ABSTRACT
The time is rapidly approaching when the British Government, possibly in association with one or more of its allies, will have to take decisions of a potentially momentous character on the subject of the British independent nuclear deterrent. Indeed, despite the current tendency of some commentators to write about the previous phases of the British experience as a major nuclear weapons power as if they constituted a chapter drawing towards an inevitable close, the period 1975-7 could prove to be an infinitely more important turning point even than 194748 when the Attlee Government decided to manufacture nuclear weapons or 1962 when the Macmillan Government opted to purchase the Polaris missile system from the United States under the terms of the Nassau Agreement. 1 In recent years of course the British capability has been much derided, not least in Great Britain, as an unnecessary and rather pathetic attempt to duplicate on a small scale the American umbrella. This, taken together with London's policy, in sharp contrast to that of Paris, of assigning strategic submarines to NATO duties, has ensured that the British deterrent has not been taken particularly seriously either in Washington or in Western Europe. But if decisions should presently be taken which enable Great Britain to retain or enhance a serious nuclear capability into the last two decades of the present century, the possible implications for the security of Western Europe can hardly be exaggerated, particularly if one does not rule out either an evolution in Western Europe towards a pooling of sovereignty or a recrudescence of American isolationism. It is thus the purpose of this study to explore the technical feasibility and the politicallikeli. hood of Great Britain having such a serious nuclear capability.
