Abstract
If the importance of sea-power depends on the nature of the conflict, it goes without saying that the identity of the participants is also significant. An import-dependent island-state is more likely to be involved in the kind of conflict in which sea-power matters than is a land-locked country enjoying a high degree of self-sufficiency. But this book is about Britain and this chapter is uniquely concerned with the kind of conflict in which Britain might be involved. When these contingencies are later examined in more detail, there will be opportunity enough to emphasise the specifically maritime aspects of British national interests. For the moment these can be taken for granted: they are familiar. Nor will this chapter scrutinise the oceans for future sources of conflict. There is already enough trouble to be getting on with. Instead, a series of predicaments will be briefly examined. In each case the purpose will be to identify, for later analysis, any significant contribution which might be expected from British sea-power. Where none can be found, then the hypothetical situation in question, however important, lies outside the scope of this book.
The want of omnipotence is no reason for abstaining from such choices as are available.
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Notes
Hilaire Belloc, Complete Vers. (Gerald Duckworth, 1970) p. 184.
Margaret Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and A tomic Energy 1945–1952, Vol I: Policy Makin. (Macmillan, 1974) p. 255.
Statement on the Defence Estimates 1979. Cmnd 7474 (HMSO).
Statement on the Defence Estimates 1980. Cmnd 7826–1 and 1981, Cmnd 8212–1 (HMSO).
Ibid., (1980) p. 12.
Ibid., p. 12.
Ibid., (1981) p. 11.
Ibid., p. 12.
Ibid., pp. 13–14.
Ibid., pp. 11–12 and Mr Pym’s speech of 24 January 1980, Survival. July/August 1980, p. 180.
Robert S. McNamara, The Essence of Securit. (Hodder & Stoughton, 1968) p. 60.
E. P. Thompson and Dan Smith, Protest and Surviv. (Penguin, 1980) p. 19.
Francis Pym, ‘The Future United Kingdom Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Force’, Defence Open Government Document 80/23 (Ministry of Defence, July 1980). For some reason the Ministry seem to have wanted to keep this notable light under a bushel. It was not printed and published in the usual way as a White Paper. In February 1982 copies were no longer available; the Cambridge University Library did not have one and only the kindness of the Ministry of Defence Library produced a photostat.
An example of the kind of undertaking on offer was given by President Brezhnev on 2 November 1981: I can also say with all responsibility that the Soviet Union will under no circumstances use the nuclear weapon against states which have renounced its production and acquisition and do not have it on their territory. We are ready to give contractual assurances of it to any country without a single exception … Quoted in Survival. January/February 1982, p, 33. President Brezhnev may well have meant what he said, but his offer would have been no more convincing if it had been made by the British Prime Minister or the Archbishop of Canterbury. A ‘scrap of paper’ is not reliably fireproof in the hands of any human being.
Anyone who considers, as one very eminent critic did, this comment to be unfairly dismissive, should read the excellent speech of 16 October 1981 by Mr McGeorge Bundy, Survival. January/February 1982. This is one of many opinions to the effect that the NATO decision to deploy intermediaterange missiles in Europe was not so much a logical military response to the perceived threat of the SS 20 as a political reaction to Allied apprehensions that were incorrectly diagnosed.
Statement on the Defence Estimates 1980. p. 9.
Statement on the Defence Estimates 1981. p. 15.
Ibid., p. 15; ‘the use of mobile launchers would not change it [vulnerability to surprise attack] in Britain’s circumstances of a small territory within a very short flight time of Soviet land-based and sea-based missiles’, Pym, ‘The Future United Kingdom Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Force’, p. 11.
This argument has been again criticised as unfair. So it is if British rationalisations about the supposed increase in the Soviet threat resulting from the installation of SS 20 missiles are accepted at their face-value. The argument is a subjective interpretation of human motives and not a proposition ever likely to receive documentary confirmation.
Statement on the Defence Estimates 1981. p. 66.
Ibid., p. 66.
Ian Smart, Future Conditional: The Prospect for Anglo-French Nuclear Cooperation. Adelphi Paper No. 78 (IISS, 1971) p. 19.
Ibid., p. 19.
The Defence Review 1966. Cmnd 2901 (HMSO) p. 10.
Statement on the Defence Estimates 1981. p. 66.
Ibid., p. 52.
Statement on the Defence Estimates 1981: Fart 2, Defence Statistics. Cmnd 8212–11, p. 22.
David Greenwood, ‘British Defence Budgets for the 1980s: Some Cost Analyses and Attributions’ (unpublished, 1980).
Statement on the Defence Estimates 1981: Part I. pp. 14–15.
Mr Nott, quoted in The Times. 12 March 1982.
David Greenwood, The Polaris Successor System: At What Cost? Aberdeen Studies in Defence Economics. no. 16, Spring 1980.
Statement on the Defence Estimates 1980: Part I. p. 84.
Central Statistical Office, National Income and Expenditure 1967–7. (HMSO, 1978) p. 66.
The Times. 24 February 1982.
Mr Nott, Hansard, vol. 5, no. 106, Tuesday, 19 May 1981 (HMSO) col. 167.
Mr Nott, Hansard, vol. 5, no. 107, Wednesday, 20 May 1981, col. 372.
Michael Howard, The Continental Commitmen. (Temple Smith, 1972) p. 109.
Labour Party Defence Study Group, Sense About Defenc. (Quartet Books, 1977). See also the expanded version: Mary Kaldor, Dan Smith and Steve Vines, Democratic Socialism and the Cost of Defenc. (Croom Helm, 1979).
Mary Kaldor, Dan Smith and Steve Vines, Democratic Socialism and the Cost of Defenc. (Croom Helm, 1979).
The Times. 23 May 1981.
Peter Nailor and Jonathan Alford, The Future of Britain’s Deterrent Force. Adelphi Paper No. 156 (IISS, 1980).
Lawrence Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapon. (Macmillan, 1980); David Greenwood, The Polaris Successor System: At What Cost.
Ian Smart, The Future of the British Nuclear Deterrent: Technical, Economic and Strategic Issue. (RIIA, 1977)
William Rodgers, ‘Yes to Cruise, No to Trident’ RUSI Journal. March 1981.
Prime Minister, The British Strategic Nuclear Force July 198. (exchange of letters), Cmnd 7979 (HMSO, 1980).
The British nuclear deterrent originally consisted of a free-falling bomb to be dropped from manned aircraft, the V-bombers. In 1962 ability to penetrate Soviet defences was enhanced by the introduction of blue steel, which allowed bombs to be released at a distance of 200 miles from their target. All these were British developments and the deterrent could then be regarded as fully independent. As early as 1957, however, the decision had been taken that reliable delivery would henceforth require missiles rather than manned aircraft and the blue streak project, a missile based on American designs, was adopted. This was cancelled, for technical reasons, in 1960, when the British government announced their intention of replacing it with an air-launched missile purchased from the United States: skybolt. When this was cancelled by the United States government in 1962, the British government arranged to buy American POLARIS-submarinelaunched ballistic missiles, fit them with British warheads and install them in British-built submarines. This arrangement was reached with some difficulty and gave rise to considerable controversy at home and abroad, but was continued by successor governments and the 4 strategic submarines were all operational by 1971. See Andrew J. Pierre, Nuclear Politic. (OUP, 1972).
A partial exception is the argument that ‘the size of the Trident submarine tends to be a disadvantage as far as nonacoustic detection is concerned, since most nonacoustic signatures are aggravated by increased body size’. Paul H. Nitze and Leonard J. Sullivan Securing the Sea. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1979) p. 259.
James McConnell, The Interacting Evolution of Soviet and American Military Doctrine. (Alexandria, Virginia: Center for Naval Analyses, 1980).
Gowing, op. cit., p. 185.
Nigel Lawson, Financial Statement and Budget Report 1979–8. (HMSO, 1979) p. 11.
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© 1983 James Cable
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Cable, J. (1983). Contingencies of Conflict. In: Britain’s Naval Future. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06657-5_5
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