Time to discard a 1950s defence strategy

Trident has been making the headlines over the past few weeks – dividing opinions and polarising views.

The SNP have been consistent in securing their colours to the mast on the subject of nuclear weapons and we recently discussed the subject in the Scottish Parliament – ending in overwhelming support across the chamber against the renewal of the Trident nuclear missile system.

The debate is relevant for moral and economic reasons, and although it is a reserved issue – ultimately decided by Westminster - we are the country hosting the nuclear weapons in our waters at Faslane.

The other good reason for the debate is that further scrutiny of the renewal of the Trident weapons system suggests that the estimated potential cost has significantly risen. This comes at the same time that the UK Government imposes scathing welfare cuts, affecting some of the most vulnerable in our society.

But the moral argument remains – whether Trident renewal costs £1 or £1 billion, we would not support it. Not only are nuclear weapons created for mass destruction – they would be responsible for indiscriminate destruction.

from wikipedia

According to Crispin Blunt MP, chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select committee, the total estimated cost of the Trident renewal programme will be £167 billion over its lifetime. Previous estimates stood at around £100 billion – this is quite a significant jump. The successor Trident programme will consume more than double the proportion of the defence budget of its predecessor – and even some Conservative MPs and retired senior military personnel have claimed the cost is now too high to be rational.

To give the total spend some context – Scotland’s 8.3 per cent population share of £167 billion comes to around £13.9 billion. This is the equivalent of 10 Forth replacement crossing projects. And that does not cover the annual running costs to the taxpayer – estimated at £125 million for Scots alone.

Strategic support for nuclear weapons in past decades by previous governments was fuelled by the cold war – but this is not the world that we live in today. This is not a blasé statement based on resting on one’s laurels. Germany and Japan do not have nuclear weapons, and in 2012, former Secretary of State for Defence Michael Portillo described Trident as “completely past its sell-by date” and no deterrent to the Taliban.

We simply cannot discount the fact that, when we choose to spend vast amounts of money on a particular item of defence, we choose to take money away from those in our society with the greatest need.

The UK Government has announced welfare cuts of £12 billion per annum by 2019-20, and about £1 billion of those cuts will impact directly on Scotland.

Winston Churchill spoke of the tragedy of poverty and the tyranny of war. In Liverpool in 1951, he said:

“Evils can be created much quicker than they can be cured.”

Have our missiles—or, more properly, the United States’ missiles, which are carried on our submarines, been directed away from the former Soviet Union and towards new targets? Have the missiles deterred the Taliban, in their Afghan mountain fortresses, from taking action? Were they a deterrent to Saddam Hussein in his bunker in Iraq? Are they a deterrent to Daesh in Syria and Iraq?

The missiles are no deterrent of any kind to the threats that exist in today’s world. They are merely a defence front, which in reality contributes nothing to defence.

Our nuclear weapons are not targeted at our enemies and never will be. They do not attack the military capabilities of those who would attack us. They are by design focused on civilian populations over the horizon. They are focused, often, on people in totalitarian regimes, who have made no contribution whatever to decisions about peace or war.

When we choose to spend our money on weapons of mass destruction we address neither the tyranny of war nor the tragedy of poverty.