British Parliament Approves Trident Plan

The British House of Commons yesterday voted 409-161 in favor of the government’s plan to replace its fleet of submarines carrying nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, the Los Angeles Times reported (see GSN, March 14).

Prime Minister Tony Blair needed support from the opposition Conservative Party, after members of his Labor Party came out strongly against the proposal.

“With the end of the Cold War, it was understandably hoped that the role of nuclear weapons in shaping the international system might become less relevant. … But unfortunately, they still have a major relevance,” said Conservative Party lawmaker William Hague.  “The abandonment of our nuclear deterrent would be extraordinarily ill-advised, and indeed an act of national folly.”

More than 85 Labor Party MPs voted against the submarine replacements, and four lawmakers resigned their government posts in protest.

“If the argument is made that the future is uncertain, what right does anyone have to say that Iran should not get a nuclear weapon?  If Iran gets a weapon, Saudi Arabia will want one, as will Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and perhaps even the Gulf States,” said former Cabinet member Clare Short.  “There will be a very dangerous proliferation in the most unstable region in the world.”

The United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons are deployed only on four Vanguard-class submarines, which are scheduled to end their service lives in less than two decades.  The government would need no less than 17 years to build three or four replacement vessels, the Times reported.

The number of operational British nuclear weapons would be reduced by 20 percent this year, to fewer than 160, under the plan.

“Since the Cold War ended, we have withdrawn and dismantled our tactical maritime and airborne nuclear capabilities.  We have terminated our nuclear-capable Lance missiles and artillery.  We have the smallest nuclear capability of any recognized nuclear weapon state, accounting for less than 1 percent of the global inventory,” said Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett.

Alongside its submarine replacement plan, Downing Street is also seeking to collaborate with the United States on a project extending the service life of D5 Trident missiles through the 2040s (Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, March 15).

The London Guardian reported yesterday that the United Kingdom has already started upgrading its Trident missiles by installing a firing device that would allow for changes in the power, impact and radioactive fallout of the weapon based on the target.

“The bottom line is that the new (device), which we now know is being added to the British system, is part of an effort to increase the warfighting effectiveness” of the Trident D5 missiles, said Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project (Richard Norton-Taylor, London Guardian, March 14).

Defense Secretary Des Browne told the BBC the replacement fuse “reported to the (Parliament’s) Select Committee in 2005 and is not an upgrading of the system; it is merely making sure that the system works to its maximum efficiency,” the federation said.

Kristensen said Browne was “either being ignorant or economical with the truth” (Federation of American Scientists release, March 14).

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