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Government and Military
From Trident Ploughshares, 31st July 2000
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31/7/00
Dear Tony Blair,
As usual, just before our three monthly open disarmament camps, we are writing with an enclosed list of the names of the current TP Pledgers. This is in line with our commitment to accountable, open and nonviolent disarmament, as described in our Handbook ’Tridenting It’ which was sent to you in 1998. If at any time you wish to see the details of our campaign or see a list of the current Pledgers or lists of our supporters then please look at our web-site at www.gn.apc.org/tp2000
We would like to congratulate your government on having played a constructive role at the recent Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York, April 24 - May 20. We were pleased to note that Britain joined in the consensus, which included the "unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals" together with a plan of practical steps towards achieving this objective.
This is the most explicit recognition yet of the nuclear disarmament obligation enshrined in Article VI of the NPT (paragraph 7, Article VI, Final Document of the 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) and follows from the NPT states parties noting the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice delivered July 8, 1996. We are glad that you have now accepted the importance of this advisory opinion and hope that you will accept the application of the ICJ opinion in international law from now on.
It is not enough for Britain to play a constructive role in developing diplomatic language on nuclear disarmament. We expect our government to lead by practical example. Speaking recently to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security and Non-Proliferation, United Nations Under-Secretary-General Jayantha Dhanapala raised five questions which are relevant to Britain as a nuclear weapon state, and to which we would like you to respond:
- On nuclear weapons -
If some countries continue to maintain that nuclear weapons are "vital" or "essential" to their security, how can they deny other nations the same right? Yet if every country adopted that logic, what would be the result for all? And with respect to "sub-strategic" nuclear weapons, is it conceivable that such weapons could ever be used without having strategic consequences?
- On nuclear doctrines -
If countries join nuclear-weapon-free zones to be free from nuclear threats, how does a military doctrine providing for the first-use of nuclear weapons - or for their use against non-nuclear-weapon states - affect the incentives of states to create or maintain such zones? Do doctrines proliferate just as weapons?
- On delivery vehicles -
The preamble to the NPT identifies the elimination of nuclear-weapon delivery vehicles as a key goal - why is public debate mired today in a duel between deterrence and missile defence, with scant attention to missile disarmament? In April 1999, the UN Secretary-General stressed "the need for multilaterally negotiated norms" for missiles and missile defences, who is taking up this challenge in earnest?
- On fissile materials -
Why must countries continue to produce new fissile nuclear materials, given the lack of a compelling economic need for such materials and the widely-recognized limitations of safeguards over them? Is it either realistic or prudent to assume that this production can forever be reserved to just a few nations? What is being done to ensure that efforts to ban the production of fissile materials for weapons will also extend to controls over existing stockpiles of such materials?
- On the infrastructure of disarmament -
What resources are now being devoted both nationally and internationally to the pursuit of global nuclear disarmament and are they adequate to the job?
The plan of practical steps for nuclear disarmament agreed to by Britain and the other NPT states parties included:
- "Further efforts by the nuclear weapon states to reduce their arms unilaterally."
We would like to discuss with you your proposed timetable for making unilateral reductions to bring the UK nuclear arsenal down from the present deployment of four Trident submarines with up to 200 D-5 missiles with nuclear warheads.
- "Increased transparency by the nuclear weapon States with regard to the nuclear weapons capabilities and the implementation of agreements pursuant to Article VI and as a voluntary confidence-building measure to support further progress on nuclear disarmament."
In conjunction with the Strategic Defence Review, Britain has been the most progressive of the weapon states in transparency, but there is more than needs doing. The transporting of warheads between AWE Aldermaston/Burghfield and Coulport endangers the towns and communities along the route. You do not need to keep transporting and conditioning warheads that you intend to eliminate, but as long as you do, you should provide advance information of routes and timing to the emergency services. Most importantly there needs to be an open public debate about the steps Britain must undertake now to comply with our Article VI obligations and the undertakings made at the 2000 Review Conference.
- "The further reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons, based on unilateral initiatives and as an integral part of the nuclear arms reduction and disarmament process." What has Britain done to ensure the removal of the remaining US tactical nuclear weapons deployed through NATO in this country and six other European states?
- "Concrete agreed measures to further reduce the operational status of nuclear weapon systems." In your joint statement with the other nuclear weapon states you declared that none of your nuclear weapons is currently targeted at any state. The non-nuclear countries welcomed this, but have asked you to go further. Britain reduced the notice to fire but the Strategic Defence Review pledged to "ensure that we can restore a higher state of alert should this become necessary at any time." That is unacceptable. In preparation to fulfilling the undertaking to eliminate your nuclear arsenal completely, we request you to take all Trident missiles off alert, separate the warheads from the missiles and de-activate them.
- "A diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies to minimise the risk that these weapons ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination."
The Strategic Defence Review says that "Our own arsenal, following the further reductions described ... is the minimum necessary to provide for our security for the foreseeable future and very much smaller than those of the major nuclear powers." Elsewhere government representatives have described nuclear weapons as essential for the security of Britain and NATO. These statements are incompatible with the NPT obligations and show that Britain still places nuclear forces centre stage in our security policies, individually and as a member of NATO. Deterrence based on threatened first use is a relic of the Cold War. At the NPT Conference, the non-nuclear countries raised repeated concerns that Britain, France and the United States insist on NATO retaining a strategic doctrine based on the potential first use of nuclear weapons and an extended role for nuclear weapons in countering the threat or use of biological or chemical weapons and that this has been adopted by Russia and Pakistan. The ICJ advisory opinion ruled that the use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to humanitarian law, but divided over whether nuclear weapon use in circumstances where a state’s survival was at stake would be permissible or not. The April 1999 Washington Summit of NATO heads of state initiated a review of arms control policy in response to pressure from Germany and Canada in December 1998 for a debate on first use. What is Britain doing to facilitate the changes to NATO doctrine to preclude nuclear first use?
A pledge of no first use, though declaratory in the first instance, would increase confidence-building and could be backed up by verified steps in de-alerting. Such a pledge could be initiated in negotiations with China, which has made this a central tenet of its nuclear and non-proliferation platforms, as a way of engaging Beijing on other measures, including the fissban/FMCT and transparency. The alternative is for some countries - now joined by Pakistan - to continue to claim that the threat to initiate the use of nuclear weapons in a conflict is essential for their national security, while denying others the right even to develop nuclear weapons.
- "The engagement as soon as appropriate of all the nuclear weapon states in the process leading to the total elimination of their nuclear weapons." This paragraph was directed towards Britain, France and China. We think that the appropriate time to put Britain’s nuclear weapons into the disarmament process is now and would like to enter into dialogue with you about this.
We would appreciate a substantive reply to the important and serious questions that we have put to you in this letter and look forward to your prompt response.
In the meantime as Trident is still on 24 hour alert we will continue with our lawful people’s disarmament work at Coulport and Faslane. We consider the deployment of Trident a major infringement of international law and our disarmament work essential and urgent crime prevention. We will be holding a major blockade of Faslane base on 1st August to start off our two weeks of open and accountable disarmament.
In peace and love,
Kathryn Amos, Morag Balfour, Sylvia Boyes, Maggie Charnley, Alison Crane, Helen Harris, David Mackenzie, Joy Mitchell, Brian Quail, Jane Tallents, Angie Zelter.
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