Buying Trident would weaken British defence

Last week, the British election went nuclear. Michael Fallon, a Conservative and the UK's defence secretary, made the emotive claim that a Labour government might "stab the UK in the back" by refusing to fund the renewal of Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent.

Mr Fallon was reprising a theme from the 1980s - when the Tories successfully painted Labour as weak on defence and wobbly on nuclear weapons. But the modern Conservatives should not be allowed to pose as doughty defenders of British military strength. On the contrary, the present government has presided over a drastic reduction in defence capacity - confirming a downward trend begun by Labour.

The British army is scheduled to decline to just 82,000 troops - its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars. Sir Nick Harvey, a Liberal Democrat who served as armed forces minister in the current coalition government, says further defence cuts in the next parliament could see the army shrink to just 60,000. The navy, which had 70 destroyers and frigates in 1977, is down to 19 such vessels. It could no longer put together a task force of the size that Britain needed during the Falklands war of 1982. As for the air force, a new book by the BBC's Mark Urban says the Libyan conflict of 2011 demonstrated that "a mission by six bombers . . . is about the limit of the RAF's long-range strike capability".

In the context of this drastic decline in capacity, the Tories' commitment to spend upwards of £30bn on renewing the Trident submarine-based missile system is not a demonstration that they are serious about defence. It is actually a frivolous decision to waste billions on a symbol of strength - rather than to spend the money on the conventional military muscle Britain needs.

The real radicals in the Scottish National party and on the left of Labour would like to scrap Britain's nuclear weapons altogether. But in the context of a revanchist Russia that boasts of its nuclear arsenal - and with the continued threat of nuclear proliferation by Iran and others - that would be unwise.

Instead, Britain should go for cheaper nuclear options than Trident that would allow the country to retain its status as a nuclear-weapons state. This path should be pursued, but only if linked to a firm commitment to spend the savings on the conventional armed forces.

A recent report by Toby Fenwick for the Centre Forum think-tank argues that Trident renewal will absorb about 22 per cent of Britain's military equipment budget over the next two decades. But, he argues, the UK could save about half that amount - roughly £16bn - by switching to a nuclear deterrent based on bombs and aircraft. Another alternative to Trident, not highlighted by Centre Forum, would be nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, which are already produced by the Americans and could be deployed on conventional submarines.

The British defence establishment claims that all the alternatives to Trident have been carefully examined and found wanting. Anybody who does not back Trident is dismissed as "not serious" or ill-informed.

But talk to the nation's most important allies and you get a very different perspective. Last week, I found myself at a conference table with four members of the US security establishment, three Democrats and one Republican, all of whom had held senior government positions. Not one of them thought Trident renewal made sense for Britain. All thought it would be better to spend the money on conventional weaponry.

Much of the argument is about the nature of nuclear deterrence. The standard case for Trident is that a potential enemy can be deterred only by the absolute certainty that a nuclear attack on the UK would be met by nuclear retaliation - hence the need for a permanent at-sea deterrent that could strike even if the British mainland itself had been devastated. Because cruise missiles have a shorter range than Trident ballistic missiles and because aircraft carrying nuclear weapons could be shot down, only Trident is deemed to offer an effective deterrent.

But the Gothic horror scenarios involved in British nuclear plans drawn up during the cold war - which demand that the nation maintains the capacity to obliterate Moscow and eight other Russian cities - have always had a certain unreality. Above all, they fail to recognise that nuclear deterrence does not require a 100 per cent guarantee of retaliation to be effective. Any sane adversary would be deterred even by a strong possibility of nuclear retaliation and the millions of deaths that could result. That, after all, is why North Korea and Pakistan's relatively crude nuclear deterrents are effective. Nobody can even be sure that Pyongyang's devices would work. But does anybody want to take the chance?

In a world of lavish defence budgets, Trident renewal might make sense. But that is not the world that Britain inhabits. In the real world, renewing Trident can mean only a further erosion of the country's capacity to defend itself by conventional means and to protect its interests around the world.

For the Tories to insist that, nonetheless, they intend to splurge billions on Trident simply testifies to their preference for flashy symbols over substance. They are like a man who can afford only a cheap suit, but insists on topping off the outfit with a gold Rolex watch. The overall effect is sad, not impressive.

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