Defence Green Paper Continues Trident Update
MoD and CND comment

3rd February 2010
By MoD and CND
 

[Excerpt from MoD Green Paper 3rd Feb 2010...]

The Defence Green Paper 2010 - Discussion

Deterrence and Reassurance

The ultimate example of our exerting influence against a specific threat is nuclear deterrence. Our approach was set out in the 2006 White Paper on the Future of the UK Nuclear Deterrent. We retain a minimum strategic nuclear deterrent designed to “deter and prevent nuclear blackmail and acts of aggression against our national interests that cannot be countered by other means”. It also contributes to NATO’s collective security and assists in reassuring key allies. The UK has made significant unilateral contributions to our objective of multilateral disarmament and is at the forefront of efforts to create the conditions for a world free of nuclear weapons. However, we have to begin the process of renewal of the Trident submarine system because not to do so would effectively commit us now to unilateral disarmament at a future date regardless of the threats pertaining at that time.

Deterrence has, however, always been a wider concept. We define it as convincing a potential aggressor that the consequences of coercion or armed conflict of any kind would outweigh the potential gains. Conventional deterrence therefore is a key aspect of defence influence. NATO has played a central role in our deterrence posture.

Complementing deterrence is reassurance. Reassurance requires us to be able to demonstrate that we can provide our friends with military support when they are threatened. In limited circumstances, we have judged that we also need the option of extending our influence to coercion. This can involve military action although it also covers the use of Defence assets in support of economic or diplomatic action such as sanctions regimes. Where coercion is not possible, we have pursued containment – which requires elements of deterrence but with strategic endurance.

We may wish to place greater emphasis on how these influence measures contribute to wider Government objectives in an uncertain world.

 

Excluding Trident makes nonsense of Defence Green Paper says CND

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has described today's Defence Green Paper as a disastrous missed opportunity. To review Defence priorities whilst specifically excluding Trident replacement is "avoiding the huge white elephant in the room".

A cross-party group of 117 MPs had protested as early as last July that today's review needed to include consideration of Trident. EDM 1883 in the last parliamentary session was tabled by former shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram and former Defence minister Peter Kilfoyle.

Kate Hudson, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said "The exclusion of Trident, one of the most costly defence programmes, makes this review a nonsense. Bob Ainsworth talked of the 'real financial pressure' facing future plans, yet is living in a fantasy world if he thinks spending £76bn on Trident replacement won't have major opportunity costs in both defence and other areas. Excluding the ruinously expensive Trident is like avoiding the huge white elephant in the room.

"When all major parties are proposing huge spending cuts, this is the time for ministers to realise that scrapping Trident replacement would be one very positive and popular cutback. Polls consistently show a clear majority against Trident whilst at the same time a growing number of senior military figures have described the system as 'militarily useless'. Presidents Obama and Medvedev are both working towards a nuclear-free world - scrapping Trident would move us towards this goal, improving our security as well as freeing-up resources for spending on real priorities, not Cold War relics."

 

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