The former leader of the British armed forces yesterday urged the United Kingdom to postpone for as long as possible a final determination on whether to replace the country's Trident nuclear deterrent, the Press Association reported (see GSN, Jan. 7).
Edwin Bramall, chief of the British defense staff from 1982 to 1985, does not support the plan to produce an updated version of the submarine-based system. At a parliamentary debate on nuclear arms reduction he said the government in London should postpone its final decision for "as long as humanly possible ... to give us more flexibility in [international nuclear disarmament] negotiations.
"This would be made easier by being prepared to gradually reduce the fleet to three or even two submarines."
In 2007, Parliament gave its support to a $32.3 billion plan to modernize the nation's Trident system. The plan includes replacing the country's four Vanguard ballistic missile submarines. The Trident decision has proved to be divisive and has drawn opposition from some high-level ex-military officials.
British Foreign Office Minister Elizabeth Kinnock said London's plan for its Trident system was "consistent" with "achieving a world free of nuclear weapons."
"It does not mean that we are irrevocably committed now to maintaining nuclear weapons for the next 50 years," Kinnock said.
"When it is useful to do so we will willingly include the U.K.'s nuclear weapons in a future multilateral disarmament negotiation," she added.
A 2009 estimate put the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons stockpile at 180 warheads.
Bramall said the United Kingdom and France should make a "joint move" toward the reduction of strategic arms.
"Once that unilateral straitjacket is removed or loosened I believe the whole country would soon be in favor of stepping down the nuclear ladder," he said.
He said the United Kingdom does not require "an all-singing, all-dancing successor to Trident" as "it doesn't deter any threat likely to face us in the future, in a globalized world it cannot really be used under any relevant circumstances ... and we certainly can't afford it" (Nicholas Randall, Press Association, Jan. 22).