Examination of witnesses (Questions 20-39)
MR MICHAEL
CODNER, DR
KATE HUDSON,
DR REBECCA
JOHNSON, MR
DAN PLESCH,
SIR MICHAEL
QUINLAN AND
DR LEE
WILLETT
14 MARCH 2006
Q20 John Smith: A little bit more
crystal ball-gazing: what about emerging nuclear threats? Speculation:
what sorts of scenarios could you envisage in terms of future
threats to this country within the time frame of this decision?
Mr Plesch: Clearly, there is the
concern, as Dr Willett said, that a lot of countries who have
a latent capability may, as proliferation increases, turn their
latent capability into real weapons: Japan, Germany, South Korea,
Egypt, to name but four. Lee Willett mentioned the word "Utopia".
My perspective, and that of many people, is that what is truly
Utopian is to think that we can have a world with multiple nuclear
powers in the 21st century and not have a nuclear war. That, to
my mind, is the real Utopian view.
Dr Willett: I totally agree with
Dan, because these nations have their own reasons for having that
capability. Perhaps one of the serious risks is us getting dragged
into somebody else's conflict rather than necessarily a direct
threat to us. The obvious melting pot there is the Middle East
and the numbers of countries that are looking to get a nuclear
capability there. As Dan rightly mentioned, that number of potential
nuclear powers does leave you with the scenario, particularly
when you look at those powers' reasons for having that capability,
where nuclear war may be more likely, and while you need to have
a mature approach to arms control, that in itself is a reason
for retaining deterrence in whatever form it be: conventional,
political or strategic nuclear.
Ms Hudson: The country which the
United States appears to have identified as a potential nuclear
superpower rival is of course China. This was gone into in some
detail recently in February's quadrennial defence review from
the US Defense Department. In terms of the 15-20 year time frame
which Dr Reid referred to in September, obviously, there is cause
for concern around that because of the very rapid economic development
that China is currently undergoing. It is precisely to try and
avoid the onset of a nuclear arms race with a nation like China
that we believe that it is more appropriate to begin to engage
in the kind of multilateral disarmament negotiations foreseen
in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as long as 30 years ago.
We need to be aware of that but we need to know the current situation
of China, which is, of course, that they have round about 400
nuclear weapons, whereas the United States, for example, has over
10,000. So to start now to begin the process of preventing a nuclear
arms race taking place would be more appropriate than to start
now to prepare for a nuclear arms race with a nation such as China.
Really, that needs to be considered too.
Q21 Robert Key: Should we be paying
more attention to the emergence of new threats arising from climate
change, such as water shortages, energy crises, pollution crises,
shortage of rare minerals and so on?
Dr Johnson: Yes, I clearly think
that we have to have a much more diversified concept of both security
and the challenges to our security here in the 21st century. We
really cannot keep thinking about it purely in military terms.
Those are 19th century. The nuclear weapon is a 20th century instrument.
Actually, we need to be prepared to put the nuclear weapon into
history and start working in a much more co-operative collective
security approach to deal with these real security threats, which
include trans-boundary threats such as pandemics, either naturally
caused like Avian Flu or indeed bio-weapon caused. Nuclear weapons
are not only not going to help us on that, but actually hinder
us, and that is, I think, a crucial problem that we have to get
to grips with.
Dr Willett: Just a small pointer
to follow up on the nuclear weapons aspect of the last question.
The key point is that no-one else, in my understanding, appears
to be having this debate about reducing or getting rid of the
capability. The Americans may be reducing the size of their inventory
because of affordability issues over certain legs of the triad
but nobody else of established nuclear powers is looking to reduce
their capability, looking to get out of the game, and of course,
there are all those that are looking to get in. There may be the
likes of Libya and South Africa that have backed away from it
but the key point is that no-one else is getting out of the game,
and we are having this debate about getting out, and my humble
view would be that the other nuclear powers, if we did make the
decision to abolish, would pat us on the head and say, "Well
done, boys. Good on you for taking the lead," but then turn
their attention back to the politics of the real world.
Q22 Chairman: We are still dealing
with the threats that are going to face us in the next decades.
Mr Plesch: We come back to the
point about whether a threat comes from individual countries or
also comes from a situation of a proliferated world. It is always
very easy to think that this proliferation is inevitable. Take
the case of China. CND just said 400 warheads. If you look at
the evidence of the Defence Intelligence Agency Director to the
Senate last month, they put the Chinese number at "more than
100", that is, half of the UK number. It is very easy to
get carried away thinking that there are these build-ups going
on. We know the number of countries which have not taken a political
decision to go nuclear which could. We know the South Africans
did not and we know that a great many countries do, in a sense,
adhere to Einstein's precept, which is that nuclear weapons have
changed everything except the way we think, and that we hold our
security in common, first of all, on the nuclear issue and now,
increasingly, on these other issues, and that the critical task
for us is to work out how we hold our security in common.
Sir Michael Quinlan: In response
to the question that was asked a moment ago, could I say that
there are many threats to us in the world and I certainly would
not put those with which nuclear weapons might help us at the
top. That is not to say that there are no threats with which nuclear
weapons might help us. Second point: the mid-point in the life
of any likely Trident successor would be, I suppose, 2035-40.
It seems to me simply impossible to say what might be the problems
then. We would not have done very well in 1970 in describing the
situation today, and therefore I think the search for some specific
scenario is almost certainly misleading. Third point, of a quite
different kind: there have been a number of figures mentioned
by my colleagues here as though they were fact, which are speculation,
in one or two cases bad speculation. I do not want to take up
the Committee's time by traversing them but I hope that not all
the figures which have been produced are taken as gospel.
Mr Codner: In response to Robert
Key's question, and just expanding on what others have said, yes,
of course, these are all very serious issues for now and for the
longer term,, and the United Kingdom needs to take part in addressing
them. The question, taking the military example—and I separate
military example from the deterrent for many of the reasons that
people have given—is to what extent will there still be
a requirement to have military capability and for the United Kingdom
to have that? That is one question, and the second one is, to
what extent should Britain's contribution to security in any context,
whether it is within the context of Europe or globally or whatever,
perhaps lean on defence, which is something that we are held to
be rather good at? If you take that same argument and look at
the nuclear deterrent, you could say that where there are threats
for which the nuclear deterrent would be relevant, to what extent
should the United Kingdom, which has this capability, be the nation
or one of the nations contributing that? In that case, I am looking
very much at the European context.
Q23 Linda Gilroy: I am interested
in hearing a little bit more about the relationship between climate
change, whatever the outcome of our own energy review is, and
the industrial development in other parts of the world will mean
countries turning in increasing numbers to nuclear energy to fuel
their own development. What are the relationships—I think
Dr Willett touched on it—between those countries that have
nuclear energy capability, what are the security impacts which
arise from that type of proliferation, and attached to that, are
there any lessons to learn from the sort of security framework
which the United Nations Security Council has operated for the
past 50 years or so, because it has been a great deal more successful,
I think, than people probably expected it to be when it came in
in terms of keeping the lid on proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Dr Johnson: There is a real problem
with nuclear energy, which is that it gives you the technologies
and the capabilities that can fairly easily then be transposed
into nuclear weapons, and that is a contradiction at the heart
of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and indeed at the heart
of the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency. There
is no getting away from that. I actually think that Jonathan Porritt's
study, which showed the alternatives as being a much more useful
and effective way forward for Britain to meet its energy needs,
could be multiplied by 10 for many of the other countries. Where
countries already have a nuclear energy dependence, unless they
have a political debate, the likelihood is that they will reinforce
that. I am thinking about countries like Japan and France. But
in fact, nuclear energy is not an easy technology for developing
countries to get into in such a way as to make it cost-effective
at all. It is highly expensive and the returns are rather low.
Chairman: Dr Johnson, can I stop you
there, because I want to come on to nuclear energy right at the
end of the session. We will come back to that.
Q24 Linda Gilroy: It was really the
relationship with the threat and containing the threat, because
I think you mentioned 35 or 36 countries, Dr Willett, and I take
it those are nuclear-energy capable countries that you are talking
about. What are the risks that are already attached to them, not
the ones that might emerge, and how do we create a security framework
which answers that particular challenge?
Dr Willett: All I would say to
clarify my point was that my understanding is that it is 35 nations
which have the knowledge to create nuclear weapons, and the obvious
example at the moment, if you are talking about not guessing,
for an interesting look at the relationship between nuclear energy
programmes and potential nuclear weapons programmes is Iran, and
asking yourself really, despite all the rhetoric, what is Iran's
real intent? Is it an energy programme or is it something more
than that? That is a question that needs to be discussed in public,
in my view, because there is too much acceptance that it is just
an energy programme.
Chairman: It would help us if you could
provide us with a memorandum of which those 35 countries were.
I should be grateful for that.[3]
Mr Hancock: I happen to agree with Sir
Michael that it is impossible to predict 30 years on what the
threats are, but our inquiry is headed "Inquiry into the
future of the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent." I would
be interested in a one-line answer from all of you. Is there a
future for the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent? If you cannot
predict the threat we are hoping to deal with, is it effective
to have a deterrent when you do not know if you have a threat
to deter it with?
Chairman: That is a rather large question
for a one-line answer.
Mr Hancock: It is the question that leads
out of what we have just heard from everyone who has contributed
so far, and I think it is the fundamental question for the debate
to start off with.
Q25 Chairman: It may be a fundamental
question for the debate to end up with. Let us try.
Mr Plesch: As you know, my view
is that the historical record and documentary evidence shows that
for some considerable time this country has effectively not had
an independent strategic nuclear deterrent. We are getting on
to this later but that is my one-sentence answer to your question.
Dr Willett: My one-sentence answer
would be: can we with 100% certainty say that in the next 50 years
one nation with one missile with one warhead will not try to threaten
us with it?
Mr Codner: My view is that it
relates very much to this business of independence and dependence.
It is very much a matter of where the nation thinks it is going
to be going in the longer term and its own perception of itself,
but at the end of the day, if a more independent deterrent is
not affordable, then I wonder why we want to go down that route.
Sir Michael Quinlan: Life does
not come with 100% certainties in either direction, but insurance
policies are related to things that may or may not happen. The
hard question is: how much is it worth? I am not an absolutist
on this question at all. I would want to know how much it is going
to cost.
Ms Hudson: The current threats
that we face cannot be deterred by nuclear weapons, as we tragically
saw last summer and as, of course, the United States experienced
on 9-11. Future threats or potential future threats I believe
could be averted by pursuing a different policy, which would be
to de-escalate the current nuclear tensions.
Dr Johnson: I think deterrence
is actually a bit like voodoo medicine. If you believe in it,
it gives you a bit of reassurance, until it is tested and it fails,
at which point it is far too late to discover that it was not
actually helping you at all.
Q26 Chairman: You suggest in your
memorandum that voodoo medicine can be fatal.[4]
Dr Johnson: It can, because it
can distract you from addressing the real illness you have and
taking the correct kind of medicine that might help you. I went
off on the energy track, but there is a key question on the security
framework to respond to your question about Iran and other countries
with nuclear energy that I think we do have to address here, and
that is that the IAEA, Dr ElBaradei, has determined that plutonium
and highly enriched uranium are not necessary in the nuclear energy
economy at all, and yet British policies, partly because of our
dependence on Sellafield, yet again are actually impeding our
ability to get an international consensus on at least taking those
bomb materials, the essential materials to make nuclear bombs
out of the nuclear energy cycle.
Q27 Mr Holloway: I have a lot of
sympathy with what Dr Johnson says about military threats being
problems that were not dealt with earlier, but given that we cannot
know where we are going to be in 30 or 40 years' time, can I just
ask the two former vice chairmen of CND, Mr Plesch and Dr Johnson,
can they see any circumstances where Britain could require its
own independent nuclear weapon over the next 30 or 40 years?
Dr Johnson: No. Let me explain.
In a worst case scenario that the Government identifies, a terrorist
with a weapon of mass destruction, imagine even a nuclear weapon
use in that appalling scenario. Having nuclear weapons even Prime
Minister Tony Blair says does not deter terrorists, so you are
reduced to retaliation. Question mark: against whom? This is where
we are crucially different from the Cold War scenario . . .
Q28 Chairman: I think the answer
is "no", is it?
Dr Johnson: . . . where a nuclear
exchange would have resulted in all-out nuclear war. We cannot
guarantee—I agree with the panellists—that at some
time in the future somebody might not seek to use a nuclear weapon.
However, what we can do is create the conditions under which that
would not and could not escalate into a nuclear exchange or nuclear
war.
Q29 Mr Holloway: Is that a "no"
in terms of Britain having its own missile?
Dr Johnson: It is no in terms
of Britain's nuclear weapons having now, or in the future, any
useful deterrent effect.
Q30 Chairman: Dr Johnson, I think
the answer is no.
Mr Plesch: We do not have it,
and if we had it, the answer would be no.
Q31 Mr Jenkins: We have all been
dancing round in a circle here very nicely. The one thing that
did not come out was with regard to Russia and the state of Russia.
My difficulty, although I wish it well and I would not wish a
democratic state to take a step backwards, is that now they are
coming under increasing pressure domestically, so what happens
if we have a nuclear state which suddenly reverts to being a non-democratic
state? It has the power, it has the authority, and it is not out
of the woods yet, I do not believe. What we need to know is, if
it was good enough then, are we saying it is not good enough now?
Mr Plesch: I have already said
to the Committee that the greatest physical capability threat
is the retention on high alert of American and Russian strategic
nuclear forces, and I think in the event that you describe, we
would rue the last 15 years of arms control and disarmament and
the decision really in America to halt the disarmament process
with START II and not to pursue it as fast and as vigorously as
we could have done. I think it really points to the squandering
of the opportunity to control and eliminate nuclear weapons and
weapons of mass destruction that we had at the end of the Cold
War, that we still have now, and we sit around saying, "How
much longer is this opportunity going to last before we get into
a disaster?" not saying, "How do we use this opportunity
to build on the tremendous achievements of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail
Gorbachev, and the treaties that we had then to really control
these weapons?"
Chairman: We have been going for nearly
an hour and we have covered some very valuable topics to a depth
that I was not expecting to be possible given the size of the
panel and the Committee, but in case we might fall behind, I would
ask the Committee and the panel to try to stick quite tightly
to the subject matters in hand. First, can we go into terrorism
and the nuclear deterrent and the consequences of those.
Q32 Mr Hancock: I will shorten my
questions because I think some of it has already been touched
on. To what extent, if it is possible, is the nuclear deterrent
any form of combat to a terrorist threat? Do any of you see that
as a realistic situation? Obviously Dr Willet does because he
is shaking his head in agreement.
Mr Codner: I mentioned this before.
As far as deterring a state from sponsoring terrorists who are
using not just nuclear weapons but other forms of weapons of mass
destruction possibly, there is clearly an option there for nuclear
deterrence against a state which is clearly giving support.
Ms Hudson: I think that is an
important point. We have heard on a number of occasions in US
policy documents where there is reference to the potential use
of nuclear weapons with regard to countries that may be deemed
to have supported or backed a terrorist atrocity. I think the
problem with that really is obviously that it increases and escalates
tensions globally, but of course, it brings nearer the question
of nuclear use, so the whole notion of nuclear weapons as a deterrent
actually really seems to be now completely out of the window.
That is what has been missing perhaps in the public debate so
far, where our nuclear weapons are still referred to in this kind
of deterrent framework, when actually we know that that has very
much changed, not only in terms of referring to their use in defence
of our vital interests but also the abandonment of negative security
assurances and so on, so I think really the context has very much
changed away from the deterrent notion.
Mr Plesch: The new chapter to
the SDR after 9-11 makes clear reference—I do not have the
exact quote—in the paragraph on nuclear weapons to the fact
that terrorists would have to be aware of the full range of UK
capability, and that rather throw-away line, perfunctory remark,
is I think something that should be explored in some detail, particularly
because on the other side of the Atlantic in the mid 1990s under
President Clinton the official Pentagon published policy was to
include non-state actors among the potential targets for nuclear
weapons. My own view is that this is entirely unrealistic and
the tragedy is that we are tying ourselves to these very unrealistic
policies at the price of sacrificing the proven achievements of
arms control.
Dr Willett: One would argue that
it would be very hard for a non-state actor to develop its own
nuclear weapons capability. It would have to get it from somewhere,
and that somewhere would at this stage be a state. Just a comment,
if I may, with regard to the question that you asked, and without
meaning to do down the question, the issue of terrorism and nuclear
weapons. I wonder if that somewhat clouds this particular discussion.
Q33 Mr Hancock: The question was
not about a terrorist using a nuclear weapon. It was about whether
the UK nuclear deterrent is a deterrent to a group of terrorists
who would engage in actions against the UK.
Dr Willett: Yes. As per my original
point, where they got that capability from does leave the providers
of that capability vulnerable to deterrence if the UK could identify
them and hold at risk something that that sponsor may hold dear,
but again, the question of the terrorism threat is very much focused
on today. It is today's issue and just to clarify, of course,
while terrorism may still be a threat in 20 years' time or 50
years' time, I just wonder if the focus on the terrorist issue
is somewhat clouding the debate on what deterrence will be all
about in 20-50 years' time.
Q34 Chairman: That happens to be
the subject we are dealing with at the moment.
Sir Michael Quinlan: I do not
myself believe that the terrorist case plays any large part in
whatever case there is for staying in this business. Might I also
say, Chairman, that a number of statements are being made about
what the US, for whom I hold no brief at all and I think they
get a lot of things wrong, have said, which I think at the very
least are in need of the provision of chapter and verse, because
they are certainly outwith my own recollection.
Q35 Mr Hancock: If I may go on to
something else that has already been mentioned, you, Sir Michael,
suggested that you were open-minded on this and you would want
to see whether there was a cost-effective alternative.
Sir Michael Quinlan: No, not quite.
Q36 Mr Hancock: I will not misquote
you then. I will leave the record to say what you said, but given
the financial burdens that we all know of of the current combating
of terrorism, not only to us but to other states, to what extent
should the development of a successor to Trident be measured against
that cost? There is no cost offset, is there, because the war
against terrorism will have to go on being financed. In my opinion,
it is ludicrous to suggest that Trident's successor is actually
going to lessen the cost that we are already embarked upon in
fighting terrorists.
Sir Michael Quinlan: The fact
that we have to spend money on one thing does not mean that we
can afford not to spend it on others. My point about cost is that
when we are dealing with something which is an insurance against
a very unspecific, very distant set of possible circumstances,
given that we cannot afford to cover every eventuality with utter
certainty, one has to look at how much one is prepared to pay
for that insurance. In other words, how much risk is one prepared
to accept? My own view is that there would be some cost that would
be simply too much to pay for the insurance of staying in this
business. We have not yet got from Her Majesty's Government anything
like official information on what the figures are.
Q37 John Smith: Last month President
Chirac announced that French nuclear forces had been reconfigured
to target power centres of rogue states that may sponsor terrorists,
so clearly the French see nuclear weapons as a deterrent against
terrorism. Do you think they are wrong?
Mr Codner: That sort of statement
from a head of state or head of government is part of the process
of executing deterrence. No doubt what he is saying is what they
are actually doing but it might not be, and it does not mean that
they actually hold any great confidence that this will be effective
but it is worth giving it a go.
Chairman: We are falling behind. I want
to move on to prospects for arms control now, which is a very
important issue that has come up already.
Q38 Mr Borrow: A number of the panel
have already touched on this issue. What developments do you expect
in arms control over the next decade or two? Secondly, and this
is pertinent to the discussion generally, what effect do you think
Britain's decision one way or the other on the replacement of
our nuclear deterrent would have on the overall arms control situation?
Dr Johnson: Very interesting questions.
In a sense, "What developments?" is a bit like saying
"What threats?" A lot of it is up to us. If we take
the steps now that would increase the salience and the credibility
of the non-proliferation regime, which frankly is under enormous
pressure and is eroding, then I think we could see some considerable
progress being made. On the other hand, if we sit back and we
do not challenge the United States sufficiently when it undermines
treaties and verification that we support, for example, or the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, we will see a progressive erosion.
If we do not deal with issues like North Korea and Iran we will
see a progressive erosion. To move from that briefly to what effect,
I do not think that if we just announce we are not going to have
nuclear weapons and then sit back that that will have a direct
impact on the policy decisions of other countries, particularly
proliferation aspirants, for whom regional power projection and
other elements are factors. However, if deciding to renounce nuclear
weapons we have to put resources into a strategy to do this safely
and securely and therefore work step by step to reinforce the
non-proliferation regime, and to take plutonium and highly enriched
uranium, for example, out of circulation altogether, and work
with other NATO states to devalue nuclear weapons. I have had
some very interesting discussions with a number of our European
allies on how Britain could actually take a leadership role in
reinvigorating the view that nuclear weapons essentially have
no role in defence and no role in status, and so devalue nuclear
weapons. That is a hard job. There is a challenge there. It is
not status quo or not status quo. Whichever we choose, we are
going to have to make a case and we are going to have to deal
with the consequences, but in my view—and, as you saw, I
laid out a scenario of 2025 in a much more proliferated scenario,
such as the cascade of proliferation that the UN Secretary General
warned about, and I put a scenario that looks at a world that
maybe does not have zero nuclear weapons but where nuclear weapons
are considerably devalued, are marginal in security and military
policies. I have discussed in that context how we get there, but
there is no time now to go into that kind of detail.
Ms Hudson: I think the prospects
for advance on arms control are currently poor if the nuclear
weapons states continue to pursue the type of approach that they
are following at the moment. Last year at the NPT review conference,
there was some indication that nuclear weapons states seemed to
want to redefine the NPT in some way as removing the process of
disarmament from it, the requirement for disarmament, and seeing
themselves as somehow entitled to maintain their nuclear weapons,
and of course, we heard Mr Straw saying that yesterday, that Britain
was authorised to have nuclear weapons and so on. There has to
be an understanding by the nuclear weapons states that, until
they begin the process as required in Article VI of the NPT to
pursue negotiations in good faith towards disarmament, we are
not going to have any headway and there is going to be a continued
tendency towards proliferation from other countries who are going
to arrive at the conclusion they have a deterrent need for nuclear
weapons. The onus is on the nuclear weapons states to start making
some progress.
Sir Michael Quinlan: The nuclear
arms control agenda has languished over recent years, largely
because the present US administration does not believe in any
of it. That, I think, is to be deplored but it is a fact. I think
the era has passed of bean counting numbers bargains in arms control
anyway. I think there are possibilities but they are not of that
kind. I do not believe the UK could put itself in any useful such
arms control bargains since our numbers are not a function of
how many anybody else in particular has. I do not believe that
our decisions are at all likely to make a material difference
other than in speech making to what other people actually decide
to do. That said, I do believe that we ought to look very hard,
as we move into another generation, if we do, at what we could
do to reduce the scale of what we have. I think I can without
impropriety tell the Committee now that I recommended when I was
still Permanent Secretary, over 15 years ago, that we could do
with three submarines. That idea was not accepted, but that sort
of thinking we could well look to and I think that would be marginally
helpful to the general trend of affairs in the nuclear world.
Q39 Chairman: Sir Michael, I think
both Dr Johnson and Ms Hudson have said in their memoranda to
us that the decision to upgrade in 1980 was a material breach
of the non-proliferation treaty. Do you consider that to be true?[5]
Sir Michael Quinlan: No, wholly
untrue.
Dr Johnson: My brief quoted Professor
Chinkin and Rabinder Singh QC in saying that now to replace Trident
would be a material breach, and it is an important element of
the argument because of the way in which the states parties to
the NPT strengthened elements, including the disarmament element,
in both 1995 and 2000 by consensus and that legally this now becomes
part of the meaning of Article VI.
Chairman: I should not have paraphrased
your memorandum and I apologise for that. I put to you a wholly
false question. I want to move on to the nuclear deterrent and
the UK's international influence.
3 Ev 95. Back
4
Ev 7. Back
5
Ev 7 and Ev 3. Back
| 
