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UK has no need for nuclear weapons, says former army chiefs

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Jan 16, IRNA – The claim that Britain’s nuclear weapons are still vital to the security of the country is a “fallacy,” according to three former military chiefs.

“Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently, or are likely to, face — particularly international terrorism,” the British army leaders said.

In a letter to the Times newspaper Friday, former Chief of Defence Staff, Field Marshal Lord Bramall, General Lord Ramsbotham and General Sir Hugh Beach added their voice to the growing campaign for a world free of nuclear weapons.

“It is difficult to see how the United Kingdom can exert any leadership and influence on this issue if we insist on a costly successor to Trident,” the letter said, in reference to the government’s plans to upgrade its submarine-based nuclear missiles.

The replacement, it warned, “would not only preserve our own nuclear-power status well into the second half of this century but might actively encourage others to believe that nuclear weapons were still, somehow, vital to the secure defence of self-respecting nations.”

“This is a fallacy which can best be illustrated by analysis of the British so-called independent deterrent,” the military chiefts said, referring to Britain’s nuclear capability relying on the US.

“While this country has, in theory, freedom of action over giving the order to fire, it is unthinkable that, because of the catastrophic consequences for guilty and innocent alike, these weapons would ever be launched, or seriously threatened, without the backing and support of the United States,” they said.

Their letter also asked that if ever the UK becomes subject to some sort of nuclear blackmail — from a terrorist group for example — “what way, and against whom, our nuclear weapons could be used, or even threatened, to deter or punish.”

“Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently, or are likely to, face — particularly international terrorism; and the more you analyse them the more unusable they appear,” it said.

The military chiefs believed that Britain’s nuclear deterrent had become “virtually irrelevant except in the context of domestic politics.”

“Rather than perpetuating Trident, the case is much stronger for funding our Armed Forces with what they need to meet the commitments actually laid upon them. In the present economic climate it may well prove impossible to afford both,” they argued.

The campaign for a nuclear-free world was originally revived by several US statesmen and has received support from former British foreign and defence secretaries.