Security without a Nuclear Deterrent. - Ray Newton
(Edited address to Morningside Justice and Peace, Edinburgh)
I left school in 1943 and joined the Merchant Navy. I vividly remember the 6 th .
August 1945 off the coast of West Africa and the announcement through the ship’s Tannoy that the Americans had dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and it was feared that a quarter million were dead. We knew the fall of Japan was imminent and that would seal its fate. However, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki 3 days later and we wondered what next?
At that time Japan, China, Russia, and Europe were devastated. The United
States was not touched. When we went to Baltimore and New York I was astounded to see that everything was available and I read that they produced more than the rest of the world put together. They were obviously ‘top dog’.
Churchill’s Fulton speech opened the Cold War and America ringed the Soviet
Union with over 120 military bases. Russia tested its first nuclear bomb in
1949. Atlee as the British Prime Minister secretly succeeded in testing nuclear weapons in 1952 in the Australian desert and so the race began. Testing poisoned the atmosphere with Strontian 90 which was then found in children’s bones through the milk they were drinking. The Stockholm appeal collected millions of signatures and the worldwide campaign led to a total ban on atmospheric tests resulting in underground tests only.
In 1986 there were 70,481 nuclear weapons worldwide and the Gorbachov-
Reagan talks led to agreements to halve that number. Fast forward to today.
Britain has now spent over one hundred billion pounds on Trident alone with plans to spend another 80 billion on its successor, if we allow the Government to get away with it. The salient fact is that Trident was expressly designed for the
Cold War against Russia which has gone forever despite the present power struggle over the Ukraine. Military thinking has fundamentally changed but only those retired can express their opinions unless it is in support of the Government.
For instance the former Chief of Staff Lord Guthrie states that we must not spend our resources replacing Trident as we may need to expand our conventional forces. General Sir Hugh Beach and General Lord David Ramsbotham state that ‘For the vast majority, particularly those who live in nations that do not possess nuclear weapons, the wish has been for a non-nuclear world from which the threat of their use has been removed. That dream could now become a reality…..etc…and later they go on to say that, “a number of us firmly believe that nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be useless as a deterrent. …and
Trident missiles are unusable in future wars “ .
It is, of course only a pretence that we are still a world power and ruling a quarter of the world as we did during colonial days alongside America, China, Russia and India but the United States requires us to follow them so that they can keep referring to the United States and its allies, with their global reach to police the

rest of the world. It is generally agreed that Nuclear weapons serve no purpose as the main threat is now terrorism and suicide bombers. It does, however, give the 5 permanent members of the Security Council the privilege of being a cut above the rest and an excuse to impose their will as in Iraq , which was not approved by the UN and Afghanistan which was.
The result is that this rich country is impoverishing itself by clinging on to its imperialist past. For instance, Gerry Hassan, says that for the 171 countries for which there are statistics, we are 4 th . highest in the % of GDP spent on military research like nuclear weapons but only 159 th . spent on civil research and to its shame the Labour Party and its MPs have nothing to say about this.
We should bombard our representatives quite simply with the message that we must reject nuclear deterrence on the grounds that it is impractical, politically unsound and counterproductive to our real security needs as well as being immoral and also illegal as determined by the International Criminal Court.
Moreover, there are alternative, non-nuclear strategies to deter war and secure a just and lasting peace. But media headlines are part of long-standing brainwashing with deliberate confusion and hypocritical statements as over the
Ukraine so that people are made to think that the government knows best.
Thirty years ago I went to a Nuclear-free zone conference in Japan and met a
Commander Robert Green in Hiroshima. He started his military career as a bombadier-navigator flying Buccaneer bombers with ready-to-use nuclear weapons to specific targets such as Leningrad but returning from the border unless commanded to do otherwise. Later, Russian submarines could go deeper
, below which depth charges were ineffective so he was tracking them in helicopters over the Atlantic armed with nuclear weapons which he knew would be a suicide mission if used.
He became the Intelligence Staff Officer to the Commander-in-chief of the the
Royal Navy during the Falklands war and was surprised that Margaret Thatcher thought that a 10 kiloton nuclear weapon should be made ready after the warship
Sheffield had been sunk by an Exocet missile and said that Argentina had to be defeated at all costs. This made him think, instead of merely obeying as all military people are trained to do automatically he retired from the Royal Navy. He has subsequently written several books, the latest of which is - Security without
Nuclear Deterrence with undeniable facts and analysis in its 270 pages.
On United Nations Day, 24 th . October 2008, the UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon unveiled an important five-point plan to revive the nuclear disarmament agenda saying ‘Unfortunately, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence has proved to be contagious and other countries aim to acquire nuclear weapons. This has made non-proliferation more difficult which in turn raises new risks that nuclear weapons will be used’.
People all over the world say that if it is necessary for the defence of the big

powers of US,
Russia, UK, France and China why aren’t nuclear weapons needed for every country‘s‘ defence? Because the nuclear club says that they would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in stages and eventually to zero.
Some countries gave up like post-apartheid South Africa, Brazil. Argentina and
Iraq but others have acquired them like Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.
The only way forward is total abolition but the reply is often that we cannot uninvent nuclear weapons. Neither can we uninvent chemical and biological weapons but there is now an international ban and it was this that made Syria conform even in the middle of a civil war. The same applies to nuclear weapons.
In Prague on 5 April 2009 President Obama gave a speech on disarmament.
He said, “ The Cold war has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have not. The risk of a nuclear war has gone up. More nations have acquired these weapons. Testing has continued. The technology to build a bomb has spread.
Terrorists are determined to buy, build or steal one. So today, I state clearly with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.’ Nothing could be clearer but was he backed up at home? No! The American media and leaders of the politico-military establishments and governments of the USA and UK struggled and failed to provide a coherent answer. For British and French leaders, their crumbling empires drove them to clutch at nuclear deterrence a ‘first-to- strike’ policy to try and sustain their global economic status, power and influence.
The nuclear states had also promised that they would never use nuclear weapons against signatories of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty as well as reduc
Ing their stocks eventually to zero but have not repeated it since. There have been no initiatives even to discuss the way forward to a nuclear-free world. They are giving priority to maintaining their permanent seats in the UN Security
Council despite efforts to reform it.
There is still no proposal by the nuclear powers to reduce to zero. In fact, just the opposite, in modernisation especially in more accurate delivery. The Treaty is seen by others to be based on double standards so how can an honest break with past be agreed. No-one is prepared to start the ball rolling.
Two Academics who have studied this issue, Professors Malcolm Chalmers and
William Walker wrote last year - ‘The UK’s position as a nuclear weapon state could now rest in the hands of Scottish voters in September 2014.’ We have the golden opportunity, not only to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons but to break the deadlock to acheive a nuclear-free world, no less!
Also, we have found some unwittingly new allies. Rear Admiral Martin Alabaster, former Commander at Faslane, told a House of Commons committee that rebuilding Faslane and Coulport in England or Wales was inconceivable. Tory
MP James Arbuthnot, chair of the Defence Committee, said if Scotland votes
Yes, Britain should consider unilateral nuclear Disarmament but these

statements are meant to scare the electorate into voting No.
On 6 th . February 2014 the Financial Times revealed that senior MPs from the 3 main parties have said that Scottish Independence would end the Trident replacement programme and this programme would almost certainly mean
Britain would become free of nuclear weapons’ Lord Forsythe said the same thing but in defence of the status quo that Scotland must never leave the UK. All polls have shown that a majority of the Scottish people unlike those in England do not want nuclear weapons so the issue is being deliberately kept out of any discussion. It is, of course, the most potent of the reasons the three main parties are in alliance but then diverting attention to devo-max and the fear factor like
Osborne’s dictat ‘If you leave the UK you leave the pound’ but, I repeat, their real fear is a nuclear-free Britain - like Bevan’s protest (as Foreign Minister) ‘I am not going naked into the Conference Chamber….’ so Labour MPs voted for nuclear weapons against the wishes of their members at the time.
Scottish CND has now shown the way forward with their policy statement showing how a YES vote will lead to a stage by stage process of nuclear disarmament starting in Scotland, then the UK and other nuclear powers.
This opportunity may never occur again.
So, to summarise, the NO campaign will now intensify the fear factor but not campaign for Trident which, in reality, is their priority, their instrument to reclaim the UK’s one-time status of global policeman alongside the USA.
Unfortunately it reinforces Brirain’s reputation among the poorer Muslim countries in the Middle East as their enemy instead of their friend.
What we are really talking about is long-term Scottish self-determination in an interdependent world taking initiatives for real world security.
As the Scottish Green Party declares and the three main parties avoid saying:-
The real threats to human security and well-being in this century relate to land, food, water, climate and the present global injustice of rapidly growing inequality.
These issues are increasingly urgent, NOT the defence of borders with nuclear weapons between friendly nations. We need new policies for a better and fairer
Scotland in a more peaceful world. People all over the globe have a high regard and respect for Scotland and would be enthused by its world-shaking lead.. It follows then that to get the ‘don‘t knows‘ to vote ‘Yes‘, must be our immediate priority.
Thank you.
Ray Newton, March 2014. newton@raypat.plus.com