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If Britain takes seriously its "unequivocal undertaking... to accomplish the total elimination of [its] nuclear arsenal" as pledged in May 2000, as part of its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), why is the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) holding open the option to design and make new nuclear weapons for its arsenal?
In response to a recent letter from the Southampton, UK-based Nuclear Information Service to Britain's Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, about Britain's treaty obligations and nuclear developments, the MoD replied: "Our record in implementing our nuclear disarmament obligations under the NPT is extremely good".1 This is the positive picture that British diplomats will try to convey at the forthcoming Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting of states parties to the NPT. The MoD promised that they would "give a full account of our progress in fulfilling our NPT commitments, including those on disarmament"2, so perhaps delegates to the NPT would like to ask why, over the past eighteen months, the UK government has:
Since the early 1950s, AWE Aldermaston has been the home of Britain's nuclear warhead production, maintenance, research and development, most recently for Trident. It sits in beautiful countryside in Berkshire, in the Thames Valley, some 50 miles west of London. Tourists and Londoners might be surprised to learn that Aldermaston continues to discharge some of its low level nuclear waste into the Thames, at Pangbourne. A few miles away lies AWE Burghfield, where currently the Trident warheads are assembled.
AWE Aldermaston and Burghfield are owned by the MoD, but since April 1, 2000 they have been privately managed by AWE-ML (Management Ltd), a consortium of three companies: BNFL, Lockheed Martin, and the facilities management company Serco. The overall objective of this consortium is to make a profit for its shareholders out of the business of building and maintaining Britain's bomb.
The first indications that new "special facilities" were to be built came in June 2002, when articles in the Observer and Guardian newspapers revealed that a Site Development Strategy Plan outlining new developments would be published in the next few weeks. The articles, which cited statements by AWE spokespeople, suggested that the plans involved not merely readiness to replace the Trident nuclear system, but also the possible development of new types of nuclear weapons. Not only would any replacement for Trident (as opposed to its withdrawal and dismantlement) be inconsistent with UK obligations under the NPT; concerns are also growing that Britain might seek to replace Trident with the kind of more 'usable' (some might say 'tactical') low yield or bunker-buster weapons that the Bush administration and US nuclear laboratories have shown such interest in.
The Site Development Strategy Plan was finally made public in August 2002. It emphasised a new image for AWE - turning it from an "industrial factory" into a "science and technology centre" - and included the development of a new science centre, which AWE would share with the academic community, environmental viewing platforms, landscaping schemes, new entrances and visitor centres.
But underneath the green-wash, there were four elements at the heart of the plan, which, taken together, would enable AWE to build new weapons.
i) The new laser facility, for which outline planning permission was granted in December 2003, will replace the existing HELEN laser, with "the UK's own national laser facility". A Notice of Proposed Development (NOPD) for this new laser, named 'Orion', was submitted to West Berkshire Council in October 2003.
The proposal, in outline form, was for a building 26m high; 110m long and 60m wide, for use as a laser generation plant, a target hall for the laser experiments, preparation rooms, laser diagnostics, laser development, optical coating and photometry.
According to the AWE Annual Report for 2002, Orion will be "1000 times more powerful and twice the physical size of the existing HELEN laser at AWE... [and] will enable conditions to be generated that will more closely simulate those found at the centre of a star or within a nuclear detonation - albeit on a minute scale. Laser light will be split into both 'long' and 'short' pulses of power. Ten long pulse beams will create enormous pressure. During this 'long' period, of one thousandth of a millionth of a second, two 'short' pulse beams, delivered in just one millionth of a millionth of a second, will create high temperatures."4 Supporting information to the West Berkshire Council stated that the laser facility is to be used to conduct experiments on minute particles of matter for the study of plasma physics. It is also intended for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments, long associated with research, development and testing of nuclear weapons. Orion is due for completion at the end of 2007.
ii) A new hydrodynamics facility is also in the pipeline, to enable test data to equal that previously only available from underground nuclear tests.
iii) New laboratories are planned for materials testing. These new material science laboratories will also, according to AWE publications, provide underground-test-quality diagnosis of weapons' materials.
iv) Finally, AWE now has in place its much vaunted supercomputer to transpose test data into mathematical models of warhead performance.
The December 2003 Defence White Paper, entitled 'Delivering Security in a Changed World' states that "the continuing risk from the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the certainty that a number of other countries will retain substantial nuclear arsenals, mean that our minimum nuclear deterrent capability, currently represented by Trident, is likely to remain a necessary element of our security." The White Paper went on to say: "Decisions on whether to replace Trident are not needed this Parliament but are likely to be required in the next one. We will therefore continue to take appropriate steps to ensure that the range of options for maintaining a nuclear deterrent capability is kept open until that decision point."
While some consider it premature to worry about replacing Trident, which was built with an expected lifetime to 2024, past experience suggests that unless the government has decided to abandon its reliance on nuclear 'deterrence' it will need to begin working on a Trident successor soon. To place this in context, the replacement for the ageing Chevaline system was mooted in the late 1970s and the decision to build four submarines and equip them with American long-range ballistic missiles with British nuclear warheads (tailored, however, to US designs) was taken by Margaret Thatcher in 1980. The first missiles, leased from an American pool of Trident D-5 missiles based in Virginia, were delivered to the Royal Navy in 1992. The first submarine armed with Trident missiles and 100 kt warheads went on patrol in 1994. From decision to deployment, the process took 14 years.
Alarm bells have rung in Britain and around the world as the impact of the plans sink in. Despite strenuous denials from government ministers and MoD spokespeople that Britain is contemplating new nuclear weapons, the planned developments at Aldermaston, considered together with the upcoming renewal of the Mutual Defence Agreement governing US-UK nuclear cooperation and Tony Blair's close collaboration with the Bush administration, must raise serious concerns.
There are other worrying indications that Britain's defence planning may not be as consistent with UK Treaty obligations as it ought to be. The close military, as well as political, relationship between Blair and Bush has been particularly corrupting for international law and democratic oversight, and the nuclear field, where the UK is wholly dependent on US ballistic missiles, which are leased (not bought) from the Pentagon, is no exception.
Britain may have been one of the first to sign and ratify the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), but some weapon scientists are covertly licking their lips at the prospect of perhaps getting the chance to do 'real' nuclear tests again at the Nevada Test Site, where Britain conducted its underground nuclear tests from the early 1960s until being forced to stop by the US moratorium in 1992. Of course, the standard argument would be that the upgraded hydrodynamic and laser facilities are needed for Britain's version of stockpile stewardship, so that existing warheads can be maintained safely and reliably without resorting to underground testing.
That may be true of Britain's current posture, but questions need to be asked nonetheless. Consistent with the CTBT and NPT, the maintenance of existing designs and warheads is supposed to be in the context of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons and winding down existing arsenals. That level of safety testing would not require such expensive refurbishment and upgrading of Aldermaston's facilities as the MoD is planning. Whether or not AWE scientists are contemplating the possibility of conducting big bangs in the desert if the CTBT collapses, the upgraded facilities point towards much more sophisticated laboratory testing capabilities than would be needed for stockpile stewardship. Why are these additional capabilities required, if not for research, design and testing of new nuclear designs or systems?
It must also be noted, however, that the US Congress has already voted funds for accelerating US test site readiness, and there are strong indications from Washington that if George W. Bush gets re-elected for a second term he could well try to revoke the US signature on the CTBT and resume testing to develop new nuclear weapons. Bush would likely wait until after the 2005 NPT Review Conference, but leaving international pressure to then would be far too late.
Not only have the frequency and type of exchanges between the British and American nuclear laboratories been stepped up in recent years, but apart from its ritual statements of support for the CTBT at multilateral gatherings like the NPT and CTBT 'Article XIV' entry into force conferences, Her Majesty's Government seldom raises the CTBT in bilateral discussions with the United States. So if Washington should break the CTBT and, seeking a partner in crime, come courting to Aldermaston, what are the chances of Britain holding virtuously to its testing moratorium and refusing to be seduced?
In the 1980s, as public protest against replacing the Chevaline nuclear system with Trident accelerated, they were too late; Margaret Thatcher's government had already taken the decisions with minimum parliamentary debate, and they had signed contracts with British and American manufacturers that were sewn tight with punitive conditions that meant that the money had to be forfeited in the event of a political decision not to go ahead with developing Trident. Such contracts were intended to ensure against any attempt by future governments to comply with UK treaty commitments and save the billions of pounds being poured into building more nuclear weapons; as such they preempted democratic decisionmaking. In this context, the Blair-Hoon decision to renegotiate the 10 year contact with AWE-ML that had been issued in April 2000, and extend it for an unprecedented 25 years, at a cost of £5.3 billion, is grave cause for concern.
This time, however, opposition to replacing Trident is being mounted much earlier, to try to ensure fully transparent public and parliamentary debates before any further money is flushed down the nuclear drain.
A variety of strategies have been pursued to raise awareness locally and nationally, including a legal challenge brought by public interest lawyers on behalf of a resident living near Aldermaston. The action, in response to the Notice of Proposed Development, had called for a judicial review of the MoD's failure to consult with Berkshire residents with respect to the environmental impact of the Orion laser, and their failure to provide an environmental impact assessment for the plans. In this, the MoD had failed to follow its own guidelines, which required it to "carry out ... environmental impact assessments of all new projects".5 In accordance with this policy, announced by the Defence Secretary in July 2000, the MoD recognised that "...environmental impact assessments for new projects should be regarded as a vital element of MoD's business". But no such assessment was undertaken for Orion.
Notwithstanding hundreds of letters, three petitions, and a letter from a local Member of Parliament, the MoD refused to take any notice of the objections until threatened with the judicial review. To avoid judicial proceedings the MoD in March 2004 withdrew the Notice of Proposed Development, with a view to resubmitting it with an environmental impact statement at an unspecified time in the future.
Britain says it is a strong supporter of the NPT. What do the treaty's disarmament obligations mean for us?
Britain has much to be proud of in reducing its reliance on nuclear weapons over the past decade. The smallest of the five nuclear weapon states, Britain now has one nuclear system (Trident), albeit with up to 200 warheads each packing 100 kt of nuclear devastation. Moreover, Britain played a constructive role at the 2000 NPT Review Conference, which resulted in the adoption of the consensus final document containing a comprehensive plan of action for nuclear disarmament, the so-called 'Thirteen Steps'.7
Appearing to accept the writing on the wall, AWE Aldermaston contributed in important ways to research, understanding and agreements on verification, notably in negotiations on the CTBT and in its post-May 2000 work on verifying nuclear disarmament, which the UK delegation has proudly presented to NPT meetings.
We fully understand that dismantling nuclear weapons and disposing safely and securely of their materials and components is a complex task, and that facilities such as Aldermaston will be needed long into the future. If we were assured that Britain had fully understood and internalised its disarmament obligations under the NPT, and that the MoD's plans for Aldermaston were solely to equip it to do the disarmament, dismantling and verification tasks better, we would gladly work with AWE to sort out the continuing health and safety problems associated with such dirty, difficult and dangerous work.
Taken altogether, however, the stepped-up US-UK lab-to-lab collaboration, the pending renewal of the US-UK nuclear cooperation pact (which continues to be shrouded in secrecy), the apparent sidelining of arms control as a policy objective (including the December 2003 Defence and Foreign Policy White Papers8), and the Aldermaston site development plans, do not paint a picture of a winding down nuclear programme.
Taken altogether, these developments make Britain look like a nuclear power determined to carry on 'for the foreseeable future', to borrow a phrase from the 1998 Strategic Defence Review. By pursuing them, Britain puts its policy in direct conflict with its NPT undertakings. Instead of accepting at face value Britain's presentation of itself as a 'good guy' among the nuclear weapon states at the NPT, other delegations should probe deeper and ask some hard questions.
1. Letter to Di McDonald, Nuclear Information Service, from Sara Perring, Counter Proliferation and Arms Control, Ministry of Defence, March 17, 2004.
2. Ibid.
3. See Nicola Butler, "US-UK Nuclear Weapons Cooperation Up for Renewal", Disarmament Diplomacy 76 (following this article).
4. AWE 2002 Annual Report, p 8.
5. Geoff Hoon, "The Management of Safety and Environmental Protection in the Ministry of Defence - A Policy Statement by the Secretary of State for Defence", July 2000. The relevant commitment reads: "Where the Ministry has been granted specific exemptions, disapplications or derogations from legislation... Departmental standards and arrangements are to be introduced which will be, so far as is reasonably practicable, at least as good as those required by the legislation. I will only invoke any powers given to me to disapply legislation on the grounds of national security when such action is absolutely essential for the maintenance of operational capability."
6. Counsel's Opinion by David Wolfe, Matrix Chambers 17 December 2003, paragraph 14. This read: "Accordingly, if - as above - the proposal falls within Schedule 2 para 3g (or indeed any other paragraph of the Schedule), then, in my opinion, EIA is essential; and, further, the planning authority could not lawfully approve the NOPD without requiring EIA and thus requiring the preparation and publication of an Environmental Statement." It appears that the MoD withdrew to avoid having to make a public, judicial challenge to this legal opinion.
7. 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document, adopted May 20, 2000, New York, NPT/CONF.2000/28 (Part I).
8. See Nicola Butler, 'UK White Papers on Defence and Foreign Policy', Disarmament Diplomacy 75 (January/February 2004).
Di McDonald, Siân Jones and Rebecca Johnson
Di McDonald is director of the Nuclear Information Service, which publishes a monthly Update on AWE Developments, monitors nuclear warhead convoys and works on health and safety issues with the local residents' Nuclear Awareness Group. She received the 2003 British Environment and Media Award for bringing military nuclear issues to public and environmental attention. Dr Siân Jones is a long-time member of the Aldermaston Women's Peace Camp(aign), which, in partnership with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Slough4Peace (a local antinuclear group), has organised the 2004 Easter March from London to Aldermaston in the spirit of the 1958 (and subsequent) Aldermaston marches to stop the next generation of nuclear weapons. Rebecca Johnson cofounded the Aldermaston Women's Peace Camp in 1985 and is currently Executive Director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy.
© 2003 The Acronym Institute.