Government and Military

From: Stephen Willmer

Assistant Director, Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Room 9152, Main Building, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2HB

28 September 2000

Dear Ms. Zelter,

Thank you for your letter of 31 July to the Prime Minister about nuclear disarmament. It has been passed to the Secretary of State for Defence and I have been asked to reply. You asked a range of questions on the Government’s nuclear policy and the outcome of the 2000 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. I will try to deal with your points in the order you raised them.

On Nuclear Weapons. Every State is responsible for determining its own national security requirements, and whether or not this requires a nuclear capability. The Government recognises the right of every State to make this determination for itself. It also, however, reserves the right to take account of such decisions in determining the United Kingdom’s defence, foreign and security policy, taking into account the United Kingdom’s own obligation under Article I of the NPT not to assist any non-nuclear-weapon State or any State not party to the NPT in developing, acquiring or maintaining such a capability. The Government welcomes the fact that under the NPT 182 States have, for whatever their various national reasons, voluntarily undertaken a legally binding commitment as non-nuclear-weapon States under the Treaty, not to seek to acquire nuclear weapons. Where a State has undertaken such a commitment, the Government expects it to be kept. It fully supports the worldwide work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the specific work of UNSCOM/UNMOVIC in Iraq, towards this end. The Government is working to create the conditions necessary to achieve the global elimination of nuclear weapons mandated by the NPT. In that spirit, with the other 186 States Parties to the NPT, it is working to persuade the four States remaining outside the Treaty (Cuba, India, Israel and Pakistan) to accede to it as non-nuclear-weapon States. The Government does not believe that their security, or international security and stability more generally, are enhanced by their keeping a nuclear option open. The Government does not deny their right to do so under international law. It rather seeks to persuade them that their interests would be better served other-wise while observing the United Kingdom’s own obligations under international law.

You seem to have misunderstood the purpose of potential sub-strategic use of nuclear weapons. If they were ever to be used by the United Kingdom it would be precisely to achieve a strategic effect: in an extreme circumstance of self-defence to persuade an aggressor to cease his aggression by sending a limited but unambiguous political signal that he had miscalculated the resolve of the United Kingdom to defend itself and its Allies. The Government does not believe that for as long as the United Kingdom possesses nuclear weapons it would be reasonable or responsible to leave itself with no way to send such a signal in such circumstances other than by firing all the nuclear weapons at its disposal. That said, as you know, the Government believes the circumstances in which the use of nuclear weapons might be considered by the Unite Kingdom are now extremely remote. On Nuclear Doctrines. The Government supports the establishment of regional nuclear-weapon-free zones endorsed by all States of the region concerned. The United Kingdom has long given assurances to non-nuclear-weapon States party to the NPT compliant with their non-proliferation obligations under that Treaty that it will not use nuclear weapons against them except in the case of an invasion or any other attack on the United Kingdom, its dependent territories, its armed forces, its Allies, or on a State towards which it has a security commitment, carried out or sustained in alliance or association with a Nuclear Weapon State. The United Kingdom extends this same assurance in Treaty form to members of regional nuclear-weapon-free zones through its signature and ratification of the relevant protocols to the Treaties establishing these zones. As a Nuclear Weapon State under the NPT and as a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council the United Kingdom has also given an assurance, in common with the other Permanent Members, that if a non-nuclear-weapon state were threatened or attacked with nuclear weapons, the United Kingdom would immediately seek Security Council action to provide assistance. It is therefore hard to see how the existence of the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent threatens the security of a State party to a regional nuclear-weapon-free zone compliant with its obligations under such a Treaty and not planning aggression against the United Kingdom or its Allies. On Delivery Vehicles. The Government, along with much of the international community, agrees that more international attention now needs to be given to ballistic missile proliferation. A wide range of proposals have been put forward for examination in a number of fora, including among the members of the Missile Technology Control Regime. International consideration of this issue is at an early stage, and no clear and generally agreed way forward has so far been identified. But I can assure you that this question is not being ignored. On Fissile Materials. It is not for the Government to determine other States’ requirements for fissile material for peaceful purposes. Many States across the world continue to attach considerable importance to this right, both in principle and in practice. It is an integral part of the NPT, subject to the application of safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United Kingdom no longer manufactures fissile material for explosive purposes; all reprocessing and enrichment facilities in the United Kingdom are under EURATOM safeguards, and are liable to inspection by the IAEA. The Government continues to press for negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) to end verifiably worldwide the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons, in accordance with the mandate that was agreed in 1995. It is disappointed that substantive negotiations on this have not yet started. By ensuring that no more material is produced for nuclear weapons and establishing the necessary verification provisions, such a Treaty will take a significant and essential step towards achieving the global elimination of nuclear weapons. Irreversible progress towards nuclear disarmament will also require addressing existing stockpiles of fissile materials held outside international safeguards. However, the Government believes that seeking to include this issue within FMCT negotiations would further delay the opening of these negotiations and significantly reduce the likelihood of their reaching a successful conclusion. Moreover, existing stocks of fissile material are already being addressed in other contexts, for example in the US/Russia/IAEA Trilateral Initiative, through G8 work on disposition of surplus Russian plutonium, and through national measures by individual states such as those undertaken in the United Kingdom in the Strategic Defence Review. The Government does not therefore support including existing stockpiles of fissile material in FMCT negotiations.

On the Infrastructure of Disarmament. The key international organisations engaged in implementation and oversight in this area are the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organisation. The Government has consistently supported provision of the resources necessary for these organisations to fulfil their mandates; the United Kingdom’s contributions are fully paid up. In the United Kingdom the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Department of Trade and Industry are all actively engaged in working to prevent nuclear proliferation and to take forward the process of nuclear disarmament. The Government is committed to providing the necessary national resources for this. For instance, it has set in hand work at the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston on the verification of reductions and elimination of nuclear weapons, and in this year’s Comprehensive Spending Review has allocated some £84M over the next three years for nuclear safety and security in the former Soviet Union. The Government has already announced £70M over 10 years from this fund to help ensure the safe and irreversible disposition of Russian plutonium no longer required for nuclear weapons. This is an essential counterpart to the START process.

You raise a number of points in relation to several of the steps contained in the agreed Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference. I would emphasise that the Final Document was negotiated and agreed as a package, and its various elements cannot be taken in isolation from each other. The Government is delighted with the successful outcome to the Review Conference. This has clearly reaffirmed the importance of the NPT as the cornerstone of global non-proliferation and disarmament efforts. The United Kingdom’s delegation, headed by Mr Hain, Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, played an important and constructive role in the negotiations. The Government welcomes the fact that the Review Conference endorsed a series of measures, many of which reflect measures the United Kingdom has already undertaken in the Strategic Defence Review and since. Overall, the Review Conference’s conclusions provide a useful framework for work over the years ahead, and the Government is working to translate the agreement into concrete international progress.

Following the Review Conference, the Government’s priorities are for further US/Russian reductions through the START process, the early entry into force of the CTBT, and the early opening and successful completion of FMCT negotiations, as called for in the Final Document. The Government particularly welcome the Conference’s recognition of the importance on working on verification issues. The United Kingdom’s delegation to the Review Conference proposed this measure, building on the work underway at AWE Aldermaston. Credible and robust verification arrangements will be essential in achieving a world free of nuclear weapons, and developing solutions to the complex challenges these raise is likely to be a lengthy progress. This is an issue where the United Kingdom is well placed to play a leading role.

You ask what further reductions the Government now envisages in the United Kingdom’s minimum nuclear deterrent. The Government has already made substantial unilateral reductions in the United Kingdom’s nuclear arsenal. Following the Strategic Defence Review the United Kingdom now has significantly fewer nuclear weapons than any other Nuclear Weapon State, and Trident is operating at a reduced state of readiness. On a point of detail in your letter, the United Kingdom is procuring only 58 Trident D-5 missiles from the United States, not 200. It has fewer than 200 operationally available warheads. Other measures were considered in the Strategic Defence Review, but ruled out as creating new risks of escalation and instability that would undermine the stabilising role that our nuclear deterrent would otherwise play in a developing crisis. This would clearly be inconsistent with promotion of international stability. The Government is fully committed to transparency about the United Kingdom’s nuclear forces where consistent with the United Kingdom’s non-proliferation obligations under Article 1 of the N-PT, and with national security requirements. The United Kingdom is significantly more transparent than several other Nuclear Weapon States. Again, on a point of detail in your letter, the transporting of warheads within the United Kingdom does not, as you suggest, endanger communities along the route. Nevertheless, as a matter of best practice the MoD does provide advance information on timing and routes to the local police.

The United Kingdom’s deterrent requirements are determined in the light of the international strategic context, taking into account the promotion of international stability and based on the principle of undiminished security. In the current strategic context the Government does not envisage any early changes to the conclusions reached in the Strategic Defence Review. However, as it has made clear on many occasions, the Government is unequivocally committed to the global elimination of nuclear weapons, and is working to create the conditions in which no State judges that it needs nuclear weapons to preserve its security. At the NPT Review Conference this spring the United Kingdom’s delegation put forward a well received food for thought paper on what will be entailed in pursuing systematic and progressive efforts to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons globally. I attach a copy for your information.

You asked about the deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom or other European NATO Allies. The Alliance has already reduced the number of weapons available for its sub-strategic forces in Europe by over 85% in the last 10 years, and by almost 95% since the height of the Cold War. The number of storage sites has been reduced by about 80%. NATO’s sub-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe are now numbered in the hundreds, compared to the several thousand such weapons possessed by Russia. The Government, and NATO collectively, have respectively made clear that nuclear weapons play a reduced role in the United Kingdom’s and the Alliance’s security policies, and that the likelihood of any use of nuclear weapons is now extremely remote. NATO’s nuclear readiness is now measured in weeks rather than minutes. However, NATO continues to judge that its nuclear forces contribute to European security and stability by underscoring the irrationality of a major war in the Euro-Atlantic region. The presence of US nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO provides an essential political and military link between the European and North American members of the Alliance. At the same time, the participation of non-nuclear countries in the Alliance nuclear posture demonstrates Alliance solidarity, the common commitment of its member countries to maintaining their security and the widespread sharing among them of burdens and risks. The Government fully supports NATO policy on the continuing requirement for a sub-strategic nuclear capability, as a crucial element of credible deterrence.

You also asked what the Government is doing to facilitate a change to NATO nuclear doctrine to preclude nuclear first use. NATO does not follow either a first-use or no-first-use policy. The Alliance does not determine in advance how it will react to aggression. It leaves this question open, to be decided as and when such a situation materialised. In so doing, Allies seek to ensure uncertainty in the mind of any aggressor about the nature of the Allies’ response to aggression. The Government supports this policy and does not believe that it should be changed. Nor does the Government judge that a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons would in practice add to international confidence, or to the prospects for nuclear disarmament. In the extremely remote event that any State possessing nuclear weapons faced in practice such an extreme circumstance of self-defence as to make it consider the possible use of its nuclear weapons, it is unlikely that the judgement it reached would be determined by a prior no-first-use statement made only in theory and in very different security circumstances. As the NPT Review Conference Final Document itself therefore states, the total elimination of nuclear weapons is the only absolute guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. Pending achievement of that goal, the Government believes that working to develop further where possible the existing framework of security assurances and nuclear-weapon-free zones represents a more credible and effective way forward.

The Government has always made clear that when satisfied with verifiable progress towards the global elimination of nuclear weapons, it will ensure that the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons are included in multilateral negotiations. It therefore welcomes the agreement that as soon as appropriate all the Nuclear Weapon States will engage in the process leading to total elimination of nuclear weapons. However, the Government has made clear that considerable further reductions in US and Russian nuclear arsenals will need to take place before further reductions by the United Kingdom will be feasible. In the meantime the Government will work for continuing cooperation among the Nuclear Weapon States on nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament in the spirit of their joint statements to the 2000 NPT Review Conference and the meetings of its Preparatory Committee.

I hope this explains the position.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Willmer.

Printer friendly version

Home | Top