Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
PROFESSOR RICHARD
L GARWIN, MR
PAUL INGRAM,
DR STEPHEN
PULLINGER, DR
JEREMY STOCKER
AND DR
LEE WILLETT
23 JANUARY 2007
Q180 Robert Key: I suspect Professor
Garwin would agree with that broadly. Could I ask you, Professor
Garwin, do you think this whole process is far more open in the
United States of America or, to put it the other way, do you think
in this country we are obsessed with secrecy over decision-making
in this area of public policy?
Professor Garwin: Secrecy is always
more comfortable for those who have the secrets. The United States
does have a more open policy and procedure and the people in charge
often contrive to close it; the current administration is one
of those. I would say on this question that one should not confuse
fire insurance with fire extinguishers; an insurance policy does
not keep the disaster from happening, it tries to make you whole
afterwards, the fire extinguisher may keep the disaster from happening.
What we have been discussing here, the essentiality of deterrence
for a first-grade power, what does that say about Germany and
Japan? They are trading nations; if it is essential for the UK
why is it not essential for Germany and Japan? They may not be
serious but they would have to have nuclear weapons in order to
hold up their heads among the nations.
Q181 Mr Hamilton: Chairman, I would
like to follow that up because I do not follow the logic of the
argument from Mr Pullinger or indeed the comments from Mr Willett.
Mr Willett makes the assertion that if we do not have the nuclear
deterrent and we want to be a lesser nation in armed forces, surely
one of the big arguments is that we utilise the money that we
would spend on a nuclear deterrent and put that to our conventional
armed forces which actually assist us in the naval outlets that
we have and indeed assist us in places like Iraq and Afghanistan
if we want to utilise them. I do agree that we need to decide
as a nation where we want to be as a world force for the future,
but the question that Robert asked Mr Pullinger is do you accept
the public assurance policy argument is a persuasive one to the
general public? On what basis do you think the general public
are persuaded by that argument, because that is not the public
I have got. The public I have got are extremely sceptical about
a Trident expansion and therefore I would like to hear clarified
not the academic argument but how do you perceive the public to
be on side in this issue? I do not see it.
Dr Pullinger: The public see there
are other nuclear weapon states in the world. They know that North
Korea has tested a weapon and the Iranian regime, which in many
respects is a reprehensible one, is not complying with the IAEA
and is possibly pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.
They know that Russia, China and others still have those weapons,
and there is no prospect of getting rid of them, so in the near
term, certainly, they do not see why we should get rid of it at
the moment.
Mr Hamilton: I understand the point you
are making; these are arguments that are all well-tried, but I
am asking a straightforward question: on what basis do you believe
that the public side with your opinion and that the public are
not of the opinion that we should be looking away and walking
away from nuclear deterrence. I am asking, what evidence do you
have?
Chairman: He has given an answer.
Mr Hamilton: He has given an opinion,
but I am looking for evidence which tells us that there has been
some survey done somewhere that says the public want us to be
doing that.
Chairman: To be fair, the question he
was asked was what was his opinion. Robert Key.
Robert Key: Chairman, the only evidence
I have is that I, through my website, did a survey of opinion
and it came in two to one that people thought that there was indeed
value in the insurance value, but it is very, very small indeed.
Chairman: Then next week we can take
evidence from you, Robert.
Q182 Robert Key: If you wish to,
Chairman, it might be very long. Could I just continue this theme
for a moment; it is very important. In their submission to us
the Church of England memorandum says that, "To assess the
validity of the deterrence argument, therefore, there must be
some indication of the circumstances in which the weapons might
be used." We know the Government has said that they wish
to deliberately maintain ambiguity, but the Church of England's
submission says that, "All it would require is for the Government
to indicate what is its overall strategy, including the parameters
for the weapons' use and any limits within which any targeting
policy would be set. That would enable the Government to explain
how their use would be consistent with [their] obligations in
international law." Do you think the Church of England is
right in posing that position?
Dr Pullinger: Obviously there
is some ambiguity about when we would use nuclear weapons but
we are actually constrained by certain limits. We have provided
a negative security assurance to non-nuclear weapon states that
we would not use nuclear weapons against them unless they were
attacking us in alliance with a nuclear weapons state; we have
said we would only use nuclear weapons in compliance with international
law which involves questions of discrimination, not deliberately
targeting civilians, proportionality and the rest of it. There
are limits, therefore, there are constraints on the circumstances
in which we could use nuclear weapons, but personally I think
there is too much ambiguity about the circumstances. We are saying
self-defence; we would use them in self defence in extreme circumstances.
The Israelis could use that argument possibly to pre-emptively
attack the Iranian nuclear weapons programme; they could say they
are developing nuclear weapons which are a real threat to us,
we are acting in self-defence under Article 51, pre-emption is
allowed, we can go in and take this out. It is self-defence, it
is extreme circumstances, no-one else is going to do it. The language
we are using, therefore, is giving an awful lot of leeway to the
circumstances in which we could use nuclear weapons and I personally
would prefer it if we really tried to constrain it to when the
national survival of the United Kingdom is at stake. We can talk
about the precise terms, but I would really like to hone it down
to that.
Dr Stocker: I was just going to
add two brief comments to that. Firstly, in relation to advance
declaration—things like no first use or not using weapons
against non-nuclear weapon states—it is simply a health
warning that in the extreme and severe circumstances under which
the use of nuclear weapons might be contemplated, the value of
those kind of advance declarations is likely to be minimal; it
is, frankly, not going to matter what you said you will and will
not do in the past, your actions will be governed by the extreme
circumstances that you find yourself in at the time.
Dr Pullinger: Can I come back
on that immediately? I agree, these things are not going to stop
states doing things in extreme circumstances, but nevertheless
they should not be planning to do them, they should not be planning
to use nuclear weapons in those particular scenarios when the
survival of the United Kingdom is not at stake—and it is
these sorts of scenarios that we were talking about earlier on
that matter. It is not the piece of paper, it is not the international
law, but it is planning for what you are going to do in practical
situations that we should take into account.
Dr Willett: Very quickly, any
potential state or party that will threaten us with a nuclear
weapon or other weapon of mass destruction potentially is putting
our national survival at risk, and therefore saying this, like
we did with refusing to rule out first use and substituting it
with declarations of preparedness to go first et cetera are part
of the credibility of deterrence. Deterrence is all about communicating
a credible and capable threat and showing you have the intent
to use it and you have to talk up your ability to do it to make
your opponent think that you actually are serious.
Robert Key: Chairman, may I move on to
tactical roles and first use of Trident?
Chairman: Could you make them very brief,
please?
Q183 Robert Key: Certainly. Dr Stocker,
you indicate in your written evidence that the White Paper makes
only a passing reference to missile defence; what should it have
said?
Dr Stocker: It could have said
more, to say what current Government and MoD thinking is in this
area because it is directly relevant to the debate about the nuclear
deterrent. Noting that, our deterrence posture to date, as a legacy
of the Cold War, has been based purely on the punishment element
of deterrence and we have always eschewed deterrence by denial,
which is another way of saying defence—in other words persuading
somebody not to attack you because you can ward off the blow rather
than because you will hit back in retaliation. Because of the
decision announced yesterday by the Czech Government about a radar
site for missile defence, that issue is going to well up in the
political arena again, particular when it looks like Poland might
become the site for missile interceptors in a European context.
Missile defence, which has been quiet for three or four years,
is going to be back on the political agenda and it is, strategically
as well as politically, relevant to the current debate about nuclear
deterrence.
Q184 Mr Jenkin: What impact does
the recent Chinese missile strike on a satellite have in this
debate and is it something we should consider?
Dr Stocker: Directly I am not
sure it does have a major impact, other than in terms of demonstrating
(a) a higher level of technical capability than many people may
have assumed the Chinese have and (b) it demonstrates some of
the dynamics of their deterrence relationship with the United
States. Clearly, the Chinese are putting a lot of resources into
having a multi-faceted deterrent against the United States in
order to increase their freedom of action in their particular
region and the ability to counter American, Space-based military
systems would clearly be an important component of that deterrent
capability.
Q185 Mr Jenkin: Making the world
safer or less safe?
Dr Stocker: Undoubtedly, less
safe.
Q186 Robert Key: Should the UK be
developing tactical nuclear weapons, Dr Willett?
Dr Willett: No, the UK's strategic
deterrent is there as an ultimate capability to protect the nation
under grave threat to its national survivability. Tactical nuclear
weapons are not part of our inventory, they are not part of our
thinking and they are not part of our reason for having a deterrent.
We should also make sure that we see that there is a distinction
between tactical and sub-strategic, they are not the same thing.
Tactical effectively relates to battlefield nuclear weapons and
sub-strategic is more of a policy designed to enhance the flexibility
of the UK's Trident system in a post-Cold War world, of course
noting the points that have been made previously that any use
of weapons, of course, can be seen as strategic. Tactical and
sub-strategic are in my mind not the same thing, and it is important
to note of course that our view on all this is very, very different
from that of the US. The US has a different policy, different
strategy, different capabilities and we should not be viewed as
having the same views and developments as them.
Q187 Mr Holloway: Common sense would
be both tactical and strategic; I mean tactical in the sense that
you would be able to remove the item that is a threat to you;
strategic in the sense that it sends an extremely clear message
and it did so before, so it can be both.
Dr Willett: It absolutely can
be both. The use of a service revolver can be strategic in the
circumstances, but to use military terminology, tactical nuclear
weapons are essentially the definition of battlefield nuclear
weapons designed, in Cold War days, for example, to explode in
Central Europe over a conventional conflict. A strategic nuclear
weapon is what the UK has and that is not tactical in purpose.
Q188 Mr Holloway: But that does not
mean that you cannot and perhaps should not have 0.7 kilos, much
smaller weapons. They still have a strategic effect, do they not?
Dr Willett: This is where we start
to get into the area of theory and why the UK has certain kinds
of capabilities and why it does not. Yes, you could argue that
to deter a threat to national survival you may need a smaller
yield weapon that can take out a particular target without doing
too much collateral damage et cetera, but the bottom line from
the defence point of view though is that we have a capability
that is designated to be a strategic capability, it is there as
a policy tool and not as a battlefield/war-fighting weapon which
is what tactical weapons are generally regarded as.
Chairman: I would like to move on to
non-proliferation.
Q189 Robert Key: One very quick one,
could I ask if any of our witnesses today think the White Paper
should have had anything to say about first use?
Dr Stocker: Only to reiterate
the earlier point that, as Sir Michael Quinlan pointed out, there
are two dangers with that kind of policy. First of all, in extreme
circumstances those declarations will count for nothing. Secondly,
by ruling out certain options, in other words drawing lines in
the sand, you potentially invite other people to step right up
to the line in a way that if there was greater ambiguity, they
might not step quite so far forward. Therefore, no first use is
pretty unhelpful.
Q190 Robert Key: Professor Garwin,
would you agree generally with that?
Professor Garwin: No, I would
not.
Q191 Robert Key: I know you are a
physicist, but you have come a long way and we want to get your
wisdom.
Professor Garwin: That is right.
I have studied first use, I have some papers with the National
Academy of Science's Committee on International Security and Arms
Control which deal with this, the future of nuclear weapons in
view of US nuclear weapon policy, and in fact there we recommend
adopting a no-first-use policy and no-first-use stature—not
necessarily no-first-use treaties because, as has been said, those
do not mean anything and a no-first-use policy does not mean that
if somebody threatens the United States, has destroyed all of
us with biological weapons, that we would not respond; of course,
it is a democratic society and it can change its mind at any time,
so the point of extreme circumstances I really take. But I do
believe that a no first use stature would be very helpful, though
I do not say that the White Paper should have discussed that.
On the point of missile defence though I would say that promising
missile defence is a lot easier than delivering missile defence,
and the programme on which the United States is spending some
$10 billion a year will not deliver protection because it is a
mid-course programme—that is the one which the Czech Republic
and Poland have been in the news about, presumably for countering
missiles from Iran, but if you have missiles from Iran from the
very beginning they will have effective counter-measures—balloon
decoys and anti-simulation—and if you go to my website you
will see many, many articles about this. That is why the UK has
not considered missile defence because it does not know how to
do it.
Mr Ingram: Just on this point
of no first use specifically and the ambiguity that is used, I
think it is just very important to recognise that exactly that
sort of policy is seen as a threat by other countries and drives
proliferation, which is where we are going to now. It is very
important to see that decisions that we take that may appear in
our interests actually drive threat perceptions elsewhere. We
have already identified the Chinese development last week as appearing
to be against the interests of global security on the basis of
increased capability by China—not intentions specifically
but capability—so too our policy of ambiguity and not ruling
out no first use can be seen by other countries as a direct threat
and will drive their decisions over military procurement and particularly
nuclear weapons procurement.
Q192 Mr Borrow: Can I perhaps move
on to the non-proliferation and disarmament which we have touched
on, on and off, so far during this session. Can I go initially
perhaps to Dr Pullinger and Dr Stocker; we need to have your views
on what should have been in the White Paper to do with non-proliferation.
You both mentioned that it was not covered in the White Paper;
therefore, what are your views on what should have been and how
the UK policy would have been improved had there been something
firm in the White Paper?
Dr Pullinger: As I said in my
opening remarks, there should have been a more serious assessment
of the potential dangers of a proliferated world and the threat
that the non-proliferation regime is under. It is a question of
degree and an appreciation of the problem that is not there. The
United Kingdom has an excellent record on non-proliferation and
arms control and the diplomatic effort that it puts into trying
to stop other countries getting these things, putting controls
onto the materials and in terms of its own force posture it has
done more than any of the other nuclear weapons states in terms
of reducing the number of warheads and platforms and its fissile
material—it does not make any more fissile material for
weapons purposes. It has an extremely good record, therefore,
and what I would like to see from the United Kingdom—ideally
it should come from the United States and that is a possibility,
that is something that Henry Kissinger and others called for a
couple of weeks ago, that the United States takes leadership,
it realises that we are on the edge of this nuclear precipice
in a proliferated world but it is not in the strategic interests
of the United States or any of us to reach that stage and therefore
we have to do a lot more in terms of preventing it ever becoming
reality. This has been written by MoD/FCO and in terms of the
arms control and disarmament aspect there is not a lot you can
criticise about it, but it is too complacent, it is going through
the motions. Arms control is stuck and the only way we are going
to get beyond that is if we have political leadership—and
by that I mean at prime ministerial and presidential level—to
say we have got to tackle this problem, and the only way we can
do that is to get the other nuclear weapon states around the table
and thrash out what I would call a new nuclear settlement and
say where are we actually going with this? We are drifting towards
a world in which we are all going to be far less secure so maybe
we can try and go back to first principles and decide where we
are going with nuclear weapon proliferation and how we are going
to avoid getting there in a staged process of de-nuclearisation.
We may not be able to get to global elimination of nuclear weapons,
I have no idea, but we can go a lot further down that road and
we can also rebuild an international consensus that that is where
we are trying to get to, so we are pulling nuclear weapons back
from the front line, we are putting them back in the cupboard,
and eventually we may be able to get rid of them. Perhaps we will
not be able to, perhaps we will have to have a hedge against a
break-out to make sure that no state ever has the incentive to
start developing nuclear weapons. I do not know what that scenario
will look like, but we have to avoid that nightmare scenario of
20 or 30 nuclear weapon states in, say, 20 years time, which is
a possibility and people are now recognising that.
Q193 Mr Borrow: Mr Stocker, do you
agree with that and do you think that the UK could actually do
something to get talks under way?
Dr Stocker: Broadly, I would agree
with what Stephen said, but my main criticism about the White
Paper and what it says about non-proliferation is largely presentation
in that the White Paper talks about the options for the deterrent
and then seems to tack on a series of perfectly valid statements
about non-proliferation, almost as though the Government felt
it necessary to demonstrate its non-proliferation virtue in order
to sweeten the bitter pill of nuclear renewal. Actually, I think
that was a missed opportunity because the Government could quite
validly have spelled out that actually, done sensibly, deterrence
and non-proliferation are not mutually exclusive, they are two
tools designed to address exactly the same problem, namely proliferation.
Whilst there is a certain tension inherent in having your own
weapons while seeking to deny them to others, actually that tension
is understood by most countries, they fully understand that it
is normally in any country's interest to have its own weapons
and other people not to have them, and there is nothing unique
about nuclear weapons in that sense. I am rather more optimistic
on the non-proliferation front than many commentators have been.
It looks like the number of nuclear powers is about to hit double
figures with Iran, and of course North Korea's recent partial
test, but we have known about North Korea and Iran going nuclear
for some years, we have been widely expecting it. Beyond Iran
there are predictions of 15 or 20 nuclear powers, but we have
had those predictions since the 1960s; beyond Iran, who is going
to be the next one? There are no obvious candidates stacking up.
There were two, Libya and Iraq, and in different ways they have
been dealt with. There is not a next list of proliferators waiting
to happen; that is not to say that further proliferation is not
going to happen, and the crucial thing that the White Paper could
have usefully said was one of the ways in which we prevent other
countries going nuclear is through the extended deterrence that
is provided to them by existing nuclear weapons states, principally
the United States but also the UK. The UK in NATO doctrine—although
it is not spelled out in the White Paper—the UK nuclear
deterrent is a contribution to the deterrence posture of the alliance
as a whole, and that of course provides a framework that allows
countries like Germany, like Turkey, not to go nuclear because
they are subject to an extended deterrence provided by others,
and it is not only the United States. The White Paper, therefore,
could have done more to actually spell out how deterrence and
non-proliferation do actually work together towards the common
end.
Chairman: Dr Willett, we heard pretty
much your view about this in our first inquiry, so do you mind
if we move on—in the interests of time?
Q194 Mr Jenkin: Dr Stocker, your
analysis almost suggests that a world in which the present, broadly
responsible nuclear states, forego their nuclear weapons is actually
perhaps a less desirable world than the one we have where there
are a few responsible states with nuclear weapons.
Dr Stocker: I would agree with
that. The argument about a nuclear-free world is an entirely abstract
one because I do not know anybody who has the faintest idea of
how you could bring about a nuclear-free world or even whether
it would be desirable, if you could somehow bring it about, simply
because we could bring about a nuclear, disarmed world and the
country that cheated and had just two weapons and nobody else
had them would be in a very, very unique strategic circumstance,
as the United States found out in 1945.
Mr Jenkin: That is very interesting,
thank you.
Q195 Mr Borrow: Can I ask Mr Ingram
how effective he thinks the non-proliferation treaty is and does
he feel that the White Paper has a positive or negative impact?
Mr Ingram: To answer that directly,
clearly I believe the White Paper has a negative impact because
it will basically send a very clear message that supports the
statement that has just been made, that while the Government in
the White Paper itself and many times previously in its policy
claims to have the objective of a nuclear weapon-free world, as
is required under the non-proliferation treaty, to have that objective,
whatever the time line, they do not believe in it. I too think
that they do not believe in it; in fact, the White Paper itself
says that "there would need to be compelling evidence that
a nuclear threat to the UK's vital interests would not re-emerge
in future before we responsibly could contemplate disarmament."
It says that in black and white. That, of course, is never, ever
going to happen; there will never be 100% possibility that there
will be proof that there will never be an emerging threat, so
we do enter into the realm of the Government believing the scenario
that Dr Stocker has just outlined. I am one of those analysts
that believes that that is an unstable situation. Even if we only
take Iran as an example, if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons
there would be tremendous pressure on Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
a number of other regional powers to respond likewise and the
pressures would grow. I do not believe personally that it is a
stable situation if North Korea were to develop their nuclear
arsenal and actually be able to deliver them into South Korea
and beyond into Japan, and Japan to sit idly by and think well
that is all fine, thank you very much. I do not believe that we
exist today in a stable situation, and if the nuclear weapons
states believe that they can continue along the route indefinitely
that we have now, they will be sorely disappointed and we will
enter into a very unstable world of nuclear proliferation. While
it is very difficult to perceive the steps towards a nuclear weapon-free
world—and I would agree it is difficult—I would challenge
that it is impossible and I would say it is equally difficult
if not even more implausible to believe that the current status
quo will be maintained indefinitely into the future.
Mr Borrow: Can I just come back to you
on that scenario?
Chairman: Can I interrupt and say we
need to get the questions and the answers as short as possible
now.
Q196 Mr Borrow: The statement was
made earlier that of the five original nuclear powers the UK had
been the best in terms of reducing the number of nuclear weapons
and being pro-active in non-proliferation. The White Paper envisages
a further reduction in the number of warheads, but there has been
criticism of the UK for not being proactive in terms of getting
further discussions. Do you accept that?
Mr Ingram: I accept that with
the changes announced in the strategic defence review of 1998
and indeed the changes that were announced by the previous Government
in the early Nineties, this nuclear weapons state is the best
of a bad bunch. The trouble is, of course, that there have not
been any changes since then and this announcement of a reduction
from just under 200 to just under 160 warheads is almost irrelevant
because we will still have 48 warheads out on patrol at any time,
and we will continue to have this deployment until perhaps the
2050s. While we have a positive record up until this date, therefore,
we are now planning to have pretty much a status quo into the
indefinite future, which does not send the right signal, either
to the other nuclear weapons states or indeed to any potential
proliferators who may indeed interpret the statements we had earlier
about status, about economic development and all the others and
think yes, we would like some of that too and we do not feel it
just to continue along the line. Just to finally finish, the argument
that is put in the White Paper against that point is only legal
on the NPT, which itself—I do not want to go into it—is
contested. There is no political and there is no non-proliferation
argument, I believe, against the idea that this is dangerous and
sends a very bad signal to non-proliferators.
Mr Borrow: If I can put a question back
to you that I asked at the meeting that we had last week, are
you saying that the only way for the UK to go is to make a decision
which effectively gets rid of nuclear weapons altogether, and
if we were going to be one of the good guys in terms of reducing
nuclear weapons and getting rid of proliferation, the only step
we have got is to unilaterally get rid of nuclear weapons. I know
you have said we do not need to make a decision—
Q197 Chairman: Let us have an answer
to that. Mr Ingram.
Mr Ingram: My answer is simply
that we need to defer the decision and—
Q198 Mr Borrow: Can I come in there?
I have heard your argument that we can afford to defer a decision.
In the scenario which is what the Government believes, that if
we defer a decision as a country now then we are in effect unilaterally
not replacing our existing nuclear weapons, and when the boats
run out we will no longer have a platform and will no longer have
a system, so effectively the decision would be made in the next
few years—that is the belief of the Government and that
is what the White Paper says. You may not accept that, but what
I am saying is if what the Government is saying is correct, that
we have to make a decision shortly one way or the other, your
decision would be not to renew the boats that are used to fire
nuclear weapons.
Mr Ingram: My recommendation to
you is to make a decision based on facts of the situation as far
as we know them. The White Paper is riddled with inconsistencies
on exactly that point, around the need to make a decision urgently
and now. My recommendation is that this Government puts at the
very heart of its nuclear policy the objective of achieving further
nuclear disarmament, and that entails the idea of Britain becoming
a non-nuclear weapons state at some point in the future, ideally
on a multilateral basis.
Chairman: I want to move on to deterrent
options. Linda, moving on to deterrent options we have explored
that in recent discussions.
Q199 Linda Gilroy: I wonder if I
can ask what your reaction is to the assessment of the various
deterrent options in the White Paper. Was it comprehensive, Dr
Stocker?
Dr Stocker: Yes, it was and I
do not think the answer that it came up with surprised many people;
it is what the Americans would call a "no-brainer".
What was interesting was that amongst the four generic options
the only really credible alternative to Trident was not examined,
which would have been a submarine-launched cruise missile, but
the White Paper elsewhere did compare cruise missiles with ballistic
so it did cover that option, albeit in an indirect way. It is
very difficult to fault the logic of the White Paper and I know
that the MoD did look at a wider range of options before settling
on those four main ones featured in the White Paper, so I am convinced
that a pretty comprehensive study has been done, based on realistic
assumptions and the conclusions are correct.
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