Fund MoD on today's threats, not the ghosts of yesterday

When Tony Blair announced in 2006 the then government’s decision to replace the existing fleet of four Trident nuclear submarines there were few who challenged this £15-20bn commitment either within his own party or amongst the opposition led by David Cameron. Four years later this decision is beginning to be revisited driven mainly by the financial predicament in which the UK finds itself. In David Cameron’s absence, the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has queried whether the UK could justify the replacement of the current fleet of Trident nuclear armed submarines whilst simultaneously significantly cutting the benefits given to the poor as part of the government’s debt reduction programme.

The problem for the government is twofold. Firstly, the annual interest payments on Britain’s debt will rise to £46bn next year and potentially reach more than £70bn within two years, i.e. almost double the current defence budget of £37bn. The situation will get far worse if the deficit is not tackled or if the UK has its current credit rating downgraded. The defence budget, like much of government spending, is therefore set to be subjected to a significant reduction as the government tries to reconcile expenditure with revenue.

Secondly, it has inherited a situation in which the defence budget is out of control; according to Liam Fox there is £37bn of unfunded expenditure over the next ten years.

Moreover, the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) corporate memory appears to have failed with an assumption made that the Trident replacement would be provided by a special Treasury reserve. As the chancellor George Osborne has made clear, the Treasury has not agreed to such an unusual move and it fully expects the MoD to follow historical practice and pay for the capital part of the nuclear replacement from its existing budget.

As a result, the MoD overspend has moved from £37bn to somewhere between £47-57bn over the next ten years before any reductions are made to planned defence spending. Such a sum equates to almost the entire budget for equipment of approximately £6bn per year for the next decade.

As a result, we are likely to witness significant reductions in Britain’s conventional force capabilities judging by the various press leaks that have already begun to circulate. If the Trident replacement decision is implemented in whatever form then these cutbacks are likely to be far greater and thus run contrary to Liam Fox’s pre-election pledge that the Trident replacement programme would have no effect on Britain’s conventional forces. The time is therefore apposite to reflect on whether the UK still needs to retain a nuclear capability, and if so, in what form and for what purpose.

The UK began its first military nuclear programme during World War II, subsequently merged with the American effort resulting in the development of the bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945. When the US Congress subsequently brought this co-operation to an end in 1946 the Attlee government embarked on an independent programme despite the parlous state of the nation’s finances.  

This action was taken for two principal reasons. Firstly, to provide a deterrent against the perceived threat posed by the Soviet Union. The experience of the Battle for France in May 1940 was still fresh and the Attlee government recognised that ultimately no nation would commit suicide for another (no more fighter squadrons to France). This led successive British governments to develop and maintain the so-called ‘Moscow Criteria’ — the ability to destroy the Soviet leadership and the Soviet Union by targeting a number of its cities — which the current Trident force was bought to undertake.

The problem for the current government is that the ‘Moscow criteria’ no longer appears relevant given the demise of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. Instead, Liam Fox has identified North Korea, Iran or a terrorist group using or threatening to use such weapons as the principal rationale for retaining the nuclear deterrent.

In all three cases the ‘Moscow criteria’ are irrelevant. As far as North Korea is concerned China, Japan, South Korea and the US are the important players, with the UK way down any North Korean target list. So it is too with Iran: Israel, the Gulf States and the United States are significant, with the UK of only marginal importance.

In terms of the terrorist threat, traditional deterrence is not a practical option simply because the likes of al Qaeda have no territory to threaten. The idea that you deter any state from providing such a capability to a terrorist group by threatening them is fraught with problems. Proving such a link and then using nuclear weapons against the people for the actions of their leaders is hard to envisage. There is, therefore, a basic question about what military benefit there is from the possession of such a capability.

Secondly, the possession of a nuclear capability was seen as an important status symbol. In the late 1940s, nuclear technology was cutting-edge and reflected a level of technological advancement that few states could master. If Britain were to remain a ‘world power’, as many expected, then such capabilities would be necessary.

But retaining a nuclear capability for reasons of status encourages nuclear proliferation not disarmament — Iran’s argument about its developing ‘civilian’ nuclear programme revolves around the status issue and so it is in the UK’s interests to downplay the status issue now.  

Some commentators have suggested that the UK’s position as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council could be questioned if it were to relinquish such a capability. The reality is that the UK will retain its seat until it decides otherwise simply because it has the power of veto.

So what is the way forward? It is time for the UK to decide whether there are any net benefits to retaining some form of nuclear capability. In doing so it needs to reflect on what the various options are, what levels of risk it is prepared to take and the relative cost in terms of other aspects of defence and wider government spending of maintaining such a capability. The question is whether a Conservative led coalition is capable of having such an honest debate or whether avoiding such an issue is worth the £15-20bn price tag.

In the end it might simply be a question of political legacy — do Liam Fox and David Cameron want to be remembered as those who got rid of the British nuclear deterrent? Whatever the Cameron government decides, it needs to make that decision sooner rather than later because of the time needed to build any replacement system.

Dr Andrew Dorman is senior lecturer in the defence studies department, King’s College London, based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College.  His views do not necessarily represent those of the Joint Services Command & Staff College, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence or any other government agency.