Disarming Public Opinion

In the UK recently, the Trident missile has found itself under a significant amount of scrutiny as the country struggles with a significant budget gap and questions related to the renewal of the program. Adding fuel to the fire, a Guardian poll reported this morning that a majority of Britons support abandoning the Trident program altogether - and only 42% support the system’s renewal, down from 51% just three years prior.

However, should the poll be interpreted as evidence of some massive migration in support of British denuclearization and a nuclear weapons-free world? Not at all, although the article certainly comes with the standard dose of Guardian flavor.

The response is all the more striking because pollsters gave no prompting about the system’s great cost, and Trident-sceptics were asked to commit to Britain going fully nuclear-free. The disarming result is a big turnaround since last time the question was asked, three years ago.

However, despite the lack of prompting on the system’s cost, that very issue has received significant press in recent weeks, with the article later admitting that “the change reflects the public’s understanding that the government has run out of money.”

More dubious though, is that the article frames the issue (with colorful phrases such as “…successive governments have squandered billions on retaining the notional power to massacre whole cities at a time.”) in the context of the morality issues raised by nuclear weapons. I suspect it’d be a pretty safe bet that a large number of those Britons who support going nuclear-free would quickly change their minds if the U.S. announced that it would not protect the UK under its nuclear umbrella. And, disavowing the weapons under the label of morality or lack of necessity are relatively disingenous when you’re willing to accept their use by another party on your behalf. It just seems far more probable that this poll is, at least in part, attributable to an economic climate where cutting a weapon that has never been used and which few people truly understand seems an easy choice to make. Indeed, as James Schlesinger said (in reference to the U.S., although it applies here as well):

Public interest in our strategic posture has faded over the decades. In the Cold War, it was a most prominent subject. Now, much of the public is barely interested in it.

This is not to refer to some mass-ignorant public, rather, it simply points out that since the end of the Cold War, nuclear issues have largely fallen off the radar for many people who no longer see and hear about them on a day to day basis. Strategic posture and deterrence are foreign concepts to a large group of people.

As a final note also, the Trident - and the status of nuclear power - carries with it a certain power and prestige. Giving up the Trident now could have several potential side-effects. The first is nicely presented in a London Times piece which essentially argues that a nuclear capacity is the only thing keeping Britain from being relegated to a second-rate power.

Trident and its successor are as much about national power and Britain’s position in the world as about military effect. Cancel Trident’s replacement and we join the second rank of European countries, on a par with Italy or Spain economically and militarily.

Secondly, if Britain surrenders its weapons now, it will be (perhaps rightly) perceived by the international community not as a move in support of the nonproliferation regime, but rather as a decision made out of dire economic necessity.

And ultimately, despite what the article, and others, may try to insinuate about maintaining a “breakout” capability - this is far easier said than done. A massive stockpile of plutonium and HEU just aren’t a replacement for what a nuclear capability represents: a hedge against uncertainty - and that’s the larger point that seems to be getting ignored in Britain’s debate.