CCTS
Review 33

Statement by Michael Randle at the Academics’ Seminar and Blockade at Faslane, 7 January 2007

The crucial question is a moral one. As my late friend and colleague, Pat Pottle, put it to Air Commodore Magill at the Old Bailey trial of himself and five other members of the Committee of 100, including myself, in 1962 – ‘Would you press the button that you know is going to annihilate millions of people?’ To this the Air Commodore replied frankly – ‘If the circumstances so demanded it, I would.’
Magill’s reply exposes the intellectual dishonesty of those who assert that nuclear weapons are not for use but simply for deterrence – a claim made by spokespersons for successive British and other governments before and since that time. The doctrine and policy of nuclear deterrence depends on having not only the necessary weapons but also a body of people trained to obey unconditionally the order to unleash them. Anyone not prepared – at least in principle – to give the same answer as the Air Commodore has no moral or political right to support reliance on nuclear weapons.

Because the end of the Cold War has removed the imminent danger of a nuclear world war, and because nuclear weapons have not been used since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, many people and governments have become complacent. That complacency is now being challenged by the spread of nuclear weapons, and their likely acquisition by states seen as unstable, or hostile to Western interests. But what is needed now is not simply an awareness of the danger to ourselves of nuclear proliferation, but a renewed sense of outrage at the idea of using nuclear weapons against our fellow human beings under any circumstances.

This does not mean it is sufficient to establish that moral imperative. If nuclear disarmament is to become a reality, the political, strategic and legal arguments put forward by supporters of nuclear deterrence have to be confronted on their own terms, and alternative security policies expounded. Academics, public intellectuals, lawyers and peace activists have been engaged in that task over several decades, as too have some statesmen and women conscious of the precariousness of civilisation and perhaps ultimately human existence in the nuclear age. However, whilst the consequences of particular strategic choices can never be predicted with absolute certainty, there is no doubt at all about the effect of launching an attack with nuclear weapons. How can any strategic calculation, fallible by its very nature, justify the manufacture and deployment of weapons whose use would constitute such an appalling crime against humanity? This is the context in which any discourse about nuclear weapons has to be situated.

Moving to a consideration of the British position, the arguments for it to have its own nuclear weapons have always been particularly weak. The decision to manufacture them was taken in secret by the Attlee government in 1947 for reasons relating to prestige and an illusion about Britain’s place in the post-war world rather than to any consideration of national security as such. (It is worth recalling that the Soviet Union did not test its first atomic bomb until 1949.) And the principal assumption during the Cold War years that there were circumstances in which Britain might use its nuclear arsenal against the Soviet Union at a time when the US was unwilling to do so was never convincing.

Today Britain’s continued nuclear posture makes even less sense. The argument that it enables the country to ‘punch above its weight’ is an open invitation to all other states with similar ambitions to follow Britain’s lead. The argument that it needs to retain nuclear weapons to protect itself against possible future threats in an uncertain world is again equally available to other states and contributes substantially to that very uncertainty. Britain lacks all credibility and authority in opposing nuclear proliferation – the outstanding threat to the future peace of the world – as long as it retains it own weapons. In opting to upgrade its nuclear arsenal, and in all likelihood deploying a new Trident system, it is also in breach of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty under which it and all the then existing nuclear powers undertook to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament.

In this situation concerned citizens are under an obligation to act against the policies of their government not only through the normal constitutional channels but also, depending on individual circumstances, by means of nonviolent direct action. That is why I am joining other academics and researchers in Faslane today to discuss with them the issues involved, to obstruct the work of the base, however briefly, and to try by means of this direct action to stimulate a more profound consideration of Britain’s nuclear stance and of the decisions that are being contemplated.

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