“Considering how likely we are to be blown to pieces by it within the next five years, the atomic bomb has not roused so much discussion as might have been expected”. So wrote George Orwell, in one of his regular Tribune columns, in October 1945.
A surprising observation, perhaps, given that it was just two months after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Orwell was reflecting not on what had recently happened but on what little discussion there had been on how the bomb would change, or end, the world.
Thanks to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and its associated peace movements throughout the world, the discourse over nuclear weapons subsequently rose to a global crescendo, not least aided by the Cold War which concentrated minds as Armageddon loomed.
Since the end of the Cold War, it has gone quieter again. The fact that Britain and the other nuclear nations are stockpiling and have primed for attack sufficient weapons to annihilate the planet, and the obscene cost of doing so, has not, as it were, aroused so much discussion as might have been expected.
Except among the usual suspects, such as Tribune, a sense of quiescence has overtaken the public perspective on, for example, Trident. When asked, a large proportion of the public express the view that they are “against” it, but it is a passive resistance compared to the days of “Ban the Bomb” protests.
Perhaps that is because there is a general feeling that it will never be used. Hopefully correct, but doesn’t that render the logic for keeping it redundant?
Any argument that Britain needs Trident as a defence system does not stand up to scrutiny and there are not many in the military services prepared to put the case. Indeed, an increasing number of military chiefs – retired, publicly, more quietly in active service – oppose the retention of Trident.
The historical moral case against the British nuclear “deterrent” is now underlined by the economic lunacy and military redundancy exposed by any objective examination of the case for Trident.
The idea that it guarantees Britain a seat at the table of the United Nations Security Council reflects a deluded sense of the reality of modern geo-politics and genuflects to some prehistoric, phallic totem of what represents power.
So we welcome Gordon Brown’s decision to reduce the Trident submarine fleet by one boat. For whatever reason it has been made, it is a step in the right direction. A small step – it will not reduce the fleet’s capability nor deliver a substantial cost saving – but a significant one.
It chimes with the global initiatives led by Barack Obama toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons. But it cannot stop there. Trident must go. As Orwell said, a peace dependent on nuclear weapons is “a peace that is no peace”.
