Sunday 7th April

It might not surprise you to know that I am totally opposed to Great Britain having an independent Nuclear Deterrent, or anyone else having one either for that matter.  But the arguments are interesting on both sides.  What almost everyone is agreed upon is that an exchange of nuclear weapons, no matter how small would be a disaster for mankind.  It may well be the case that the Atom bomb hastened the end of a war which America was winning anyway, and may have consequently saved many thousands of lives, notwithstanding the fact that thousands did die in the commission of it, and the radiation which followed.

The argument for deterrence has always been based on a strange assumption.  Because we have the means of annihilating you if you attempt to annihilate us then somehow that fact will stop you from attacking us.  But of course this would be mutual destruction, which neither side wants – and so the deterrence only works as long as it is not used.  However to be credible one must pretend that we would use it, even if by using it then the game would be lost anyway.  A game of bluff and super-bluff which may once or twice have given enough pause for thought so that more rational arguments came into play.  Sting wrote a song on his first solo album, released at the height of the cold war about why the Russians love their children too.  In fact the Russians were just as scared that we wanted to bomb them to bits as we were of them.

The game has changed now though, with several countries having nuclear capability, including Isreal, India and Pakistan as well as the old hands of China and the USA.  The argument for maintaining our independent deterrent, or weapons of mass destruction is that in an uncertain world we do not know where the threat will come from.  But we have Nato, we have the EU, we know that America would never let us be attacked without coming to our defence, and anyway whatever the provocation would we really retaliate with Nuclear Weapons which against a power larger than us would bring about our total destruction, and against one far smaller would result in world condemnation.

Every conflict has to end with people talking, so why resort to arms anyway.  We should be finding ways of bringing countries like Iran and North Korea closer to us not imposing sanctions on them which only serve to hurt the people and to alienate the leadership.

At the moment North Korea is threatening the West, but even if they do fire missiles at us is it worth destroying so many more lives by a disproportionate response.  Diplomacy must be the only way forward.  And if that fails and missiles are launched then of course Nuclear Deterrence has failed too.  Then where will all the arguments stand?  Let us hope that wiser heads prevail and the crisis can be talked down without any loss of life.