Is this the worst nuclear weapons policy ever?

(Actually, pace ConHome, this is one thing that didn't happen)

Despite our leading cartoon (credit: ConservativeHome), the LibDem conference this week didn't actually do anything to contest the policies of the Coalition, with the exception of the Spare Room Subsidy (aka Bedroom Tax). This was especially stark in two areas of nuclear policy - weapons and power, where the LibDems both approved the party leadership's preferred positions.

As a LibDem, I don't have a problem with the nuclear power position. Simply, the UK needs nuclear power to provide low-carbon baseload electricity, though if nuclear is to be subsidised (and it will be), then it makes more sense to me to have this as a publicly owned utility run on market lines. Otherwise, the lights will go out, and that's a problem that would require higher-carbon alternatives to bridge the gap, which is a distinctively bad idea.

But on the issue of LibDem nuclear weapons policy, the situation is rather different. In fact, I'd suggest that the LibDem's new policy position has a solid claim to being the most incoherent - and dangerous - of any party in a democratic nuclear weapons state since the dawn of the nuclear age.

As I understand party policy at this point, LibDems are now committed to:

(Steve Bell isn't entirely wrong.... but we're not saving 10%!)

- Building two or three SSBNs (unclear) at a cost of 93 - 97% of the cost of like-for-like Trident replacement (NPV cost of c. £25-33bn of capital 2018/19 - 2031/32, and running costs of c. £3bn 2030-50)

- Successor SSBNs to be carry 8 SLBM tubes for the Trident II D5LE. Each missile is capable of carrying up to 12 100kt warheads to different targets (MIRV), even if the UK wouldn't normally do so.

- A declaratory policy that the UK would not:

     - Conduct CASD patrols

     - Sail with the missiles

     - Arm the missiles

Let me offer eight grounds on why it is such a poor policy:

First, the UK's conventional forces are in need of very substantial investment in equipment between now and 2030. This is not only because of the bow-wave of procurement costs that has been building up since SDR 1998, but also because the tempo of operations over the last 20 years, combined with an ever shrinking pool of assets means that a significant investment bill is being built up. It is currently unaffordable with Trident in the programme. (See Chapter 4 of "Dropping the Bomb".)

Second, once Successor goes ahead, it will need to receive whatever resources it demands. Nuclear MoD types will smugly tell you that the V-boats came in on budget (true), but only because the budget increased and because of a favourable strengthening of the pound versus the dollar at the end of the programme. Given that two sides of the capability-time-cost triangle are fixed, cost is the only variable, meaning that it can only increase, taking further resources from the conventional forces.

Third, moving away from CASD increases crisis instability. And contra Danny Alexander and Sir Nick Harvey, if I were an aggressor with designs on the UK, I would 

(i) ignore the declaratory policy unless backed up by independent inspections - and therefore assume that the SSBNs were fully armed with max-MIRV Trident (96 100kt warheads), and 

(ii) I would specifically act against the submarines when they were all in port. Faslane / Gareloch is not that hard to get at, and there is only one route out of the Clyde. 

As a result, the non-CASD posture is actually more likely to create a short-notice crisis than to reduce it.

Fourth, the policy of sailing unarmed SSBNs about and having to return for arming speaks for itself. In a three SSBN world, you could knock out two in the Gareloch and ambush the third on its' return to Coulport. 

This assumes, of course, that the missiles were actually in the UK, which under current operations they wouldn't be; easier still in the two SSBN world. If we were to move to this posture, we would need to include the costs of maintaining a missile store and maintenance facility in the UK - the missiles are currently maintained at King's Bay, Georgia. These facilities were not included in the current Trident programme to save money; such construction isn't going to be cheap, and as a result will cut the (already meagre) savings vs. like-for-like further.

Fifth, despite Danny's frequent assertions of the in-depth nature of the Alternatives Review, the thinking in LD HQ is less clear cut. Whereas the Trident Alternatives Review (TAR) rightly frames a two axis chart of readiness and system technical capability, what the party has done is concentrate solely on the readiness element. 

Let's be clear: in technical terms, the notion that "Trident Lite" is "disarmament" is risible; it is nothing of the sort. What the LibDems are actually proposing is the purchase of half or three quarters of a pint of full-fat nuclear deterrent, rather than, to extend the metaphor to a free-fall option, half a pint of skimmed nuclear deterrent. 

With 2 SSBNs we can operate fully armed CASD for a limited period, and with 3 SSBNs fully armed CASD for an extended period. I would expect an aggressor state to see our position in this light, and make no change in their posture as a result of it. And to claim, as the leadership did, that the UK dealerting and Trident vfm study was causal in the US and Russia adopting New START is fatuous in the extreme - I can't believe that they believe it, either.

However, a free fall bomb programme - far from being "from the stone age" as Sir Nick Harvey told Conference on Tuesday - would be a real disarmament option as it is both less capable and at lower readiness than the Trident options the LibDems are now advocating. 

Sixth, consequently from point five, the fiscal savings that would accrue from going down to a free fall capability were not seriously examined. There are two possibilities: either, because the leadership actually just wanted Trident in some form, and think, deep down, that the UK needs that level of technical capability, or (and, I hope more likely) because the wrong question was asked. 

Based on what Danny Alexander said in his Demos fringe last Monday, it seems that the question asked was:

Q: "How much is a new warhead and how long will it take?" 

A: The TAR claims the answers are "14 years" and "£8-10bn". (Which is only plausible if AWE has lost much of its indigenous design expertise.)

However, to accurately cost the free-fall option, the question that should've been asked is

Q: "How much would it cost and how long would it take to build an existing modern design (US B-61 Mod 11, or if built, B-61 Mod 12)?" 

A: The TAR as published is silent on this question. But based on conversations here and in the US, the answers should be "2-3 years, or 12-18 months if you're in a hurry" and "Even if producing 50 bombs at Aldermaston is twice as expensive as it would be in the US, and we allocate £1bn for the infrastructure and capital works for the RAF, you'll have change out of £4bn."

Less than £4bn vs £25-33bn for Successor is all of a sudden a considerable amount of real money. Indeed, saving £2bn a year from 2020/21 to 2031/32 would increase the equipment programme by 45% in those years.

Seventh, in losing the savings from cancelling Successor, LibDems are at once opening ourselves up to looking "weak" by not backing like-for-like, and also failing to have the fiscal ammunition for the 2015 leaders' debate to challenge the Tories and Labour on where they were going to find £25bn+ on supporting the conventional forces, pointing out that we don't need the technical capability of Trident, but that freefall off JSF off the carriers will provide more than enough deterrence against Iran / Pakistan / DPRK. In neatly turning the question back onto the other leaders, the LibDems would also be in tune with the majority of British (and overwhelmingly of Scottish) voters who want Trident gone.

Eighth, politics is not static. If the LibDems were to move away from Trident, it is less problematic for Labour  - whose own policy is not defined yet - to do so as well. Having opted for this fudged Trident based solution, the opportunity and incentive for Labour to provide a non-Trident package at the next election is much reduced.  

(Get ready for some more of this.)

Sadly, the most likely outcome of all of this is that the UK will be stumble into a like-for-like replacement of Trident after the next election, and will end up denuding our conventional forces of the investment that they need in the 2020s and early 2030s to make good our role as a force for good in the world.

In summary, our new policy is not credible in strategic, financial or political terms. And as a party, we are already being lampooned for it - including by MoD ministers.

We deserve nothing less. 

Trident - Why I'm voting to retire it

(How many SSBNs in this picture?!)

Ok, so if there were any regular readers of this blog, I suspect that they'd be getting bored of the current Trident focus. But see it through, as LibDem conference is next week, and Tuesday sees the first time in a generation that a major British political party is seriously debating scrapping the UK's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

There, I said it. WMD.

Enough of the euphemisms of "independent nuclear deterrent"; we're talking about 100kt thermonuclear warheads mounted on long-range, highly accurate rockets; truly, a WMD. And "deterrent" implies a positive value judgement - a good thing if it keeps the "bad people" (or, if you're George W. Bush, "evil doers") away. But unless it deters something or someone, it can't be a deterrent. Who is UK Trident deterring?

So, cross-posted from LibDemVoice. Happy to discuss, as ever.

Toby
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Amid general agreement on the thrust of Julie Smith’s Committee’s excellent paper, and gratitude that Nick Harvey and Danny Alexander have delivered unprecedented transparency on the UK’s nuclear options, next Tuesday’s debate on defence offers two sharply differing views of the future of Britain’s nuclear future.

On the one hand, there is Nick Harvey’s proposal to retain the Trident missiles, their warheads and associated infrastructure, but reducing our purchase of new Trident submarines from four to two. This means that from the early 2030s, the UK will no longer be able to mount the standing patrols of Continuous At-Sea Deterrence (CASD) for the first time since 1968. Styled as a step “down the nuclear ladder” it was endorsed by Julian Huppert on Lib Dem Voice this week, though the Trident Alternatives Review dismisses Julian’s notion of new dual-role submarines.

The alternative view is being put forward by George Potter, and would see the UK withdraw Trident from service, reinvest the £30bn in capital investment that the new submarines would require in the UK’s conventional forces, whilst retaining the capacity to build nuclear weapons if future scenarios require it, and putting the UK’s scientific expertise to address the technical challenges of verifying nuclear disarmament.

Having written Dropping the bomb: a post Trident future for CentreForum and a primer for BASIC, I have strong preference for the second of these two positions. There are three reasons for this:

First, as there is no territorial threat to the UK or its dependencies in which Trident would be relevant, the case for an independent decision making pole that was the Cold War justification for the UK and French nuclear programmes is removed.

Second, after 20 years of close to continuous operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, Britain’s conventional forces are in need of major reinvestment. Between 2018 and 2032, this includes new armoured vehicles for the Army, frigates for the Navy and fighter-bomber and maritime patrol aircraft for the RAF. Additionally, there will be costs for achieving full operating capability out of the new army structures, the new aircraft carriers and the ambitious integration of the reservists outlined at the last defence review. This currently looks unaffordable.

Yet according to our analysis at CentreForum, replacing the Trident submarines will absorb between 25% and 33% of the defence procurement budget in these years, meaning that we are mortgaging the useful, conventional forces’ future in favour of a political weapon that we don’t need.

Third, I remain to be convinced that Nick Harvey’s proposal is strategically, politically and financially viable.

Strategically, two submarines instead of four will provide rather less than half the capability, and does mean that there will be periods when both vessels would be in port. A short notice crisis could require the UK to sail a missile submarine in a period of profound tension, increasing it just as we would be looking to de-escalate – a position avoided by CASD. The argument that sailing a submarine in a crisis would be a "demonstration of British resolve" is neither convincing nor comforting.

Politically, this proposal makes the Lib Dems appear as a caricature – sitting on the fence, without the courage of their convictions either to back like-for-like replacement on a strategic basis, or to present the British people with a clear narrative about why Trident is unnecessary. 

Financially, the proposal saves almost no money. Launching the Trident Alternatives Review, Danny Alexander estimated the savings of three submarines instead of four at £4bn out of the £110bn through-life cost; the savings for going to two submarines will be proportionately smaller as the research, development, basing and engineering support will merely be amortized over a smaller fleet. Worse, the savings are backloaded, meaning that a compromised Trident force will still mortgage the future of the conventional forces re-equipment plan. Far better to reject Trident, reinvest the savings and then challenge the other two parties to explain how they will be able to fund the conventional forces’ as well as Trident.

Given the choice, the party should back George’s amendment because it is more strategically, politically and financially coherent than the motion’s text.

Trident policy briefing

(We can get it to do something more useful, you know....)

I've been beavering away with the British American Security Information Centre (BASIC) to put together a short primer for the Liberal Democrats' autumn conference on the choices available for Trident. It's now done, and is available here. 

A week on from the Eurodebacle

(Ah, it was all so much easier back then...)

Ok, so last weekend I was very annoyed about the "Ready, Fire, Aim" approach to EU negotiation by David Cameron; and it didn't get any better by Monday. According to the FT, the cunning plan seems to have been the bright idea of Sir Jon Cunliffe, the ex-Treasury incoming head of UKREP. At the time, I was musing about how this could be unwound, by getting Cameron to amend his current course by approximately 179 degrees. After the PM's Commons statement on Monday, someone (I'm assuming Nick Clegg) has been on the phone to the rest of Europe trying to patch things up.

And whoever this someone is, they've had some early success. The good news is that Britain has been offered "observer" status at the EU-26 talks, and that Germany's Chancellor Merkel's comments that she wants the UK in the EU. This, along with the realization that the one thing Cameron has failed to actually protect was the financial services sector (because most of the financial regulation is still under QMV at 27) - ironic, given this was the rationale for the veto-that-wasn't last week - means that the 179 degree course correction is on, slowly.

What the Tory Eurosceptics/phobes like Bill Cash MP will make of this is not likely to be pleasant reading in No. 10. But in defending the national interest, Cameron will ultimately have to face down his own right wing - which could be great fun to watch, but will continue to irritate the Coalition.

We shall see.

European Council Debacle Part Deux

(Yep, quite a lot to ponder there, Dave...)

48 hours on, does David Cameron's position look any better / more sensible / vaugely explicable?

In a word, no.

(In fact, in several words, NO, absolutely NOT.)

It's increasingly clear that this is basically a screw up, albeit on a previously unknown scale. There's coverage everywhere, but Will Hutton's piece is excellent, and it's hard to see how things are going to get any better soon. I can only hope against hope that the financial services sector make it crystal clear that this isn't remotely helpful to them, and that the worst possible position is for the UK not to be in the room making sensible suggestions about evidence-based policy making in this area, and that as a result, the UK needs to swallow it's pride and get back in there.

A difficult U-turn. But an essential one.

And no, I don't see the Coalition breaking up yet. But a bad weekend for that, too.

Cameron? Really? Why didn't Clegg stop him?

 

(Dave: Fail. Epic Fail.)

I don't normally blog here on European issues, as it's a very specialist element of international law. However, PM Cameron's decision not to participate with the new EU Treaty to help save the euro at 4am on Friday means that I'll break with this rule. It's basically out of a real sense of confusion and disgust that I'm scribbling these lines.

First, Britain hasn't "vetoed" anything. Britain is simply excluded from the Treaty the 26 other states of the EU will conclude, and therefore Britain will have no say (and less influence) on the outcome. Given that this could include single market decisions and financial services regulation - that Cameron was claiming to be protecting - this could rapidly get us to the position that the decisions he was seeking to influence get made without the UK's input, as they're subject to codecision under QMV at 27 but if 26 of the 27 states have already decided, then it's a done deal. UK influence = Zero.

Second, as a result of this, there is no reason for international banks wanting to operate in Europe who can relocate to Frankfurt or Paris not to do so, as Britain's influence in financial services regulation in Europe is now effectively zero - and will be for a decade or more. This will be a slow process, but to the extent to which influence on the regulatory regime helps decide where you base your activities, then this is inevitable.

Third, the outcome of the ECJ case on non-discrimination in the eurozone that the UK has launched will not be known for several years. In the absence of provisional measures, there could be de jure bars as well as the de facto barriers that have existed for those outside the single currency since it's inception. Not good for the single market, and not good for those outside the euro.

(Britain's future EU role?)

Fourth, there is no clarity on the domestic political front that this will silence the Tory "Eurosceptics" - in reality Europhobes - and avoid their demands for a Referendum on the UK's relationship to the rest of the EU. This is a manifestation of Cameron's weakness inside the Tory party - remember he was the guy who couldn't defeat Gordon Brown in the midst of an economic debacle of his opponents making. In essence, any such Referendum would be the In/Out Referendum that UKIP wants and which many pro-Europeans fear, as they expect to lose it, leading to the British withdrawal from the EU. This would be about the most short-sighted economic decision imaginable, but the pro-Europeans bear a heavy share of responsibility - including Blair - for not making the case to Britons for why the EU matters to them - and in their hip pocket.

Fifth, the Europhobes / UKIPers keep banging on about Britain withdrawing from the EU and then having a free-trade agreement with the EU as the EEA states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway) and Switzerland (under different rules) do. Unfortunately, those advocating this position seem to miss the point that the reason that the EEA states get to access the single market is that they have to apply the acquis in all areas except agriculture and fisheries, and have no way of influencing the rules. Given that agriculture and fisheries in the UK makes up less than 2% of the economy, even if this deal were possible, it's a completely absurd notion, as you want to be having a say in making the rules. You do save the net costs of the EU budget, however - say £15bn p.a (less than half the £44bn the UK will spend on debt interest).

Sixth, if EEA Plus is a beguiling chimera, then Cameron has achieved something even worse: paying the net budgetary cost of full EU membership whilst having very little more clout than the other EEA states - the UK has a veto in those areas that the Lisbon Treaty requires unanimity at 27 for, but if the other 26 are going to agree amongst themselves, and a decision doesn't directly contradict existing legislation at EU-27 level, then the UK's vetoes are meaningless. Legal challenges will keep the ECJ happily busy, though.

Seventh, two things about the Council that seem to have been missed in the noise. First, Croatia will join in 2013 - well done Croatia, a small piece of good news. But bad news for the UK as new members will be expected to join the group of 26 - and indeed why would any new members want to join the Brits in second-class EU membership? Second, the Council meeting was designed to save the euro - and it hasn't provided the mechanisms to do so.

Finally, what the hell was Nick Clegg - a former European Commission bureaucrat, former Member of the European Parliament, and leader of our beloved Liberal Democrats, Britain's most pro-European party - doing? Clegg must have been aware of all of the above, and yet he endorsed Cameron's approach. Remarkable, (and remarkably stupid) given that he recognizes the damage that a two-speed Europe poses to the UK.  

So what do we make of this? Firstly, it's too early to make definitive predictions... however, here we go:

 - The UK shouldn't have walked out - you stay and negotiate until there is a text on the table - which there doesn't appear to have been;

- The coalition will survive as the LibDems face electoral oblivion if they go to the polls now, so coalition politics will struggle on to 2015 (when the LibDems may still face electoral oblivion);

- The new Treaty at 26 is due to be finished by March 2012 - remarkably quickly; but they also need to get it approved, and this should involve referenda in the Netherlands and Ireland that aren't obviously straightforward, so the Treaty may or may not even happen;

- If the international financial services sector based in London make clear to the British Government that they're likely to decamp to the Eurozone then it could be time for the most epic (and humiliating) of U-turns for the UK to rejoin the Treaty at 26 (naturally on much worse terms than if the UK had stayed in in the first place).

A triumph all round then. Let's hope the Europhobes and UKIPers enjoy their "triumph"; schadenfreude-induced-by-payback will suck.