy without access to the full facts. As Executive Officer of a Polaris submarine in the 1970's I concurred with the then government policy of Mutually Assured Destruction - because I was confident that it would only ever be fired as a second-strike retaliation should the USSR fire at us first. The balance of opinion amongst 'The Trade' – although not held by all - was that the Polaris Force was an expensive insurance policy which we were unlikely to use but was necessary. However, significantly, we also had the resources to send a Task Force to the South Atlantic in 1982 and later, in 1991, to make a significant contribution to the invasion of Iraq.
Fortunately, although the USSR's stated ambition was of world domination by any means, its leaders were sensible enough to calculate the odds and either backed off or never had the intention of launching a major nuclear missile attack in the first place. We will never know for sure. Well-informed opinion now tends towards the latter.
On 24 March 2002 Geoff Hoon, the then Defence Secretary, stated in a BBC interview that the UK was prepared to use nuclear weapons against 'rogue states' such as Iraq if they ever used weapons of mass destruction against British troops in the field; the implication being that the second-strike policy still remained the status quo. He also added some very significant words: 'What I cannot be absolutely confident about is whether or not that would be sufficient to deter them from using a weapon of mass destruction in the first place.' A Government policy paper of 8 May 2015 stated: 'We will not rule in or out the first use of nuclear weapons' which indicated that a pre-emptive nuclear weapon strike had now become an option.
There has been no significant challenge to this major shift in policy even though a single missile with a single 100Kt warhead, euphemistically called a 'sub-strategic missile although its destructive power is equivalent to approximately six Hiroshima bombs - exceeds international humanitarian law, never mind a salvo of 16 missiles each with multiple warheads. This has been accomplished with no public debate about the perceived threats nor has there been any discussion about the devastating effect that even one missile could cause. In consequence much of the electorate blindly trust the good judgement of Government on an issue every bit as important as whether we should stay in the European Union.
One can assume that firing 16 missiles with a maximum warhead payload would only be used in a retaliatory Cold War MAD type situation. Happily no such threat exists. Even President Putin, and his expansionist policy, has no aspiration for a world war because he also is a man who can calculate the odds, as did his predecessors. Maintaining the ability to deliver a MAD-level response is keeping the capability alive just in case a superpower ever emerges with such aspirations. ........................................ this is an extract from Commander Forsyth's full article published next week in Warship World Jul/Aug edition. In the Sep/Oct edition we will be publishing a response by Rear Admiral John Gower. To read more subscribe to Warship World, six magazines a year published by NavyBooks.
