U.K. Needs Nuclear Deterrent, Defense Chief Says

The United Kingdom must replace its Trident nuclear missile system in order to ensure it maintains a functioning nuclear deterrent, Defense Secretary Des Browne said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 25).

“While right now there is no nuclear threat, we cannot be sure one will not re-emerge,” he said during a speech at King’s College in London.  “There is no realistic prospect of a world without nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future.”

“Many countries that are trying to acquire nuclear weapons … are in unstable zones that will become more unstable in the future,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse.

The British government says its four Trident nuclear submarines will reach the end of their life spans around 2025.  The nuclear warheads themselves would remain usable until 2042, AFP reported.

“The question is, given that this power exists, is it wrong for us to have it, to deter others from using it against us?” Browne said (Agence France-Presse, Jan. 25).

Browne said British nuclear weapons “should not be used for anything other than deterring extreme threats to our national security,” the Financial Times reported.  That means using them for self-defense or in defense of allies, and only during a major crisis, he indicated.  That does not rule out first use of nuclear weapons, according to the Times (Stephen Fidler, Financial Times, Jan. 26).

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