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DID THE UK DEPLOY A NUCLEAR-ARMED SUBMARINE TO THE FALKLANDS CONFLICT?

Evidence suggests Britain sent one of its Polaris submarines, which carried 16 ballistic missiles with thermonuclear warheads, to the Falklands during the 1982 war.

RICHARD NORTON-TAYLOR, 6 APRIL 2023 Declassified UK

The war in Ukraine has provoked concern about the use of nuclear weapons, heightened by Russia’s plan to base tactical nuclear arms in Belarus.

While the US and Russia have kmade no secret of their development of these dangerous, indeed potentially devastating, additions to traditional nuclear arsenals, British military planners have also been in on the act – rather more quietly.

The British government, far from taking measures to reduce nuclear tensions in recent years, itself announced, in 2021, that it planned to increase the cap on Britain’s nuclear stockpile to 260 warheads, a 40 per cent increase on previous commitments. 

More recently, Britain has refused to comment on reports of a planned new deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons to the American air force base in Lakenheath in Suffolk.

With the exception of the Scottish National Party and Green Party, all British political parties are backing, with growing enthusiasm, the policy of maintaining a Trident missile submarine “continuously at sea”, at an initial estimated cost – not disputed by the Ministry of Defence – of more than £200bn. 

The deployment of British nuclear weapons was belatedly highlighted during the 1982 Falklands conflict after the government failed to cover up their presence on ships in the naval task forces. Declassified revealed last year that British warships deployed to the South Atlantic were secretly carrying 31 nuclear depth charges. 

But there have been repeated suggestions, never convincingly denied, that even more devastating weapons were deployed during the conflict. 

A number of sources have indicated that a submarine equipped with Polaris strategic nuclear missiles – then Britain’s major nuclear weapons system and the forerunner to the current Trident – was diverted to the South Atlantic within range of Argentina.

Polaris

The claims were originally spelled out in a paper on “Sub Strategic Trident” by the widely respected academic, Paul Rogers, emeritus professor of peace studies at Bradford University………………………………………………………..

….the implications of the analysis – that the Thatcher government was prepared to threaten nuclear use against a non-nuclear state………………………………………………….

First use

This was all more than 40 years ago, but is still relevant today, given that the UK has maintained a nuclear posture that includes first-use of nuclear weapons since at least the 1960s. ……………………………….

Confusion, uncertainty

Successive British governments have deliberately used confusion – they call it uncertainty – over the circumstances in which nuclear weapons would be used to boost their argument that they are a “credible” deterrent. …………………………………………

Putin’s deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus has been condemned by NATO. But as Daniel Hogsta, executive director of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, has pointed out, the US stations nuclear weapons in five European countries – Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey, and now in Britain as well, it seems – and is currently modernising its arsenal. 

……………………………………… Putin’s earlier implied threats to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine is rightly viewed as a dangerous and destabilising position to take. It is also uncomfortably close to the UK’s position during the Falklands War over 40 years ago.  https://declassifieduk.org/did-uk-deploy-nuclear-armed-submarine-to-falklands-conflict/

April 10, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war