ABSTRACT
The British Government, in association with its allies, have to take decisions of a potentially momentous character on the subject of the British independent nuclear deterrent. There is virtual unanimity among British commentators that if Great Britain does have a credible nuclear capability vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, and this assumption is much contested on political rather than purely technical grounds, it must rest solely on this Polaris fleet after withdrawal from its present NATO assignment. The most deadly threat to the future of the British deterrent is the prospective obsolescence of the existing technical equipment even on the assumption of no significant Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) or ASW improvements on the part of the superpowers. It was asserted that the European version of the option is inextricably linked with the evolution of the European Economic Community towards some kind of superstate, which, if feasible at all, must lie rather far in the future.
