This may be a bit of a long-winded note but I think it is on an important topic and may have some things of interest for Lobster readers. Because of the nature of the subject it will have to rely, at least in part, on unattributable sources, but I’ll reference it as much as possible. It is also rather anecdotal, including bits and pieces of background information culled from various sources, but I thought it best to include all this, as some of the ways I’ve used to get information will be familiar to many readers working in related fields. It is written as a result of several recent promptings.
The first is that it is clear that the plans to fit a small warhead to Britain’s Trident missile system will result in Trident having a tactical (or ‘sub-strategic’) as well as strategic capability. This came home to me quite forcibly last year when I had an after-dinner conversation with an admiral at a defence studies conference and he discussed in great detail the advantages that a suitably equipped Trident system would have over RAF Tornado nuclear-armed strike aircraft in the event of Britain being involved in a crisis in, for example, the Middle East, with a nuclear-armed state. He thought it eminently practicable to use Trident to fire a low yield demonstration shot or, if necessary, a pre-emptive strike against an opponent’s nuclear facilities. This could be done using a Vanguard-class Trident submarine on patrol in the Eastern Atlantic, whereas a similar operation involving Tornado aircraft would have at least two basic difficulties. They would have to fly out of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus or some other regional base, and this might not appeal greatly to the government of the country concerned. Furthermore the operation would require a number of aircraft and nuclear bombs to ensure completion of the task and there would inevitably be a risk of loss of nuclear-armed aircraft to anti-aircraft fire.
The second prompting is more personal. I’ve had an opportunity recently to gather together various files which I accumulated in the early 1980s at the time of the Belgrano controversy, when I was working with Tam Dalyell; and some of these relate to the British deployment of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons in the Falklands. Quite a lot of the material has appeared in print in various places, (1) but it seems worthwhile to write it up in reasonable detail, just for the record if nothing else. Finally, I learnt recently that Britain may well have succeeded in deploying tactical nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War of 1991. While it was fairly widely reported that Britain, like the US, would consider responding to a substantial Iraqi use of chemical weapons with nuclear weapons, details of how Britain deployed nuclear weapons to the region have been sparse and largely speculative.
As well as these random prompts, it does seem relevant to examine British attitudes to nuclear policy as they apply to the independent deployment and potential use of nuclear weapons in time of crisis. This is particularly interesting in the run-up to the review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty next year and in the context of Britain deploying the Trident system, likely to be the main nuclear system for the next 30 years.
Ultimate deterrent or war-fighting weapon?
There is quite a basic problem of public perception in talking about the possibility of Britain using tactical nuclear weapons, whether during the Cold War years against the Warsaw Pact or in a non-Cold War crisis, past or future. Apart from those professionally involved, most people tend to believe that nuclear weapons are simply an ‘ultimate’ deterrent and that there is really no possibility of their being deployed for intended use in anything short of World War III. It follows, in this view, that the ending of the Cold War means that small scale nuclear use must be quite irrelevant.
This is a common but somewhat flawed view. The major nuclear powers have long trained to use a wide variety of nuclear weapons in time of war, there have been many different kinds of targeting plans, and Britain has been heavily involved in NATO nuclear war-fighting planning. Moreover, Britain has long deployed nuclear weapons outside the NATO area and specifically in three conflicts involving non-nuclear powers, an indication of the presumed usability of nuclear systems in a military confrontation falling far short of global war.
Before looking at the Falklands and the Gulf, it is worth digressing into the area of nuclear war-fighting by mentioning NATO’s tactical nuclear posture as it existed in the early 1980s. This will be ‘old hat’ to some readers, but not to others, so bear with me.
NATO nuclear planning
At the height of the Cold War ten years ago, NATO, like the Warsaw Pact, had several thousand nuclear weapons in Europe including Cruise, Pershing II and Lance missiles, bombs, artillery shells and mines. Most were controlled and owned by the United States which allowed allies such as West Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Britain to operate them under a dual control system. Britain also had its own nuclear weapons, and France had quite separate nuclear forces which were not integrated into NATO planning.
Apart from Polaris, Britain’s nuclear forces were many and varied. (2) They included US-controlled nuclear depth bombs carried by Nimrod anti-submarine aircraft, and US-controlled artillery shells and Lance missile warheads for BAOR units in Germany. In addition, the RAF had well over 100 British-made tactical nuclear warheads known as the WE177. These were carried principally by the Tornado, Jaguar and Buccaneer strike aircraft. Finally, the Royal Navy had WE177 nuclear weapons for its Sea Harrier jump jets operating from small aircraft carriers, and an anti-submarine nuclear depth bomb variant of the WE177 which could be carried by helicopters deployed on most of the Navy’s destroyers and frigates. Britain was thus a significant actor in the NATO nuclear scheme of things.
Until the late 1960s, NATO’s nuclear policy, codified in a document MC 14/2, was known as the ‘tripwire’ policy. This envisaged a massive nuclear response to any initiation of war by the Soviet bloc. This policy had developed at a time when NATO states had a huge nuclear superiority over the Soviets, but it became increasingly untenable as they developed their own wide-ranging nuclear forces. As a result, NATO’s doctrine of ‘flexible response was introduced, codified in document MC 14/3 of 16 January 1968, the Overall Strategic Concept for the Defence of the NATO Area. This covered general conventional and nuclear policy, with the details of the latter developed by the Nuclear Activities Branch of Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE), at Mons in Belgium. This group developed the nuclear components of NATO policy, setting out plans for flexible response in a document entitled Concepts for the Role of Theatre Nuclear Strike Forces in Allied Command Europe, completed initially in 1970 but subsequently updated.
Flexible response envisaged two levels of nuclear employment, selective use and general response. The former involved the use of a limited number of nuclear weapons, mostly low-yield warheads, against Warsaw Pact troops and their immediate logistic support, in the belief that they could be ‘stopped dead in their tracks’ so to speak. Numbers of weapons might be limited to a handful, little more than demonstration shots, or might number up to one hundred depending on circumstances. (3) I remember going on one of the British Atlantic Committee briefing visits to NATO in the late 1980s and talking to a German civil servant attached to NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group. He spoke with considerable enthusiasm about the feasibility of using very small numbers of air-burst nuclear detonations, perhaps as few as five, which would cause very few casualties but would demonstrate to the Soviets that NATO was serious. As far as I could tell, he really did believe that a limited nuclear war could be fought and won, and would not escalate to an all-out nuclear exchange.
Selective use would thus be employed in the belief that Warsaw Pact forces would cease their aggression and withdraw, but in the event of escalation, then NATO’s second strand of nuclear policy, a more general nuclear response, would come into use. This would involve hundreds or even thousands of nuclear weapons being used against a wide range of targets in Eastern Europe and the western part of the Soviet Union. Such a scenario would involve co-ordinated action with US strategic nuclear weapons: in other words, general nuclear war.
In the years of heightened Cold War tension in the early 1980s, two further developments caused concern. One was an indication that NATO’s first use of nuclear weapons would involve immediate demonstration shots, not just against Warsaw Pact forces engaged in conflict against NATO forces, but also against targets in the western Soviet Union itself, using the new and highly accurate Pershing II ballistic missile. This provoked fears that NATO first use would quickly be seen by Soviet planners to threaten their core interests, with unpredictable effects.
The second development was increasing evidence that NATO was adopting more aggressive tactics, including concepts such as deep strike, follow-on forces attack and AirLand battle, all concerned in different ways with taking a war deep into Warsaw Pact territory at a very early stage in a conflict. Added to this was an apparent commitment to early first use of nuclear weapons. This was demonstrated by the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR), General Bernard Rogers, describing the nature of his orders in an interview published early in 1986. (4)
‘Before you lose the cohesiveness of the alliance – that is, before you are subject to (conventional Soviet military) penetration on a fairly broad scale – you will request, not you may, but you will request the use of nuclear weapons’. (Emphasis in the original)
The nuclear archaeology of the Cold War is a burgeoning industry for historians and we now know what was long presumed, that the Warsaw Pact had broadly similar policies involving the early first use of nuclear weapons in a war with the West. The opposing sides were thus locked into a somewhat unstable nuclear relationship. We also know that in November 1983, the Soviet Union misread a routine NATO nuclear planning exercise, ‘Able Archer’ as a preparation for war and came close to panicking, in a manner which caused NATO to rethink its nuclear exercise process. (5)
Nuclear archaeology is also tending to show that a number of other events, including the Quemoy/Matsu crisis with China in the 1950s, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and the 1973 Yom Kippur/Ramadan were all rather more serious nuclear crises than appeared at the time. In the Cuban missile crisis, for example, it now appears that the Soviet Union already had some tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba before the crisis erupted, so an attempted US invasion could have resulted in nuclear use. Furthermore, during the crisis, US fighters were airborne from bases in Alaska equipped with Genie air-to-air nuclear-tipped missiles. In nuclear terms, the Cold War was not as cold as it seemed, and many people ‘in the know’ would have learnt to live with the possibility of nuclear use. Nuclear policy has long gone far beyond the notion of ultimate deterrence to embrace planning and training for limited use of nuclear weapons in the belief that a nuclear war with a nuclear-armed opponent could be limited and successful.
British tactical nuclear deployments
Britain has long deployed nuclear weapons outside of Europe, in particular forward-basing them in the Middle East and South East Asia and also on Royal Navy warships. (6) In the mid-1960s, there were regular detachments of V-bombers to the Far East Air Force base at Tengah in Singapore, including detachments of nuclear-armed planes. From 1961 to 1969, nuclear-capable Canberra bombers and nuclear weapons were based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus in support of the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO). They were replaced by Vulcan bombers which were based there until 1975.
I have already mentioned the Royal Navy’s nuclear-capable forces, which, in the 1980s, comprised WE-177 nuclear bombs for the Sea Harrier operating from any of three Invincible-class carriers, and the nuclear depth bomb variant of the WE-177 carried on ASW helicopters. Naval nuclear deployments, though, long pre-date these weapons.
Prior to the deployment of nuclear-armed Sea Harriers from 1980 to 1992, there had been a two year period when Britain had not had nuclear-capable fixed-wing aircraft regularly operating from aircraft carriers. Prior to 1978, however, there had been a sixteen year period from 1962 in which Scimitar and Buccaneer aircraft had operated in a nuclear-capable role on carriers such as Eagle, Centaur, Victorious, Hermes and Ark Royal. This long history of ‘out-of-area’ deployment of nuclear weapons by Britain is matched by various indications of a willingness to use them in limited conflicts. As Milan Rai writes in his recent paper, Tactical Trident, (7)
‘Sir John Slessor, Marshall of the RAF in the 1950s, and one of the most influential military theorists of the period, believed that “In most of the possible theatres of limited war…it must be accepted that it is at least improbable that we would be able to meet a major communist offensive in one of these areas without resorting to tactical nuclear weapons”… Official statements reflect a similar approach. The 1956 Defence White Paper remarked that while “the consciences of civilised nations must naturally recoil from the prospect of using nuclear weapons… we have to be prepared for the outbreak of localised conflicts short of global war. In such limited wars the possible use of nuclear weapons cannot be excluded.” ‘
Rai goes on to relate the circumstances of nuclear deployments in South East Asia in the early 1960s:
‘During the Malaysian confrontation between Britain and Indonesia, strategic nuclear bombers were sent out to Singapore in December 1963, and Jakarta was apparently warned that further intrusions of Indonesian military aircraft into Malaysian airspace would be met with atomic bombardment of Indonesian airfields. Air Chief Marshall Sir David Lee commented, regarding the nuclear-capableVictors, “their potential was well-known to Indonesia and their presence did not go unnoticed”. He added, “the knowledge of RAF strength and competence created wholesome respect among Indonesia’s leaders, and the deterrent effect of RAF air defence fighters, light bombers and V-bombers on detachment from Bomber Command was absolute.” ‘
It is against this background that the Falklands and Gulf deployments may be discussed.
Nuclear weapons and the Falklands War
At the outbreak of the Falklands War in 1982, Britain’s naval tactical nuclear weapons comprised free-fall bombs and depth bombs. The two operational aircraft carriers, Invincible and Hermes, carried both kinds of weapon, and over 40 destroyers and frigates could carry depth bombs for helicopter delivery. At that time, it was acceptable for any of the warships to carry nuclear weapons in peace-time. (After the Falklands War, only the carriers and Type-22 frigates were certified for peace-time nuclear deployments.) The total number of naval tactical weapons involved was small, perhaps 25 nuclear depth-bombs and a similar number of gravity bombs, although the RAF also had over 100 of the latter.
When Argentina invaded the Falklands at the beginning of April 1982, a major naval task force was quickly assembled and some elements of it set sail from Britain within four days of the invasion. Others, including the destroyer HMS Sheffield, disengaged from a NATO exercise, Spring Train, in the western Mediterranean, and headed for Ascension Island to link with the task force. The then Defence Minister, John Nott, specifically stated that warships were being deployed with their full range of weapons, which implied a nuclear capability. The precise phrase he used in the Falklands debate on 3 April, 1982, was:
‘sailing under wartime orders and with wartime stocks of weapons.’
When defence ministers were subsequently questioned on whether nuclear weapons were being deployed, they fell back on traditional Whitehall phraseology which gave the impression that there was no risk of nuclear escalation without actually saying that there were no weapons deployed. Thus, Minister of State Lord Trenchard replied to a question on 19 April:
‘There is no question but that nuclear weapons are not applicable to the current situation in the Falkland Islands area.’
Other sources indicate that HMS Sheffield and other ships from Spring Train also went south carrying nuclear weapons. Andrew Wilson’s write-up in the Observer, referred to the Task Force thus:
It is almost certainly carrying tactical nuclear naval weapons – atomic depth charges carried by Sea King helicopters and free-fall bombs carried by Harrier jump jets – as part of its NATO equipment.
Although it would be irresponsible at this stage to suggest that there is the remotest intention of using them against the Argentines, some defence experts (and not only Mr Tony Benn) are concerned at what might happen if the conflict were to escalate and bring in more powerful naval forces.’
Former Navy Minister, Keith Speed MP, who had resigned the previous year in protest at cuts in the navy budget, later said that he ‘would have been astonished if those ships, from exercise Spring Train, had not been carrying nuclear weapons.’ (9)
According to the Labour MP, Tam Dalyell, there was consternation in the Ministry of Defence when it was appreciated that a very large proportion of the Royal Navy’s entire stock of nuclear weapons was heading for a potential war zone. While there might have been concern over possible escalation to nuclear use, there was certainly concern over the loss of such weapons in a conventional conflict. Senior staff at the Ministry of Defence were reportedly worried about losing any of the Navy’s relatively small stock of tactical nuclear weapons. As Tam Dalyell put it,
‘There was a tremendous row about this inside government and Whitehall. As a result, some of the nuclear weapons were lifted back by helicopter and other boats before the Task Force reached the Western Approaches. The rest stayed on board’. (10)
A further bit of the story reached me by an unexpected route. For some years after the war, Tam Dalyell was in great demand as a speaker among Labour constituencies because of his stand on the Falklands. On occasions he stayed with us when speaking to meetings in the West Yorkshire area, including one at the Dewsbury Constituency Labour Party. I went with him to that particular meeting, during which he mentioned the deployment of nuclear weapons in the conflict, and said that it was a particular interest of mine. Afterwards I talked to a man in the audience who was a member of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and had served in one of the large munitions and supplies ships RFA Resource. According to him, a number of the nuclear weapons which had got as far as Ascension Island on Task Force ships were off-loaded from warships on to the Resource’s sister ship, RFA Regent. While this ship continued down to the South Atlantic carrying the tactical nuclear weapons on board, it was kept away from the main zone of conflict for most of the war, unlike Resource, which was forward-based, including a period in San Carlos Bay at the time of the amphibious landings.
As far as tactical nuclear weapons are concerned, it thus appears that a number were deployed on Task Force ships sailing from Britain but these were, at least in part, kept away from the main combat area, although still available for use in extremis. It is not known whether this deployment pattern also applied to nuclear weapons on the two carriers, Invincible and Hermes.
The Case of HMS Sheffield
What then of Sheffield and the other ships from Spring Train which headed directly south? According to The Times:
‘Some British ships in the South Atlantic during the Falklands campaign were carrying nuclear anti-submarine weapons.Whitehall sources said that some of the frigates which went to the Falklands had been involved in exercises in the Mediterranean, and would have been routinely carrying anti- submarine nuclear bombs. Because they were diverted directly to the South Atlantic there would have been no opportunity to off-load the weapons.'(11)
There were many reports, but really amounting to no more than rumours, that Sheffield had a couple of WE-177 nuclear depth bombs on board when hit by the Exocet missile on 4 May. Some reports surfaced in the press, and others spoke of HMS Coventry, sunk on 25 May, also having nuclear weapons on board. There was further speculation that the extensive salvage operations conducted on the wrecks of Coventry and Sheffield were concerned with recovering these weapons. With regard to Coventry, my understanding is that because it sank so quickly after being bombed, a matter of less than 30 minutes, it was not possible to destroy some advanced equipment, possibly including code systems, and it was these which were retrieved from the sunken ship, which had not been carrying nuclear weapons.
The case of Sheffield, though, may be different. It was an early arrival in the South Atlantic, having come straight from Gibraltar, and was hit by the Exocet missile right at the start of the war. It is therefore more likely that it still had a complement of nuclear depth bombs on board. There is also some circumstantial evidence which is worth mentioning. (12) After Sheffield was hit by the Exocet on 4 May, it burned out but stayed afloat and was taken in tow by the frigate HMS Yarmouth. Sheffield was the lead ship of a brand new class of Type-42 air defence destroyers, believed by the Royal Navy to be amongst the best such ships in any navy. The burnt-out ship was therefore of great interest, as a thorough examination would be likely to yield a huge amount of data as to what happens to such a modern ship when hit by a powerful anti-ship missile.
Seven days after it was hit, however, the media reported a Ministry of Defence statement that the destroyer had sunk in heavy seas while under tow, some reports saying that the intention had been to get it to a safe anchorage in South Georgia. This story was repeated with the arrival back in Britain of the ship’s captain, Sam Salt, on Friday, 28 May, but the BBC’s main TV news at Nine o’Clock that night had a very different report from Brian Hanrahan in the South Atlantic to the effect that Sheffield had been deliberately sunk by a navy team using explosive charges. This version was repeated by Peter Snow on Newsnight later that night, a Newsnight researcher having confirmed it with the Ministry of Defence. It seemed extraordinary to me that the ship, with all its wealth of unhappy information still available, had been deliberately sunk unless there was some other purpose in mind. One likely explanation would be a problem with nuclear weapons still on board, in which case an appropriate course of action would be to sink the ship and return to sort out the problem after the war. I talked to the researcher later that night, pointing out this possible line of argument, and he said he would go back to the MoD the following morning, a Saturday, to check it out. This he did, as Newsnight was at the time broadcasting seven nights a week, but the MoD immediately returned to the original story of the ship sinking of its own accord. The researcher later told me that his first contact at the MoD on the previous night who had confirmed Hanrahan’s version, had been reprimanded for his handling of the matter.
After the war, extensive salvage operations were undertaken on the wreck of Sheffield, and there were rumours that some items had been brought back to Britain on a nuclear-powered submarine. The presumption was that such a boat would be suitably equipped to carry nuclear weapons recovered from the Sheffield. These rumours were never substantiated, and there the matter lies.
Implications
Using the more reliable sources, it would therefore appear that tactical nuclear weapons were deployed on Task Force ships leaving Britain and also on some of those diverted from exercise Spring Train. Most, but probably not all, were removed from deployment in the war zone, primarily because there were fears that too many of the Navy’s small stock would be lost. Even those kept back from the immediate war zone remained readily available during the conflict. It should be added, though, that the utility of these particular nuclear weapons was somewhat limited, in a purely military sense, in the context of the Falklands War. Argentina had two small quiet German-built Type 209 submarines which caused the Royal Navy some concern, but the latter’s tactical nuclear depth bombs were designed to be used against large and thick-hulled Soviet submarines operating in deep open water, not against small submarines in fairly close proximity to Royal Navy warships, though at least one naval officer still felt they were sufficiently useful to insist on taking them.
Similarly, the Sea Harriers on the aircraft carriers may have been capable of delivering nuclear gravity bombs, but targets on the Falklands were out of the question and targeting anything on the Argentine mainland would involve difficult problems of range and survival for the aircraft. Against that, Argentina did have two large surface warships, the aircraft carrier 25th May, and the heavy cruiser, General Belgrano. The former took little part in the war and the latter was sunk by conventional torpedoes, but these aspects were not known to planners prior to the actual war.
What the whole affair does show is that elements within the Navy were readily prepared to see tactical nuclear weapons deployed directly in a war zone but that, to some extent, wiser counsel prevailed and at least some were kept at a distance. This was not, however, the case with Britain’s other naval nuclear system, the strategic Polaris missile.
The Polaris question
At the time of the Falklands War, Britain had four Polaris submarines, sufficient to keep one on patrol in the North Atlantic at all times, with a second available for possible additional deployment. The regular patrol was aided by one or two nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines for protection, a policy known as deterrence support. The Polaris submarines themselves carried torpedoes but these were essentially for self-defence.
In the two years after the war, leaks from several highly-placed sources indicated that a Polaris missile submarine had been diverted to a patrol area in the mid-Atlantic, several thousand miles north of the Falklands, but nevertheless one which allowed it to operate within missile range of Argentina. Because of the significance of this deployment, it is worth saying a little about the nature of these leaks as the story has been subject to some ridicule by some sectors of the defence establishment. Tam Dalyell’s initial source, shortly after the Falklands War, was a senior Conservative back-bench MP with an interest in defence matters and close links with the Ministry of Defence, and who later held ministerial office. Tam later had it confirmed to him by a senior officer in the Polaris fleet who retired after the Falklands War. I was similarly informed by a retired senior Ministry of Defence civil servant and I am aware of other sources.
Duncan Campbell of the New Statesman was informed of highly secret signals exchanged between London and the British Embassy in Washington concerning the deployment. He and John Rentoul published this information as part of the ‘Belgrano Papers’ issue of the magazine shortly after Clive Ponting was arrested for a quite different matter – leaking details of the attempt by the government to mislead a House of Commons Select Committee over the Belgrano sinking. As they put it: (13)
‘One well-placed political source has already revealed to Tam Dalyell that a Polaris submarine was sent to the South Atlantic. Dalyell was informed that the submarine went as far south as Ascension; the likely target for a threatened or demonstration nuclear attack was said to be Cordoba, northern Argentina. The nuclear threat might have been used if any of the task force’s capital ships – one of the carriers or the troop ship Canberra – had been destroyed in a missile attack. The Polaris deployment was said to have been ordered in the wake of the sinking of HMS Sheffield, after ministers had to confront the possibility that Argentine air superiority and Exocet missiles could mean the military defeat of the British task force and the rapid political extinction of the Thatcher government.
The New Statesman has been able to confirm that a Polaris submarine was indeed deployed to this position. Details of the deployment are given in a series of highly classified telegrams sent to the British Embassy in Washington.’
I do not know the source of the New Statesman information other than that it was not the same as Tam Dalyell’s two sources. This report of the Polaris deployment formed one part of a much longer article which was primarily concerned with the Belgrano affair and included publication of a classified document by the magazine. It was these aspects of the story which captured most media attention, although the Polaris deployment did figure fairly prominently.
One interesting indication of its veracity came in the response of MoD officials to press enquiries immediately after the magazine’s publication. According to MoD sources, there might well have been a Polaris submarine deployed to the South Atlantic, but this was because the navy was short of hunter-killer submarines and a Polaris missile submarine can serve this function. (14) Such an explanation is little short of incredible. While Polaris submarines do have a limited hunter-killer capability, this is for self-defence and they are normally escorted by dedicated hunter-killers. To place one of Britain’s four strategic missile submarines in a war zone in this way would have been hugely risky. Since Britain needed four Polaris submarines to maintain at least one on patrol at all times, risking a submarine would have meant risking the entire Polaris capability.
There is another piece of supporting evidence which also relates to hunter-killer submariners. Reports from ex-servicemen involved in the Falklands War have made it clear that there was a severe shortage of hunter-killer submarines to form a protective screen around the Task Force. Whereas the MoD gave an impression that five such submarines were available, for much of the Falklands War only two, or at most three, were actually deployed. There are indications from MoD sources that the shortage was due to the use of two hunter-killer submarines to act as protective escort to the Polaris missile submarine deployed in mid-Atlantic to cover Argentina.
Official confirmation of the Polaris deployment will probably have to wait at least for the 30-year rule, but the copious leaks are reasonably conclusive. Campbell and Rentoul are probably right in their comment that this extreme measure, deployment of a substantial nuclear system against a non-nuclear power, was in the context of possible defeat of the Task Force and consequent collapse of the Thatcher government. Extreme circumstances appeared to justify extreme measures.
The Gulf War
The most recent deployment of British tactical nuclear weapons in time of crisis appears to have been during the Gulf crisis and war of 1990-91. Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, and in the run-up to the war itself, which commenced on 16 January 1991, there was considerable concern over possible use of chemical weapons by Iraq against coalition forces. A number of western political sources hinted at a nuclear response to any substantial Iraqi CW use, and it was widely assumed that the routine equipping of US warships, especially the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, at least gave the US a nuclear weapons capability in the immediate vicinity of Iraq.
In Britain, in the weeks leading up to the war itself, there were a number of indications of a willingness to escalate to nuclear use, although most of these came from non-official sources. Even so, there were some quite clear hints from government sources. The then Minister of Defence, Tom King, was interviewed on LWTV’s Walden Programme on Sunday 11 May 1990, and part of the transcript reads thus:
- Tom King:I’m talking about whether there is conflict, and what the casualties of conflict may be in terms of weaponry, in terms of whether he decides, and was mad enough, actually to seek to use chemical weapons against our forces.
- Brian Walden:Supposing he did?
- Tom King:Now if that happened, I have made it clear from day one – I’ve not said what, ere, the United States’ position in exactly the same – that it would have very, very grave consequences indeed for Iraq. And I say that quite clearly. I am not going to be specific, and I’m not going to give any indication as to what form that might take, er, we don’t give him that comfort of knowing what might or might not happen, but it would be the stupidest thing that he could do, and I want to make that absolutely clear.
Junior defence minister Archie Hamilton also spoke of massive retaliation against Iraq if chemical weapons were used (15). Since Britain did not have chemical weapons, this was assumed to refer to a nuclear response.
The clearest indication of British willingness to use nuclear weapons came in a report in the Observer on 30 September,1990, quoting a senior army officer attached to the 7th Armoured Brigade which had begun to leave for the Gulf the previous day. He confirmed that an Iraqi chemical attack on British forces would be met with a tactical nuclear response.
The deployment of nuclear weapons to the region by Britain presented difficulties. US nuclear weapons were deployed at sea, or at existing bases in the region such as Incirlik in Turkey. Britain had strike aircraft in Bahrein and Oman, but basing nuclear weapons in these states might not have been acceptable, and this could also apply to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. The alternative was on board ships, but it appeared that the only Sea Harrier-capable ship dispatched to the area was HMS Ark Royal, and this ship did not pass through the Suez canal during the war, being restricted to the Eastern Mediterranean. Its Sea Harriers were not, therefore easily within range of Iraqi territory should Britain have decided to undertake or take part in nuclear operations against Iraq.
I understand, though, that a rather remarkable alternative option was planned and may well have been implemented. In addition to the three Sea Harrier-capable aircraft carriers in the Royal Navy such as Ark Royal, there is just one other ship which can deploy these planes, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus. RFA Argus is a large 28,000-tonne auxiliary vessel which is officially classified as an aviation-support ship, and converted in the mid-1980s from the container ship Contender Bezant. It was originally used as an aircraft delivery ship during and after the Falklands War and was purchased by the MoD for conversion at Harland and Wolff, Belfast, in 1984, entering service in 1987. It can carry up to 12 Sea Harrier aircraft and also Sea King helicopters.
RFA Argus was developed to replace a much older and smaller aviation support ship RFA Engadine, but it is a very much more substantial ship and, when it entered service it came close to being an additional aircraft carrier for the navy, although only lightly armed and used also for several other purposes.
Argus was deployed to the Gulf during the crisis, officially as an auxiliary ship in the role of forward casualty evacuation point. The impression was actually given to the media that Argus was a hospital ship, but it was never designated as such (eg. red cross and white paint) and was militarily operational during the war. Although its prime use was for receiving British casualties, of which there were fortunately very few, it also carried a wide range of stores.
Prior to the actual war, detailed planning was done to make it possible for the ship to be equipped with tactical nuclear weapons, although I have not yet been able to get confirmation that they were actually deployed to the Gulf. If so, it would have represented a direct British nuclear-armed presence in the war zone. How the weapons would have been deployed, had the decision to do so been taken, is not clear. One option would have been to use Sea Harriers, another would have been to air-lift the nuclear bombs to a Tornado-operating base on the mainland. It is assumed that nuclear use would have been restricted to a response to large scale Iraqi CW attacks on coalition forces requiring tactical nuclear use against Iraqi artillery and missile concentrations. US or British free-fall nuclear bombs on strike aircraft such as the F-15, F-18, Tornado or Sea Harrier would have been considered the appropriate means of delivery.
Even without Argus, Britain would have had a small nuclear capability in the Mediterranean, and could have moved nuclear bombs for Tornado strike aircraft from Britain or Germany short notice. In the event, large-scale use of CW by Iraq did not materialise.
Relevance to Trident
In both the Falklands and Gulf Wars, Britain had the means to escalate to nuclear use, as it apparently had had during the much earlier Indonesian confrontation. This should not come as any great surprise, since it forms part of a continuum in military thinking about nuclear weapons which certainly has parallels in the US and the former Soviet Union, and is clearly represented in NATO’s planning for early first use of nuclear weapons. This continuum has, in a sense, three phases.
The first was in the 1950s, especially after the post-Suez Duncan Sandys defence review which placed such heavy reliance on nuclear forces. At this time, there was a fairly open discussion of the use of nuclear weapons in conflicts short of all-out East-West war. By the end of the 1950s, though, the rise of the anti-nuclear movement in Britain made it rather less appropriate to draw attention to such strategy and tactics, and nuclear war-fighting attitudes ‘went underground’ somewhat for a couple of decades. They surfaced prominently in the 1980s as more and more information came out on NATO nuclear planning and its emphasis on early first use of nuclear weapons. With the ending of the Cold War, and the diminishing of any risk of massive Soviet nuclear retaliation to limited nuclear war-fighting, the utility of nuclear use against third world states is coming to the fore, with a particular emphasis on submarine-launched nuclear weapons such as Trident.
As far as the United States is concerned, the review of nuclear strategy currently under way in Washington may give us a firm idea of the direction of US nuclear strategy, but indications of the development of thinking in recent years suggest a readiness to encompass third world targeting.
Early in 1991, a draft of the Strategic Deterrence Study undertaken for US Strategic Air Command was leaked in Washington, and this showed that the report paid particular attention to third world threats against US interests. Its terms of reference stated the belief that
‘the growing wealth of petro-nations and newly hegemonic powers is available to bullies and crazies, if they gain control, to wreak havoc on world tranquility.’
The study itself called for a new nuclear targeting strategy which will include the ability to assemble
‘a Nuclear Expeditionary Force…. primarily for use against China or Third World targets’,
which is required because
‘Nations with the wealth and ideological fervour to pursue nuclear programs, no matter what the time or cost, are very different’
from traditional nuclear powers such as Britain and France. North Korea, Algeria, Libya, Iran and, of course, Iraq fit this bill. To quote:
‘They and their terrorist cousins are more likely driven by…. the desire to…. terrorise, blackmail, coerce, or destroy’ among other motives. (16)
Two years later, the New York Times revealed that staff at US Strategic Command (the successor to Strategic Air Command which includes ballistic missile submarines) were ‘in the early stages of building and testing computer models that could enable Mr Clinton to aim nuclear weapons at third world nations that threaten the interests of the United States or its allies’. (17)
The transition from massive nuclear targeting in the Cold War, to selective nuclear targeting in the future is neatly summarised in a recent paper by Captain James H. Patton Jr., USN (Ret’d), and warrants an extended quote.
‘During the Cold War, the “normal” operational mission assigned to strategic nuclear forces involved a massive launch of weapons – many carrying multiple, independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) – against a large but finite, concentrated and precisely known set of predetermined aim-points in accordance with the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). As the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and its descendants continue to diminish the magnitude of the ex-Soviet nuclear hazard, the number of such aim-points will similarly decline. There are already indications, however, that these will be replaced by a nearly infinite but “fuzzy” set of worldwide potential targets that virtually defy pre-planned targeting, and which would never all be engaged simultaneously. Some of these targets may warrant, under specific but undefined circumstances, a rapid response with a single low-yield nuclear warhead. As the SIOP as we have know it becomes smaller, the recently established US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) may find itself required to generate a similar attack plan quickly – using its precise database of all “potentially strategic targets in the world” – matched to a specific scenario on demand from the NCA or a commander-in-chief (CINC). Such a plan might consist of only a few targets, to which the NCA would match the appropriate weapons and delivery systems. Any future NCA would surely appreciate a “shopping list” of options that might offer delivery by carrier-based attack aircraft in six days, Tomahawks fired from cruisers in four days, or from attack submarines in two days, strikes by B-2 bombers based in the continental US in 12 h, or a response by an SSBN-launched D5 in 1 h.” (18)
Britain, of course, will have far fewer options, just Trident and Tornado for the next ten years or so, followed by just Trident; and this is the context for the development of Trident as a sub-strategic system. This subject is explored in detail in Milan Rai’s paper (see reference 7), who quotes from the many statements in this subject from defence minister Malcolm Rifkind and others.
The transformation of Britain’s Trident into a multi-purpose ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ nuclear system appears to be moving apace, with specific functions in terms of limited nuclear use against a third world adversary. A specific indication of targeting potential is given in David Miller’s recent piece in International Defence Review. (19) Having considered the deployment of a British Trident missile submarine with missiles carrying from one to eight warheads, he continues:
‘The main question concerns the use to which these British sub-strategic weapons might be put. At what might be termed the “upper end” of the usage spectrum, they could be used in a conflict involving large-scale forces (including British ground and air forces), such as the 1990-1991 Gulf War, to reply to enemy nuclear strikes. Secondly, they could be used in a similar setting, but to reply to enemy use of weapons of mass destruction, such as bacteriological or chemical weapons, for which the British possess no like-for-like retaliatory capability. Thirdly, they could be used in a demonstrative role: ie. aimed at a non-critical, possibly uninhabited area, with the message that if the country concerned continued its present course of action, nuclear weapons will be aimed at a high-priority target.
Finally, there is the punitive role, where a country has committed an act, despite specific warnings that to do so would incur a nuclear strike.’
Miller later concludes his article:
‘Throughout the Cold War, SLBMs were defined as strategic systems, both in fact, because of their range, and also in law, since such status was enshrined in the various arms limitation treaties The British plan to use Trident in the sub-strategic role, however, renders that definition invalid, since it will be impossible to differentiate between submarines tasked for either role. On the other hand, the use of existing Vanguard-class SSBNs and Trident SLBMs means that the UK will obtain a global, nuclear, sub-strategic strike capability at remarkably low cost. It is also a system that is inherently more flexible and much less vulnerable than using aircraft. Thus, the task of the UK’s strategic planners in 1994 is to develop a minimal force that will have strategic – and now sub-strategic – validity in a highly uncertain world through to 2024, and possibly well beyond.’ (20)
Conclusions
Three things are apparent. Firstly, it is clear that Britain is intending to deploy Trident in a multipurpose role, including a capability to use it in a limited nuclear war. Secondly, there is a long history of Britain preparing for limited nuclear war, both independently and within NATO, dating back nearly 40 years. Finally, Britain has a persistent habit of deploying nuclear weapons in out-of-area crises involving non-nuclear powers.
This whole subject is worthy of considerable open discussion and debate, but two points are worth making on this occasion. One is that these attitudes and policies simply will not square with the general notion of controlling nuclear proliferation, or the specific notion of Britain supporting the strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty at next year’s crucial renegotiation conference in New York.
Furthermore, quite apart from ethical and other questions, this whole strategy doesn’t seem to have been thought through very well. Suppose that there is a future crisis with a near-nuclear (or even nuclear) third world state, and Britain uses nuclear weapons for demonstration or pre-emption to control the crisis. It is just possible that it could ‘work’ in the short term, but the first use of nuclear weapons since Nagasaki would assuredly bring a particular response, perhaps in months but certainly in years. That response would be one or more nuclear weapons, perhaps of the ‘briefcase bomb’ variety, inserted into and detonated in locations in Britain.
Notes
- There are two fairly general sources on nukes in the Falklands. The Unnecessary War, produced by the Belgrano Action Group and published by Spokesman Books in 1988 has a longish section on the subject, and it is also summarised in a piece I did for the Observer on 6 January 1991, just before the outbreak of the Gulf War.
- CND’s pamphlet, A Guide To Britain’s Nuclear Weapons, published in 1986, gives an overall account of British nuclear forces at the time.
- A good source on NATO nuclear planning is Desmond Ball’s Targeting for Strategic Deterrence, Adelphi Papers Number 185, published in 1983 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
- Published in International Defence Review, February 1986.
- As far as I am aware, the first account of this remarkable incident was actually published before the end of the Cold War in an article by Gordon Brook-Shepherd in the Sunday Telegraph, 16 October 1988, after he had talked to defector Oleg Gordievsky.
- See Volume 5 of the Nuclear Weapons Databook – British, French and Chinese Nuclear Weapons, by Robert S. Norris, Andrew S. Burrows and Richard W. Fieldhouse (Westview Press, 1994) for a comprehensive historical account of British nuclear forces.
- Milan Rai, Tactical Trident, the Rifkind Doctrine and the Third World, Drava Papers, London, 1994. Rai references the quotations fully.
- Andrew Wilson, ‘Deadline Midnight’, The Observer, 11 April 1992
- Quoted in a paper by William M Arkin and Andrew Burrows, British Nuclear Weapons in the Falklands, published by the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington DC, 1992.
- Tam Dalyell ‘Secrets of Davy Jones’s Locker’, New Scientist, 24 March 1983.
- The Times, 3 November, 1982
- This was, incidentally, written up in Private Eye (16 July, 1982, p. 20).
- Duncan Campbell and John Rentoul, ‘All Out War’, New Statesman, 24 August 1984.
- I learnt this from a BBC journalist shortly afterwards.
- Reported, for example in The Observer, 6 January, 1991.
- Strategic Advisory Group of the Joint Strategic Planning Staff, US Strategic Air Command, ‘The Role of Nuclear Weapons in the New World Order’, quoted in Navy News and Undersea Technology, 13 January, 1992, Washington.
- Eric Schmitt, ‘Head of Nuclear Forces Plans for a New World’, New York Times, 25 February 1993, p.B7. Quoted in Mil Rai’s paper (see reference 7 above).’
- James H. Patton Jr., ‘New Roles on the Horizon for Triad’s Last Leg?’ International Defence Review, September 1994, pp. 38-42.
- David Miller, ‘Britain Ponders Single-warhead Option’, International Defence Review, September 1994, pp. 45-51.
- Ibid.
Paul Rogers teaches in the Peace Studies department of the University of Bradford.
Thanks to Simon Whitby for help with sorting out the Falkland files and other assistance, and to Duncan Campbell, Robin Ramsay, Davina Miller, Malcolm Chalmers and Milan Rai for commenting on a draft of this piece. If you have any extra bits of information please let me know via the Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University, Bradford BD7 1DP, West Yorkshire.