Memorandum from Michael Codner (RUSI)
1. BEGINNING
THE REPLACEMENT
PROCESS
Expenditure on "replacing Trident"
has already begun in the sense that maintaining and refurbishing
existing capability for research, development and test at Aldermaston
was announced in the summer of 2005. The refurbishment is to do
ostensibly with maintaining the safety of existing warheads rather
than designing new ones. This expenditure is necessary regardless
of any decision over the future of the UK's nuclear deterrent.
But the issues are related. We do not need to speculate about
the usefulness of modernised facilities in this research establishment
for developing future nuclear capability, although clearly investment
in AWE would be needed and dwindling expertise sustained and expanded
if the choices over a new system included development of warheads
in Britain. The matter is one of sustaining an independent nuclear
capability in the short and medium term in the face of expenditure
markedly above running costs. If the decision was to be taken
in this Parliament to dispense with nuclear capability when the
Vanguard-class submarines were withdrawn, this raises the question
as to whether any additional expenditure in the meantime to maintain
existing capability would be worthwhile and whether Trident should
not be scrapped earlier.
2. THE PROBLEM
WITH ANNOUNCING
FUTURE ABOLITION
The problem the Prime Minister and his successors
would face by announcing a future termination of the capability
is of compromising Britain's current nuclear policy. The UK would
be perceived internationally, and in particular by those who need
to be deterred, as having concluded that there is a dwindling
need for a deterrent. Of course, in the meantime the UK would
still have the capability to respond to a nuclear attack, or indeed
launch a first strike if circumstances demanded. Her deterrent
posture would not actually be weakened in theory. But other reasons
for maintaining the deterrent would be compromised, for instance
national status and influence as a major power and member of the
UN Security Council and, in particular, any influence over US
policy that nuclear capability might bring. And the Government
would face a huge problem of internal politics. If a national
nuclear deterrent is not essential for security in the uncertain
future, is it truly necessary now? If it is not, running costs
alone might be justifiable for a "nice-to-have status"
thing, but not any additional expenditure. There are overwhelming
priorities for funding in health and education, not to mention
conventional military capability.
What decisions and when?
3. So what is the decision that needs to be taken
in this Parliament? Working back from a replacement date for the
first of the Vanguard-class of about 2024, [12]the
MoD would need to make decisions in the next 19 or so years about
a new platform, whether sea or air or some land-based arrangement.
There will need to be a weapon system, whether refurbished Trident
or some other newly-developed system, and of course a warhead.
The platform programme appears to be the critical path, and it
is possible to sketch out some notional timelines.
4. Using the language of Smart Acquisition,
the MoD would need to commit to a development and manufacture
phase for a replacement platform at least eight years beforehand,
judging by the timelines for equivalent large projects. And one
must consider that the technical and project risk for such a programme
needs to be extremely low. The Trident came into service most
unusually for major defence programmes on time and within budget,
and the Government would want to achieve the same predictability.
Main Gate, when this decision needs to be taken, would be in the
2015 timeframe. An Initial Gate decision to embark on an Assessment
Phase of a very small and specific number of options would need
to be some five years before this that is, in about the 2010 timeframe.
So the MoD needs to decide fairly soon whether to embark on a
Concept Phase, during which the specific options to be addressed
during Assessment can be derived.
5. Now the major procurement investment
decision would be made at Main Gate. This is likely to be at least
85% of the total procurement cost. The bulk of the remaining likely
maximum of 15% of expenditure will be committed at Initial Gate.
So the actual commitment of new money to be made in this Parliament
would be only a few per cent of the total still quite a lot of
money, but this would not be the sort of decision that would need
a major redirection of Government spending to finance. The main
decisions must be made in investing in continued nuclear capability,
as one surmises, in about 2010, and particularly 2015, when shed-loads
would be required.
6. One might conclude, therefore, that in
all probability the Government will indeed fund a Concept Phase
without necessarily having to make any commitment to Assessment
and Development/Manufacture phases, a relatively easy decision
to make, and one that would both politically and diplomatically
reinforce current policy over which there is broad consensus across
the main political parties.
7. When actually to decide? A decision by
2007 would keep any public debate clear of the next General Election
in say 2008. The first big decision, however, would be made midway
through the next Parliament involving an Initial Gate commitment
of spending that could be into billions of pounds over five years.
And continuing the fantasy of a rigid four-year cycle, the really
big decision would be towards the end of the subsequent Parliament,
when contracts would be placed for development and manufacture.
A government could therefore say "yes" to replacement
until 2015 at the latest committing, say, £3 billion in Concept
and Assessment Phase funding as necessary to support ongoing deterrent
policy. This is of course in addition to the running costs of
the Trident Programme and AWE Aldermaston. It could then say "do"
in 2015 saving, say, a further £17 billion in Development
and Manufacture.
8. NOTIONAL LATEST
DECISION DATES
| Concept Phase |
Initial Gate | Main Gate
| In Service |
| With submarine life extension | 2007
| 2010 | 2015 | 2024
|
| Without life extension | 2003
| 2006 | 2010 | 2019
|
| | |
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This crude analysis accepts that the stages of Smart Acquisition
will be adopted. And by this analysis it would seem that a decision
to extend the life of the hulls and power plants of some of the
Vanguard Class submarines has already been taken. However there
has been a recent example of a major platform project in which
the definitive milestone of Main Gate as been subdivided—namely
the Future Carrier. It is possible that staged Concept, Assessment,
and Development and Manufacture phases would be adopted for replacing
the nuclear deterrent. This would have the effects of:
— Spreading commitment of funds over a longer
period allowing Government to delay the ultimate decision to commit
to the bulk of manufacture funding;— Reducing the
profile of each investment decision to an incremental process
in which there would be few occasions when the nuclear deterrent
issue would break through the media's threshold of interest. Indeed
we could be well into a Concept Phase or indeed a phased Assessment
Phase with no definitive Initial Gate.9. NOT
FOR "WARFIGHTING"?
If we assume, therefore, a qualified "yes" in 2007 to
continued long-term nuclear capability, what events might jeopardise
subsequent "yeses" in 2010 and 2015? To answer this
question fully, one must first establish what a British nuclear
deterrent capability is actually for in the understanding of the
Government. We are not likely to have a clear exposition in this
Parliament. Nor is it probably necessary politically given the
political consensus and the lack of interest in the majority of
the electorate. The MoD claims that the nuclear capability is
not for warfighting—not a very meaningful notion. If they
were ever to be used—and deterrence hinges on that possibility—that
would be warfighting. What the MoD means is that there
are no scenarios short of nuclear doomsday in which nuclear weapons
would have a role in an operational plan. The "not for warfighting"
line is possibly rather directed at the Treasury in making the
case for funding outside the defence budget. This issue is of
great importance to the MoD and the Navy in particular. If funding
of a replacement is not drawn from central government funds but
comes as a whole or in part from a Defence budget of similar proportions
to today, large parts of the Equipment plan in the next decade
will be unaffordable and the UK's conventional military posture
will demand review.
10. SUB-STRATEGIC
DETERRENCE
And what, therefore, of "sub-strategic deterrence",
the concept launched in the early 1990s when the "tactical"
600-pound bomb was being withdrawn but never actually revoked
in subsequent policy papers? "Sub-strategic" is another
notion rather difficult to define, except insofar as it excludes
the need for tactical capability. Any deployment or use of a long-range
missile-fired nuclear weapon is strategic with a capital "S".
"Sub-strategic" in this context means carrying fewer
than the full complement of missiles in a submarine, and announcing
that this is the case inviting the possibility that a small number
of missiles might be used in circumstances short of doomsday.
The perceptual uncertainties created by this concept could be
said to reinforce deterrence against the sporadic use, say, by
a rogue state with a small number of unsophisticated nuclear weapons
or indeed conceivably of non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
In any event, there is a paradox here between "sub-strategic"
and "not for warfighting" that needs to be resolved.
11. EFFICACY AGAINST
LIKELY THREATS
There are of course other hugely difficult issues relating
to the nature and effectiveness of deterrence in an uncertain
future. Terrorists with transcendental aims, and indeed rogue
governments with their backs to the wall, will not use empirical
risk assessment and cost-benefit rationales to constrain their
use of nuclear weapons. So where is the deterrence against the
most likely nuclear threats?12. DIRECT
OR INDIRECT
SECURITY
Ultimately, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion mentioned
earlier that nuclear capability for the UK has more to do with
international status and influence than with direct security.
The proposition that retention of the deterrent seems to support
is that the UK has influence indirectly over its wider security
environment because it retains a nuclear deterrent—albeit
arguably only a token—which supports its status as a Permanent
Member of the Security Council and, most importantly, might modify
US behaviour in this and other respects. This issue of national
status and influence is much wider of course than the nuclear
deterrent. Arguably it underpins the UK's "expeditionary"
military strategy and explains why as a relatively safe island
power in the Eastern Atlantic the UK commits more of its GDP to
defence than most European countries.
The US Relationship
13. In this context, the long-term relationship with the US
is of paramount importance both in addressing the issue of need
for a national capability and in the options for a replacement.
There is a paradox here, too. If the UK's security relationship
with the US, and indeed that of Europe, were to weaken, there
could be a greater need for an independent deterrent because US
extended deterrence would be unreliable. But UK-US collaboration
and access to technology would be prejudiced. If the relationship
were to strengthen, affordable collaborative solutions may be
available. But why would we need an independent deterrent except
to reinforce international status and influence? This debate is
one in which it is almost impossible for a British Prime Minister
to engage in publicly even though in the wider context it is at
the heart of the United Kingdom's security and defence policies.
It would not be a problem for a Frenchman.
14. And will the US want the UK to retain a nuclear deterrent
in the longer term? The scale of UK's nuclear capability is not
significant. The uncertainties that having more than one nuclear
challenge may create in the perceptions of a nuclear opponent
may have been highly relevant in the Cold War in reinforcing deterrence
and supporting US' extended deterrence to Europe, but are arguably
not relevant in the present context. The situation might be greatly
simplified from a US perspective if there was no junior partner
whose perspective is only signficant if it is different.INTERVENTION
OF EVENTS
15. The best a Labour, or any other Government for that matter,
can hope for is for the debate to proceed sotto voce "as
it has since the 1987 General Election" and for none of these
issues of substance to be raised to a high political level. And
they stand a good chance of being successful if the decisions
are taken in the three incremental steps described earlier. What
are the events, therefore, that could scupper a replaced or refurbished
nuclear deterrent? A breakout of international nuclear disarmament
and success of the non-proliferation regimes is most unlikely.
Similarly, it is unlikely that missile defence could achieve sufficient
guarantees of protection against a large-scale nuclear attack
to make deterrence irrelevant. A few more likely scenarios are:— A
major national economic crisis before 2010 or 2015, making replacement
options unaffordable.— Significant military failures
abroad causing a collapse in confidence in the electorate in the
value of the UK's expeditionary military strategy, and military
capability generally, in enhancing world status and influence.
Defence expenditure of all kinds beyond direct homeland defence
might then be considered purposeless and wasteful.
— A series of asymmetric attacks on the UK using
terrorism could similarly persuade the electorate that any security
capability beyond homeland security was purposeless or indeed
provocative.
— Proportional representation was introduced
following General Elections with hung Parliaments. It is possible
that different, more equivocal security policies could emerge
from coalition governments and that other priorities could absorb
the necessary funds.
13 March 2006
12
This date is the latest possible to allow a continuous deterrent
assuming that there is extension of life of the hull and power
generation of some of the Vanguard Class. Back
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