Expect an awful lot of debate over the future of the UK鈥檚 controversial submarine-based Trident nuclear weapons system in the coming months.
Of immediate interest are about security lapses and the risk of losing a submarine in a fire or an accident involving its nuclear reactor or even one of the missiles.
The Scottish National Party, which made big gains in Scotland in recent elections and is hostile to nuclear weapons, secured a today on the allegations. The party鈥檚 interest is unsurprising, given that all four Trident-carrying submarines are based in Scotland. Each can be equipped with 40 warheads 鈥� together packing 320 times more destructive power than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
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Months away
More debates are waiting in the wings, given the looming deadlines on whether or not to renew the system, which is due to be retired in the late 2020s. This critical spending and defence commitment is months rather than years away because of the time needed to design and build a replacement.
Those backing renewal focus on jobs (claiming around 15,000 depend on it), keeping the UK 鈥渟afe鈥� and the need to support key science and engineering skills. Opponents talk about how there would be massive civilian casualties and a if such weapons were ever used, and the 拢100 billion lifetime outlay for Trident mark II. Over the next 10 years, the costs of developing a successor will put an additional 35 per cent burden on the UK鈥檚 military equipment budget.
What is clear is that the UK, bogged down in spending cuts, cannot afford to commission a new submarine fleet and a new generation of nuclear warheads when it is already struggling to meet the cost of the most expensive conventional capabilities, such as huge aircraft carriers, the most modern planes, and an army capable of being part of several large invasion forces simultaneously.
No nuclear threat
What鈥檚 more, the UK鈥檚 own concludes that the country faces no realistic nuclear threat. By and large, the terrorism and conventional warfare creating humanitarian crises across the Middle East and Africa require political, diplomatic and aid interventions, not military ones 鈥� which have often made the situation worse or created power vacuums that insurgents exploit.
In addition, the UK and other nuclear weapon states faced fierce criticism last week at the in New York. Over 150 non-nuclear states questioned the right of nuclear powers to hold each other and the rest of the world hostage to destruction.
The conference ended without an agreed text, partly due to some countries鈥� unwillingness to agree a path towards a nuclear-free Middle East. Frustrated at years of no real progress, 107 nations so far have signed a to start a process to ban all nuclear weapons by treaty.
Against this backdrop, the UK has a golden opportunity to bolster its very constrained conventional defences and to show leadership by committing to decommission our weapons of mass destruction. We cannot uninvent them, but we can follow the lead of many other nuclear-capable nations, such as Japan, Sweden, Brazil, Germany, Argentina and South Africa, that have chosen not to have them.
The key strategic threats today stem from sources of energy, resource depletion, climate change and cyber-security. If the UK could adopt a radical shift in thinking and not renew Trident, it could deal with any loss of jobs by guaranteeing new long-term investment to restructure industries that maintain the nuclear fleet.
A new tech revolution
Directing this to marine engineering to boost offshore wind and tidal power or for building and maintaining smaller naval defence vessels would help that cause. Nuclear engineers would still be needed to ensure safe storage of warheads and to tackle the UK鈥檚 massive historic nuclear waste disposal problems 鈥� including old reactors in naval dockyards.
Freed-up resources could also be reinvested in university research, currently facing severe constraints. The civil engineering and construction sectors could also get a boost. Such a shift would gradually create greater long-term security and more jobs than renewing Trident.
It would also help rebalance the UK economy away from the finance and property sectors and create a new version of what former prime minister Harold Wilson long ago termed the 鈥渨hite heat of a technological revolution鈥�. The UK needs another one to properly exploit the social and human potential that is currently misdirected on nuclear weapons.
