Whither Trident?
Big debate in a small room at
House of Commons
On
22nd January a seminar was held in Committee Room 10 at the House of
Commons by Progress, an organisation of Labour party members set up to
discuss key issues of the 21st century, to debate the
future of Britain’s weapon of mass destruction.
The four speakers were Des Brown, Defence Secretary, Rebecca Johnson of
the Acronym Institute, Lee Willett from the Royal
United Services Institute, and John Kampfner, editor of New Statesman.
Des Brown opened proceedings. He said that when he joined the Labour party
unilateralism was party policy, and it was perceived as a ‘tactic’. He did not explain how a tactic differed from
a policy, but presumably he saw unilateralism as a means of getting to
multilateral agreement, a condition we would all like to see. He stood by the recent government White Paper
on renewing Trident, saying that he ‘went over carefully every single
word’. He defended the executive’s clear
recommendation contained in the White Paper to renew Trident by saying that ‘we
are the government, and must have a position’.
By ‘we’ he must have meant the executive, which he evidently equated
with the whole government. He went on to
state flatly that ‘maintaining a deterrent is crucial’, that ‘deterrence
works’, and also that ‘the decision can’t wait’.
‘In
this uncertain world’ the future being unpredictable, you never knew who your
enemies might be.
He
claimed that ordering new nuclear weapons was ‘entirely in line’ with the
NPT. He ‘does not believe’ that our
example will influence the actions of other nations.
Rebecca Johnson, from the Acronym Institute, spoke next. She noted that speaking of ‘the deterrent’
was a linguistic device which conferred on nuclear weapons the virtue of
protecting us, assuming something that was still to be proved. Cold War platitudes were still in use today. Talk of keeping nuclear weapons as ‘an
insurance policy’ was sloppy. An
insurance policy was something that was compensatory, not preventative.
The
security case for nuclear weapons had not been made. Talk of ‘unilateral’ and ‘multilateral’ had been
sterile in the ’80s, and was no good at all now.
They
were not ‘cost free’, in several ways.
Just when we are trying to get non-proliferation on the agenda, we
should not be updating our own
The
rush to decide on Trident’s future is ‘artificial’, and is aimed at tying the
hands of Blair’s successor. [1][1]
Lee Willett of Royal United Services Institute spoke next.
He asked, ‘What is
John Kampfner ended the debate. He started by declaring that no military case had been made for
Trident. The decision to renew had
evidently already been taken, and had been dictated by politics. A debate had been promised, but it would be
cursory, and ‘parliament is going through the motions’. As for real costs, these invariably far
exceed original estimates.
The
rationale for the new
The
debate ended with several questions from the floor, but time was short, and the
meeting ended quickly.
[1][1] See Worse than
irrelevant? British
nuclear weapons in the 21st
century. Dr Rebecca Johnson, Nicola Butler, and Dr
Pullinger Published by Acronym
Institute for Disarmament and Diplomacy.
ISBN 0-9554638-0-7
Phone 7503 8857 Or read
it on line.
Harry Davis