Leadership, Defence and Trident

Leadership has two main components, an objective to which it is desired to lead others
towards and others who will follow towards that objective. Whilst unilateral disarmament is a
valid position there is little evidence that there are many people outside of those already
committed to it who would quickly follow such a call. Indeed, with most of the media and
many politicians of the last 70 years claiming that without nuclear weapons the Russian Army
would have already occupied the UK it is unlikely such call would be followed. An
intermediate position needs to be developed from which it can be shown that the reliance on
nuclear weapons can be reduced.
Such a position could be developed around two areas. The first is the absurd red-lining of
Trident from any Defence Review. Without looking at the cost of maintaining and developing
Trident any attempt to review (and, by implication, cut) the cost of other parts of defence is
and, in my opinion already has, distorted the structure of the UK Defence capability. The
reduction of the army to 80,000 has meant that when conflict occurs troops are constantly
being redeployed back to active service without adequate respite, the RAF finds it difficult to
keep enough planes airworthy to undertake roles required of it and I doubt the surface fleet is
adequate to protect the aircraft carriers being completed. This is without taking into account
that the aircraft they could have used until the F-35 is available were sold to the US Marines
to save money. I wonder if there would be an advantage to commit at least 50% of any
savings from the strategic missile programme to other areas of defence? At the least it may
help gain support from proponents of other areas of defence.
The second is to make it clear that the current debate is not about Trident replacement but
Trident launch platform replacement. I understand the US has a programme to extend the life
span of the current missiles and their launch platforms, the Ohio class submarines, to 2040
and I wonder what the cost would be to apply something similar to the UK Vanguard class
submarines?
At present the Vanguard submarines carry 16 missiles, fewer than the 24 of the US Ohio
class. Could the numbers be reduced as a goodwill gesture to help reactivate multi-lateral
nuclear disarmament talks, and make it clear that the remainder would be available to be
incorporated in further rounds of disarmament talks? I do not know but would a reduction to,
say, eight missiles help extend the span of the Vanguard submarines?
In place of Vickers building the replacement for the Vanguard submarines they would have
the work needed to extend the life of the existing vessels. I understand that, to date, three of
the planned seven Astute class submarines have been completed could the remaining four be
lengthened and modified so that, as well as having their six torpedo tubes and cruise missiles,
they also had space for, say, four Trident missile tubes. Perhaps the Astute submarines already
completed could be modified at a later stage to incorporate these tubes. (Lengthening existing
submarines has been done before, e.g. US Tang class). Such a multi-purpose submarine
would make more sense of going to sea without missiles than the Vanguards which, without
missiles, would become very large attack submarines with only four torpedo tubes as their
armament.
Barry Edwards
(A498245)
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