Replacing Trident: Pro-nuclear answers questioned

I write this on 18 July 2016, when the UK parliament is discussing and is about to vote upon whether to replace our Trident nuclear deterrent. I am not at all interested in waiting for the result, which is a forgone conclusion that Parliament will vote in favour of renewal. I am fully aware that the government has called this vote today to embarrass Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is against renewal, whilst the majority of his MPs are in favour of renewal. I have no doubt that it is also intended to attempt to humiliate the 56 SNP MPs, who will all vote against renewal. It of course will not humiliate the SNP; as Trident is based in Scottish waters, vastly against the wishes of the majority of Scots, it will only bolster calls for independence.

Rather this article seeks to look at some of the main arguments for retaining nuclear weapons, and showing just how facile they are.

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The balance of terror maintains peace through the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). As long as both parties have nuclear weapons, the threat of annihilation outweighs any advantage of attack.

No, it never has and never will. The 'cold war' started when the USSR gained nuclear capability in 1951, and since then the two superpowers, Russia and the USA, have developed and built up massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons, as have China and the UK. These nations have been almost constantly involved in armed conflict somewhere in the world ever since. Often these conflicts have been against allies of one country opposed to the other. Nuclear weapons did not stop the Korean War, Suez, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the US invasion of the UK dependency of Grenada, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the first and second Iraq Wars, the Russian invasion of Crimea. Neither have they stopped US and Russian adventurism and flexing their muscles in theatres of opposing powers.

Besides which, the counterbalance argument is self-defeating, for if it can be argued that nuclear weapons ensure peace, then it could equally be strongly argued that every country in the world should have them.

Nuclear weapons protect us from emergent threats of other countries gaining nuclear weapons.

Whenever this line is played out, the nations mentioned tend to be Iran and North Korea. In fact, Iran continually told the west that their nuclear programme was purely civil, with no military capability. US intelligence, Israeli intelligence, the International Atomic Energy Authority, and the EU all came to the same conclusions; Iraq does not have nuclear weapons, is not developing nuclear weapons, and there is no evidence to suggest they may develop nuclear weapons in the first place.

As to North Korea, they are the masters of kidology, and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that they have ever test fired one nuclear device; the readings on seismographs worldwide have never shown a nuclear “signature” from their alleged test fires.

But even if these nations did develop nuclear weapons, that would only be part of them becoming a threat to the UK. They would then have to develop means of delivery, which would mean building intercontinental ballistic missile technology. Not only do neither Iran nor North Korea possess such technology, but North Korea's missile technology is desirable. They have had so many misfires that North Korea purposely test-fires missiles by the coast, so that if they do go wrong, they will safely fall into the sea. And even if North Korea could develop decent missiles, they would still be out of range of the UK, and most of the USA for that matter.

The west, particularly the USA and the UK, are more than happy to play the game of kidology with Iran and North Korea, to justify them keeping their own nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons protect us from terrorist attack.

This is just a downright and utter lie.

On 9 September 2001 the most devastating terrorist attack in history took place against the USA, when four airliners were hijacked by terrorists carrying bolt cutters. It was an extremely low-tech attack, which cost 2996 lives, against the one nation with the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Since then there have been international terrorist attacks in the UK and in France, both of whom have nuclear weapons. In all three countries weapons of mass destruction were useless, for there was simply no legitimate attack to reply to.

Even if internationalist terrorists developed and exploded a nuclear weapon in a country with nuclear capability, who could they respond to? If the terrorists were allied to ISIL, would the response then be to launch a nuclear strike upon Iraq and / or Syria, killing millions of innocents and despite the official governments of those countries not actually having any part in the terrorist attack? And if so, then nuclear weapons fail to be a deterrent and would become an offensive attack weapon.

Nuclear weapons cannot deter terrorist attack for the simple fact there is no legitimate target to respond to. They have not deterred terrorist attacks, they are not doing so, and if it has happened once, it can happen again.

We can only disarm when other countries disarm.

This is the argument of the arms race. And the trouble is that under arms races countries tend not to disarm. Quite the opposite, they tend to increase their firepower, then give the excuse they had to because their 'enemy' is increasing theirs (often a lie). And so it continues in an ever-increasing spiral, with both sides bristling at each other, until that escalates into all-out war. The balance of terror is the only arms race in history which has not ended in war – yet.

And this argument of course completely destroys the arguments against needing nuclear weapons against emergent threats and terrorists, for they have little or nothing to disarm, yet we already have a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons to counter them with. Who then is being the aggressor?

On the international stage, if we are to rely upon a multilateral approach to disarmament, then someone has to take the first step; that is how detente works. It has in fact already worked. With the fall of Communism in the USSR, Russian SS20 missiles were withdrawn from eastern Europe, and US-controlled ground-launched Cruise missiles were withdrawn from western Europe in return. But it is wholly reliant upon one side taking the first step. So long as the UK digs her heels in and remains wholly recalcitrant about even reducing our nuclear capability, we merely make the world a much more dangerous place.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step.” (Lao Tzu)

Nuclear weapons protect our way of life.

What way of life? People queueing at foodbanks, millions – including children – living below the poverty line, thousands homeless, people on benefits dying and committing suicide when those benefits are cut, 20% of school leavers illiterate and / or without basic number skills. Oh, but others say, think of our freedoms. What freedoms? We are gradually eroding our freedoms in the name of defence. The UK has the highest incidence of CCTV cameras in public places in the world, and pretty soon everything you browse and everything you post online shall be subject to government scrutiny.

Democratic government, freedom of speech and freedom of expression are likewise not reliant upon nuclear weapons. The vast majority of countries which enjoy these freedoms do not have nuclear weapons. I don't see Japan, Australia and New Zealand, potentially targets of a Chinese attack, being in any hurry to adopt nuclear weapons, yet all have democracy and among the best human rights records and standards of living in the world.

We need nuclear weapons to be a member of NATO.

No, we seriously do not. There are 28 member states of NATO. Of those only three, the USA, the UK, and France, possess nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons guarantee the UK a place on the UN Security Council.

The UK is in the permanent members of the UN Security Council, the other four being the USA, the Russian Federation, China, and France. There are however another ten non-permanent members of the Council. There is no reason why the UK could not join the non-permanent members, and due to UK prestige in the world, we would permanently be there. Besides, having nuclear weapons are not the sole criteria for being a permanent member and UK prestige could very well keep us there.

There are thousands of defence jobs reliant upon our nuclear deterrent.

Actually, a freedom of information request by Scottish CND in 2014 proved that a mere 528 jobs were reliant upon the Trident base at Faslane. But even if one takes into consideration those indirectly affected, consider that there are thousands of more jobs in the UK which are reliant upon the work of the National Health Service. Therefore those using the jobs argument could just as easily say that those health jobs, and those indirectly affected, are reliant upon heart disease, cancer, AIDS, etc. Would they then try to argue that we need to retain these killers to retain jobs?

Add into this that over-reliance upon missile technology has for decades seen cuts in defence in other places, so nuclear weapons far from retaining and creating employment is actually costing defence jobs. The abandoned MoD bases across Scotland and elsewhere in the UK are testament to that fact. Ask the local in Edzell, Lossiemouth, Leuchars, Kirkliston, etc., how much they have benefited from reliance upon nuclear weapons. Or better still, go ask veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq who had to buy their own boots, because British Army boots were so shoddy that the soles were melting off them. Not only does nuclear over-reliance cost jobs, it indirectly has cost the lives of UK service personnel.

Nuclear weapons prevent proliferation.

Give me strength. This has got to be the daftest argument yet. The argument goes that if larger countries have nuclear weapons it will deter other countries from developing them, or if smaller countries are under the “nuclear umbrella” of NATO, the Russian Federation, or China, they will see no need to develop nuclear weapons.

Cough! Cough! Bullshit! Cough!

After the USA developed the atomic bomb, then thermonuclear weapons, the USSR were not far behind. Then the UK joined the nuclear club, then China, then France. In 1974 India test-fired it's first nuclear weapon, but the USSR stepped in and agreed to help India develop civil nuclear power in return for them not building nuclear weapons. In 1979 a US-Vela satellite picked up a double flash of a nuclear explosion in the South Atlantic Ocean – a joint South African / Israeli test fire. South Africa actually built six atomic bombs, which were dismantled after the fall of the Apartheid regime. Since then India and Pakistan have joined the official nuclear club, while Israel almost certainly has nuclear capability.

The countries involved have all been signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which dates back to Ike Eisenhower's “Atoms for Peace” movement of the 1950s. Under the NPT signatories get help developing civil nuclear power programmes in return for agreeing not to develop nuclear weapons. The NP T is a complete paper tiger, and it was only by being a signatory that India was able to get reactors capable of enriching uranium to fissile material for their 1974 test-fire, just as it helped South Africa develop the same capability.

I love the lies on the World Nuclear Association website, which states “The international safeguards system has since 1970 successfully prevented the diversion of fissile materials into weapons.” Were that in any way true, there simply would not be so many countries in the nuclear club today.

Bottom line; the “big five” having nuclear weapons does not prevent nuclear proliferation, history has proven that it makes it all the more likely.

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So really why does the UK have nuclear weapons? Well, it's simply a matter of prestige, and as great as he was in other things, we have a Labour statesman to blame for that. Aneurin Bevan was the architect of the National Health Service. He was a diehard socialist who despised the extremes of capitalism and the ills it created. In 1957 he shocked the Labour Party Conference when he made a statement on unilateral nuclear disarmament; “ It is the most difficult of all problems facing mankind. But if you carry this resolution and follow out all its implications — and do not run away from it — you will send a British Foreign Secretary, whoever he may be, naked into the conference chamber. ... And you call that statesmanship? I call it an emotional spasm.”

I'm afraid if anyone was having an emotional spasm, it was Nye Bevan, for it was he looked to the diplomatic advantages of having nuclear weapons, without weighing up the disadvantages. And ever since then it has been the same old story. If anyone thinks that the Russian Federation, or anyone else is at all threatened by the UK's nuclear capability, which is absolutely puny compared to theirs, then they are kidding themselves. Having nuclear weapons does however bring world prestige. Look at how nobody paid India and Pakistan much attention nor treated them seriously until they developed nuclear weapons. Now the developed countries are falling over each other to be friends with them.

We have sold the family silver in the UK, thrown away education, thrown away childcare, thrown away healthcare, thrown away our rights, thrown away jobs, thrown away benefits, even thrown away the lives of people on benefits and armed forces personnel, all in order to join the other big boys behind the bike shed showing off that we've got a big willy as well.

And all for what? For a weapon without a target, a weapon which as it cannot differentiate between military and civilian targets is actually illegal under international law, and if it were ever used, could only ever be in an offensive attack, or in a petty act of retaliation, which would kill millions of innocents, purely because innocents had been killed here.

That's not deterrence, it is pure insanity.