Reversing The Nuclear Threat

The British government has decided that an important and hugely expensive part of its national defence involves nuclear weapons. Last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair asked parliament for the money and authorisation for a new generation of submarines, all armed with nuclear weapons.

Curiously, Mr Blair claimed Britain needs nuclear arms and weapons platforms deep into the 21st century to protect against terrorists and rogue states. That is not an entirely convincing argument, given the actual threats from these two directions. Perhaps the time has come for a real effort at nuclear disarmament. First of all, there is no doubt about the greatest threats to peace and to civilised nations. They lie exactly where Mr Blair found them. In fact, terrorism is not merely a threat to Britain. It has occurred in actual attacks upon the innocent people of London, and except for high vigilance it would have taken far more lives in many more attacks. Nor is there any doubt that major terrorist groups are trying to obtain both nuclear weapons and so-called ''dirty bombs''. If they obtain these deadly weapons, terrorists will use them.

Rogue states are also real threats to peace. In our own region, North Korea threatens all of East Asia with a terrible war, possibly involving nuclear weapons. The Pyongyang government of Kim Jong-Il has developed and sold missile technology to black-sheep sympathisers.

Yet it is difficult to see how Mr Blair gets from the correct identification of threats to the need for more and better nuclear weapons to defend his nation from them. Were terrorists to attack, or even to threaten to attack Britain with a nuclear device, it is difficult to see how nuclear weapons would give Mr Blair or his successors a better response.

Of course, Britain could assure the destruction of a nuclear-armed rogue state. But by definition, the weapons of rogue states are crude if deadly. Even the oldest, most outdated British weapons systems are far superior to the worst nuclear threat a North Korea or Iran could raise in coming decades. On top of this, Britain would be allied with virtually the entire world in case of such an unlikely attack by a rogue.

There is a third nuclear threat to Britain and other civilised nations that Mr Blair, perhaps diplomatically, forgot to mention. The huge stockpile of poorly controlled weapons in Russia, the ageing and effectively surplus weapons in China, and the grossly overstocked nuclear reserve in the hands of American forces pose threats in a variety of ways. The Russian ones can be stolen or sold. Rogues and terrorists insist they must own nuclear weapons because the Americans do.

This would be a good time for the original nuclear powers _ Britain, the United States, Russia, China and France _ to consider again the option of a massive nuclear weapons reduction, with a view to disarmament. Mr Blair's best argument for improving nuclear weapons logically only needs a few terrible bombs to counter. Both the Cold War and the China-Russia dispute have ended, and along with them the need for any of those involved to hold enough weapons for the policy of MAD _ mutually assured destruction. The United States and Russia have an estimated 20,000 nuclear weapons between them, France 450, China another 400, Britain close to 200. These five countries could easily shed most of their nuclear weapons without harming their national security or ability to respond to threats or attacks. Not much trust even needs to be established. That would quickly come if the countries involved simply showed and destroyed their weapons publicly.

Heavy pressure _ world and local _ then would come upon India, Pakistan and Israel to destroy some of their weapons. The more weapons destroyed, the greater the pressure to destroy more. Iran would lose at once almost all justification for owning such terrible weapons. It wouldn't solve all problems or end all threats. But nuclear disarmament would make the world a lot safer.>