nuclear-news

Trident submarine missiles review to suggest ‘stepping down nuclear ladder’

Ousted defence minister Nick Harvey claims military and Whitehall backing for cheaper alternatives

“If you can just break yourself out of that frankly almost lunatic mindset for a second, all sorts of alternatives start to look possible, indeed credible.”

 

 

• Juliette Jowit and Patrick Wintour
• The Guardian, Wednesday 26 September 2012 20.30 BST
• […]

The government’s review of the future of the Trident submarine nuclear missile system is likely to suggest a significant downgrading of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, including the possibility of locking the warheads “in a cupboard” for delayed launch only after several weeks of mounting international tension.

The revelation was made by Sir Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat who was the defence minister leading the review until the government reshuffle this month. The MP for North Devon said he believed the policy could get support in Whitehall and from senior military figures and Labour.

Harvey said past policy on Trident had been dictated by the 1980s view that the only deterrent to a nuclear attack from the then Soviet Union was the belief that the UK could “flatten Moscow” in retaliation. This led to the UK building Trident and having at least one armed submarine at sea every hour of every day since.

Speaking in detail about the Trident review for the first time since he was sacked as minister, Harvey said: “If you can just break yourself out of that frankly almost lunatic mindset for a second, all sorts of alternatives start to look possible, indeed credible.”

[…]

Harvey’s response was that creating jobs in Barrow should be the last consideration. “The idea that you should produce weapons of mass destruction in order to keep 1,500 jobs going in the Barrow shipyard is palpably ludicrous. We could give them all a couple of million quid and send them to the Bahamas for the rest of their lives , and the world would be a much better place, and we would have saved a lot of money,” he said.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/sep/26/trident-nuclear-missiles-review-downgrading?newsfeed=true

September 26, 2012 - Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized