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. 

In praise of September....

 (Fall in the beloved mountains...)

It's September. And at this time of the year, I'm always having two thoughts close to the front of my mind: the natural phenomena of fall in Vermont and LibDem Annual Conference.

This year, LibDems are in Glasgow - a hop, skip and a jump from HM Naval Base Clyde, the home of the UK Trident fleet - and will be discussing the future of Trident for the LibDem's next manifesto. I have written a primer for BASIC on the choices, which will be published next week. As you would expect, it draws heavily on the Trident Alternatives Review and on the work CentreForum did last year.

My thoughts are relatively simple, and are based on a three point premise:

- That the UK is not currently, and is unlikely to become in the foreseeable future, short-notice direct nuclear threat;

- That there is unlikely to be a significant increase in the UK defence budget, or a substantial reduction in the UK's national ambition abroad;

- That NATO will continue to offer the level of nuclear deterrence the UK requires.

Taken together, this means that the UK faces a choice on the sort of military capability it would like to have from now until the the late 2030s, and therefore, what a key component of the UK's "Hard Power" looks like over the same period. Against this backdrop, the question is one of choices: does the UK want to revamp the conventional forces, or does it want to have Trident (and very much smaller / equipped with older kit) conventional forces?

It is important not to obscure this question within an argument about Trident with or without Continuous At-Sea Deterrence (CASD). The reality is that removing CASD as a readiness requirement and going over to two or three SSBNs instead of four saves £4 - 8bn over 30 years, or about 3.5 - 7% of the total budget to the 2050s, with the costs in the early years similar (they reflect R&D and the early builds). This means that the opportunity costs to the conventional forces are essentially identical, making the choice relatively binary in financial terms.

Strategically, non-CASD Trident there are also major problems; the question of crisis instability (what happens if you don't have CASD and need to sail an SSBN at a time of tension.... raising tensions!) will only be definitively answered when someone tries it in a crisis.

Similarly, the unspoken proposal to share deterrent patrols with the French (who could then reduce their number of submarines, too) is also ridiculous. Would a British Government really consent to Paris firing a British Trident at a target of France's choosing when our national interests were not engaged? And in the unlikely event that a British Government would, what are the chances of an adversary having enough fear that this could happen to be deterred? (I strongly doubt that the French would be up for the reverse situation, either....)

So, do we want to spend the money on Trident or on the conventional forces? I will vote for the conventional forces everytime, and in the debate on the 17th of September.

A Minor Constitutional Earthquake

In constitutional terms, Tony Blair could be described as the gift that keeps on giving. Having failed with the alternative vote and reform of the House of Lords, last night’s seminal vote on Syria means that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have enacted a major constitutional reform, albeit probably not as they intended. On behalf of the current and future members of the Executive branch, they’ve relinquished the power to engage in wars of choice.

This is remarkable.

Since Walpole was Prime Minister to George I at the dawn of the modern British State, the settlement of powers between the Executive and Legislative branches of Government have waxed and waned depending on their comparative strength and the national and international situation. Since 1721, however, one set of Royal Prerogative powers has remained firmly in the hands of the Executive: the power to go to war.

Yet absent an immediate threat to the UK, our overseas territories or to our allies covered by mutual defence treaties (notably NATO Article 5), it is now hard to conceive of circumstances under which a British Prime Minister would order British forces to battle without the explicit prior consent of the House of Commons. Indeed, to do so today would appear to risk a constitutional crisis. Better, for international law, there appears to be a new norm to publish the legal advice on the use of force, and a need for express legality from the United Nations or through the emerging Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

This matters.

For a nation with an unwritten constitution, precedence and practice – combined with some national and international statutes – provide the rules of the political game. If the Executive cedes power to the Legislature or to the devolved administrations, it is unlikely to get it back – and never more than in this case.

How did we get here? The 18 March 2003 vote on the invasion of Iraq was the first time that the Government allowed the Commons to decide whether or not the UK would go to war. In the 2003 vote, the Labour Government majority was provided by the support of the Conservative opposition; the invasion began the following day. And if 2003 provided the opening for the change, then last night’s debate provided the dénouement: when the House of Commons voted against action, Britain was unable to follow the course that the Government of the day was apparently set on.

So despite the warm words of David Cameron in opposition and of Gordon Brown in office, it has fallen to the Commons to take what the Executive failed to enact. In doing so, the House of Commons has asserted a much greater crimp on Executive power than the famous US Congress War Powers Act (WPA). Enacted over Nixon’s veto in 1973 the WPA requires the US Executive to notify Congress of the introduction of US armed forces into hostilities or “situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances” within 48 hours, and the gives the Executive up to 90 days to secure Congressional support or to terminate the US armed forces involvement. Britain’s new constitutional settlement for wars of choice doesn’t even give Britain’s Executive this flexibility in future.

There will be those who downplay the scale of these changes, noting that Britain's unwritten constitution is inherently flexible, and that the irreducible element is whether a party can command a Commons majority for its budget. This remains true, but the counterfactual to consider is whether David Cameron could survive ignoring Parliament to join a US-led attack on Syria regardless. The fact that this is now politically inconceivable underscores just how much the Constitutional position changed last night; it will be fascinating to see how this develops.

But make no mistake: reports of a constitutional earthquake last night were entirely accurate.

Classics combined

(See, it does fit!)

In haste, a short post following up on a post from December 2011 on the importance of North Bennington Depot having a classic SAAB 900 sitting outside it. And last week, I had both the car and the camera in the right place at the right time. I was actually voting on the privatisation of the North Bennington Graded School (a plan to create a Charter School in Vermont without any of the legislation that would be required to support it - sadly, the plan passed, though it is subject to a review by the State Board of Education next week; they stopped it last time) but the snow was lovely and the station stood resolute and welcoming as ever. 

I also got a copy of "America's Great Railroad Stations" over Christmas, which features North Bennington Depot in a beautiful spread on pp. 86 - 89, taking its place alongside the New York's Grand Central, Boston's South Station and Washington's Union Station. Wonderful book, well worth a read; all we need now is for Amtrak to be sufficiently funded to use these beautiful stations optimally. For North Bennington, this means diverting the Ethan Allen from New York to Rutland - and eventually to Burlington VT, via Manchester, Rutland and Middlebury - hopefully from 2015/16. 

On the tragedy of Sandy Hook

Like most of the world, I'd never heard of Newtown, CT or Sandy Hook elementary school before last week; now, it has entered the unspeakable lexicon of horror, known worldwide. This happened to my hometown of Ipswich, UK in late 2006 - and it's an awful thing.

I write this as both an American and a Brit; and having lived and worked in both countries, I don't for one second believe that there is a greater proportion of the US population that is psychotic or murderous than the UK. Therefore, how can we explain the wildly different murder rates? To me, the only rationale explanation is that Brits with the requisite intent don't have the opportunity afforded by widespread firearms ownership to act on these impulses that their American counterparts have - and take, on a daily basis.

The alleged arsenal of the Sandy Hook mass-murderer: Glock and Sig Sauer automatic pistols and AR-15 rifle

I can conceive of no sensible rationale for civilians to hold semi-automatic military rifles (not required - and indeed useless - for hunting or target shooting) or hand guns of any sort at all - and certainly not in homes. The level of expert training and practice for these to be effective "protection" should involve range work of several hours a week to provide the required accuracy and target discrimination; less makes them a danger to the owner and - in the case of semi-automatic rifles - anyone within about 500m. Indeed, the 5.56mm rifle bullet can kill at 1300m - 4/5ths of a mile - though in fairness you'd have to have been very unlucky as aiming at these extreme ranges is a specialist skill.

If nothing else, the political recoil from the tragedy at Sandy Hook should lead to banning - and compulsory purchase - of the most dangerous weapons. This would include all semi-automatic rifles and their large calibre single-shot / bolt-action counterparts, along with a federal ban on the sale of their ammunition (e.g. 5.56 and 12.7mm rifle ammunition). Federal action is critical as the net is only as strong as that of the weakest state regulation. 

Keeping guns locked away is also a good idea - away from their ammunition, too

Add to this a requirement for every weapon to be licensed and ballistically tested, and kept in a locked container with ammunition held separately and securely, then we may see a reduction in some of the tragic accidents that make up a large proportion of US firearms casualties. None of these measures will impact legitimate gun-owners at all. Finally, we can impose taxes on ammunition to reflect the externalities that gunfire imposes on the rest of society. These will be very high, and over time will significantly reduce the amount of ammunition in circulation.

And no, none of this would have an impact on my rights as an American under the 2nd Amendment. But it would reduce the dangers to our friends and families in the US.